Monthly Archives: May 2020

Water Levels in the Oxbow

This has been a really nice spring. The cold winter weather didn’t just slam into hot summer. We had a lot of sunshine in April; only about a quarter of the days were overcast. In contrast, last year about half … Continue reading

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Animals in the Oxbow

Last week I saw this turtle in the Creek. Usually we see snapping turtles (and have had some exciting family adventures with them!), but this one is different. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen one like this before. It’s … Continue reading

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Trails to Rails

Overland trails became the routes of railroads that provided critical links between farms and markets. In the 1920s and 1930s, Grandpa George (the son of the homesteaders) shipped cattle to Chicago from a siding called Midland located in Iowa about … Continue reading

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Civil War Trails

The trails that our family followed in 1870 weren’t confined to just stream valleys. Their overland route from Waseca to the Kanaranzi Creek was probably laid out 10-15 years earlier, before the Civil War. This map was compiled (Trygg, 1964) … Continue reading

Posted in Family History, Farm History | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments