January 7, 2021
As the New Year begins, we all look for new hope and a brighter future. Some things happen and we have to adapt to them and sometimes we plan for and work hard to make good things happen. This update will be about both.
Winter Activities at Fort Ridgely
We got our white Christmas but it turned out to be more gray than white in Fort Ridgely and the surrounding area. A blizzard came through on December 23. It started out with freezing rain that made for terrible driving in the morning. Highway 4 south of Fairfax (which leads to Fort Ridgely ) was littered with cars in the ditch and jackknifed semis. My wife works at the nursing home which is near the road on the south end of town. The residents had more entertainment than usual watching police and tow trucks getting the situation in hand. Later in the afternoon this highway and all other ones in the area were closed due to poor visibility from wind blowing snow and dirt from winds that gusted to over 60mph. Our area only got 3-4 inches of snow but with all the bare land with black soil the snow made more of a gray Christmas than a white one. Notice the soil covering the snow in the picture. It seemed to cover the snow so when we walked through the park on Christmas Day the footprints showed gray on top and white below.
We have had a couple small snows since then without much wind so now there is white snow on top, a layer of gray and then white underneath. It is interesting on warmer days as it seems the gray layer absorbs more sunlight when exposed and melts first. You can see that a little in the small snowdrift in the picture and how it melts under the white layer in the area with dirt.
The park had many visitors over Christmas vacation. There were 6 cars parked in the chalet parking lot one afternoon. Both sliding hills were in use. The more ‘tame’ hill to the south of the parking lot had kids on small sleds and a snowboarder.
The larger hill north of the lot had a guy on a tube sliding down. I have great memories of doing this with our kids on this hill but bigger tubes and several kids (and adults!) on at the same time trying to keep from being thrown off.
I have seen tracks of snowmobiles (on the right) and snowshoe tracks (to the left).
A person on a fat tire bike has been throughout the park riding. I wonder sometimes how he made it on some of the steeper trails through the woods.
As you walk through the park, keep an eye open for animal tracks. Deer are the ones you see the most. They are on the trails everywhere in the park but they often have their own trails that they groom themselves (see picture). I like to follow them sometimes but often come to low branches that they can get under but I cannot. They are also much narrower than groomed trails.
Around grass you will often find small tracks (see picture). Birds and small rodents live off the grass and other plant seeds all winter.
New things happening at Fort Ridgely
If you have walked up to Airplane hill in the last month, you must have noticed that many of the juniper or eastern red cedar trees on the hillside have been cut down and put into piles. The picture shows some of the piles on the hillside taken from the chalet parking lot. Though these trees are native to this part of Minnesota, they multiply fast and can take over prairies or open areas of a woods like this. I happened to be out at the park a couple times when the Conservation Corp crew was cutting them. I had to move one of the numbers for the scavenger hunt mentioned in previous updates that was on one of the cedar trees they cut down.
The day before the blizzard I was walking through the park and heard some loud machine noises and wondered what was going on. I walked up from the road to the campground into the prairie below the chalet and there were two men and a drilling machine off to the right working away (see picture). I talked to them and they said that they were drilling test wells to find the best location for a new well to supply water for the campground. I had seen red chalk lines along several paths and saw they were marking where electric lines were, I'm sure so the people drilling did not hit them.
Checking with staff at Fort Ridgely I found out that they were trying to find the best site for a well that would supply a new shower and bathroom building planned for the campground. They were hoping to have it built before the end of this year but are not sure with all the delays due to this strange year if it will be done that soon.
The channel of the Fort Ridgely Creek is constantly changing due to erosion and trees falling over into it. Several trails have had to be closed or rerouted due to this. The trail parallel to and on the east side of the creek from the south bridge has been closed for several years now and has many fallen trees across it. This path had part of it taken out by the widening corner pictured and as you can see many trees have fallen in the area. I can remember cross country skiing on that trail one of the years trails were groomed at the park. I also remember one winter when a beaver made its lodge at this bend in the creek and had a small dam. I'm not sure if this helped or hurt the erosion of this corner in the creek. The picture here was taken the Sunday after Christmas and after a little snow blanketed the area.
Another part of a trail that has been closed this year due to another corner of the creek eating into its path. The picture below shows how much of the path has been taken out. There are trail closed signs on either end of the part of the trail goes up the hill from here. The trail across the bridge from the campground and goes parallel to the creek leads to this place but there is a path back further in the woods that leads back to the trail up to airplane hill.
Vining plants.
As you walk through the woods one cannot help but notice all the vines wrapped around trees and reaching for the light above the tree leaves. Of course there are no leaves in the winter so one can easily see these vines. Most of these are grape vines. They start as little vines on the ground and can be seen almost everywhere in the park in the summer if you know the lobed leaves of the plant. Birds must have planted a seed in my raspberry patch at home as every summer for the last several years a grape vine has tried to grow from a spot and take over the patch. Pulling it each year does not seem to keep it from coming up again. The picture is of one of the largest grape vines I have seen in the park. Its diameter at the base is between 4 and 6 inches and is the same size as the post in the picture.
Looking up into the tree on the other side of it you can see the vine continuing way up to the top of the tree.
Another interesting vine that is even more visible than usual in the wintertime is American bittersweet. It is a smaller vine that again wraps around trees and bushes. You seldom see it in the summer but the bright orange berries are hard to miss in the winter. My wife has used it as a winter ornament in our house and my sister in law said it was very expensive if you wanted to buy it from a florist in the Twin Cities. The birds eat the berries in the winter. If you want to see some, a good place is near the bench for the overlook by the cemetery. This picture was taken of some there.
Barred owl sighting
As we were coming home from New Ulm on highway 21 (which people in our area call the bottom road) my wife noticed an owl in a tree near the road. We turned around and both of us got pictures of this owl. Barred owls are one of the most common owls in our area. They do not have the tuft of feathers on both sides of their heads like the great horned owl. You can see the very round pattern of feathers on this owl's head.
Updates Website
This is from Bix Baker, volunteer naturalist at Fort Ridgely and writer of most of the Fort Ridgely Updates. I have been working on putting all updates on a website. I am not done but would like to make it available to you for suggestions and reference. The most recent ones are almost done and some early ones need to be changed to make them easier to view. Here is the link: