One of the saddest things I’ve ever read…
“Your property near Baugo Creek in Wakarusa was once part of northern Indiana’s pre-settlement landscape, dominated by mature mixed hardwood forests before European settlers cleared it for farmland around 175-200 years ago.
Forest Composition Picture a dense canopy of towering oak-hickory trees—white oak, black oak, shagbark hickory—mixed with beech, sugar maple, and scattered ash or elm, reaching 100-150 feet tall with girths wider than a person’s arm span. The understory would feature younger saplings, ferns, wild ginger, and spring wildflowers like trout lily, with sunlight filtering through in dappled patterns on an uneven, leaf-littered floor.
Creek Influence Along Baugo Creek, envision a wetter “lowland-depressional” zone: sycamore, silver maple, and cottonwood lining the banks, with buttonbush thickets and skunk cabbage in low spots, fed by the creek’s gentle flow over rocks. Beavers might have dammed sections, creating small ponds alive with frogs, herons, and pileated woodpeckers drumming on snags.
Ground and Wildlife The forest floor would feel spongy underfoot, rich with decaying logs hosting fungi, salamanders, and insects; deer trails weaving through, and the air thick with bird calls amid occasional prairie openings nearby. This mosaic reflects 87% of presettlement Indiana’s forest cover, now mostly gone.”
I asked perplexity.ai what my property would have looked like before settlers wiped out the native old growth forest.
I ask God if a “new Earth” can feature my home place restored to such grandeur.
I hope so.
It’s a small thing undertaken by a puny man like myself to plant trees and watch them grow on this 3 acres of abused ground. Every year it gets better, but I will be long gone before I see it in its glory.
How could they not have seen the impact on surface temperatures row-cropping would have? Somewhere back there in time, I wonder if one of my own ancestors cleared the forest to make a life.
