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  Home and food for animals, provide us with oxygen, materials for our homes, once the main source for our fires for warmth and cooking, nuts and fruit, the list of our uses for them is endless.
  Forests cover almost one out of every three acres in Ohio.
  Ohio is considered to be part of the Appalachian Hardwood Region based on the type of trees common in the state. There are more than 100 hardwood and 25 softwood tree species growing in Ohio. In addition to shrubs, there are more than 300 different woody species found in Ohio's forests. Some of the most diverse temperate region forests in North America are found in Ohio
  Though there are a great many species, between 10 and 20 tree species comprise the majority of all trees in Ohio forests. By volume, six species groups account for two-thirds of all trees. The most abundant species are the red and white oaks, which make up almost 25 percent of the total tree volume, followed by red and sugar maple, which comprise 18 percent. Yellow poplar and hickory make up another 18 percent, and white ash accounts for 8 percent.
  Fifty-nine percent of Ohio forest land is the oak/hickory forest type. Only 4 percent, or a little more than 300,000 acres, is considered pure or mixed conifer types.
  The south-eastern Ohio forests in which my homestead lies in are of the oak/hickory type and includes numerous state parks and The Wayne National Forest.

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  Aerial view of the woods in the fall, my homestead is located a bit to right of the rock cliff, starting 3-4 of way down, and going a bit off the top and right of photo. (October 2010)

 

  September view of the young 80 fruit tree orchard I planted in May, 2011 in a bare area of my woods. 10 each of 6 foot seedlings of 8 varieties of dwarf versions of their larger cousins.  The south-western 2 acres of my woods had sparse tree growth (once part of a cleared farm), so I cleared the few trees to plant the orchard.

  10 each Golden Delicious Sweet Apples, Red Delicious Sweet Apples, Granny Smith Sour Apples, Black Beauty Mulberry, Sweet Emporer Cherries, Early Richmond Sour Cheries, Stanley European Plums, and Bartlett Pears. All semi-dwarf trees and all native for the Midwest area. (Sept 2011)

   An orchard takes 3 years to be ready to produce if you want the best yields. Spring of 2013 is year 2, so another year of pinching of blooms so trees reach their full growth. Fall of 2014 will be the first harvest.

 

The Orchard in bloom. Thursday, April 12th of what the Orchard looks like now, 7 months later in full bloom. All the trees spread out nicely and all are healthy from a very mild winter. For 2 years the blooms are pinched off so all growth goes to the trees. (April 19, 2012)

I have a June apple tree. In April it was in full bloom with many honeybees enjoying it. I don't know where their hive is located.

Everything in the orchard bloomed mid April, weekend of the 19th hired a bunch of local college kids to pinch off all the blooms, took a full three days; well, last year for that chore, the trees, all semi-dwarf have reached their maximum heights of 30 feet with a 25 foot canopy, so next year they get to start bearing fruit.  Already have a barter system worked out with the local Amish farmers to keep them in fruit for a steady supply of eggs and meat. Mot of them do have several apple trees, they do set aside some for canning for pies and strudles, but most of it goes into making apple butter and apple juice to set aside so it becomes vinegar.

Acer saccharum, Sugar Maple (Sept 2011)). This is the tree maple syrup comes from; my Amish neighbors showed me how to tap the trees early spring. 2012 my first harvest was 15 gallons from 20 trees.  In fall the leaves turn a brilliant yellow then a bright red.

Acer saccharum, Sugar Maple leaf. (July 2011)

There are several kinds of maple trees. I believe mine are Silver Maples. I have two big ones in front of my house. I live in a very old, tiny, two bedroom country cottage on half an acre. I have lots of trees. I grew up on a small farm in Ohio and all of your pictures of trees are very familiar to me. I make the buckeye peanut butter candy every Christmas which you mentioned. My stepdaughter and son love it. So does my father-in-law and he is from Eastern Kentucky!

Here are my Silver Maples (I believe that's what they are.)

Here are the seeds and what the leaves look like. We've always called the seeds helicopters. There are so many! It's like a huge mess! The back side of the leaf is a white-silvery color, and, hence, its name.

Whirlygigs were what we called them, they all dropped last week and the ground is covered with them near the trees.; yep that's the identifying feature of the silvers, the white-silver color under the leaves. Most of the forest maples here and down in KY, well most of Midwest and NE are sugar or red maples; cities and home landscapers use silvers almost entirely since they are very resistant to smog and are very fast growing with a lovely shade canopy: sugars are very messy due to their sap content- the slightest ding and the sap oozes out and attracts bugs, lots of bugs. All the maples are wide ranged since they tolerate anything from hot and dry to cold and wet. Beautiful hardy trees and real showoffs in autum with leaves ranging from yellow to deep red.

Aesculus glabra, Ohio Buckeye. (July 2011) The official Ohio state Tree.  I planted 20x 3 foot seedlings April 2011 to replace dead/dying trees in the woods.

Aesculus glabra, Ohio Buckeye leaves & bloom. (May 2011)

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