Hickories...

Fond du Lac History At Home Series

 

I did something really fun yesterday afternoon. I went to a lecture at the Fond du Lac Public Library. It was one in a series of History At Home lectures. This one was especially close to my heart, about hickory trees!

Front Yard Hickory Tree (behind the red maple)

It's surprising how much information you can learn in one short hour! Our speaker, Mr. Kevin DeCramer, had a wealth of knowledge about the hickory population in the State of Wisconsin, the history of this legacy tree and even information about the actual nuts. 

These trees live to be three hundred years old, have long taproots (which make transplanting difficult), and if I planted seedlings tomorrow I wouldn't live long enough to see them bear their fruit (nuts). One other thing was that hickory trees also produce a syrup that rivals maple trees, however, you don't tap the trees to get it. The bark is the source for the syrup! Such attributes make these trees even more precious to me. 

We had dinner with Andy and Shelly last night, and they told me that we actually have a few more hickory trees on our property than I originally thought. I'm going to do a little exploring this weekend to locate the other trees so I can keep track of our "crops" through this fall. I'll definitely be making the rounds once the nuts begin to mature.