Mother Nature is remarkable. With a big wind lasting just five minutes on Friday, July 1, 2011 she took down hundreds of trees on our land and thousands in the surrounding area. Our driveway and every trail was blocked. Happily, the B & B and other buildings were not damaged.
Following the storm, Charlie Brown and John Kerbel worked for weeks to open our trails for guests’ use.
The storm covered a total of 200,000 acres including St. Croix State Park, which is less than eight miles from Woodland Trails. Fortunately, Minnesota government had shut down the day before because of a dispute between the governor and the legislature. As a result, the campground at St. Croix State Park was closed and empty. So many trees came down in the campground that, had it been open, many people would have been injured.
The cleanup process has taken us seven years. It started with cutting trees to open the trails, then cleaning up the woods, preparing the worst-hit areas for replanting and, finally, planting 3,500 seedlings.
Shown here is our planting crew of John with Debbie, Rebecca, Doreen and Todd. The photo was taken on the last day of planting with all seedlings in the ground and growing.
Mother Nature, we hope you skip over us next time!