EP #13 - Slacker Dave Loves Bob Henrickson

This is episode number 13 of the Slacker Dave Loves Nebraska podcast!

On this episode Dave has an adventure with Bob Henrickson, host of KZUM's How's It Growing and Horticulture Program Coordinator with Plant Nebraska along with our favorite Nebraska Historian, Matt Steinhausen! This week we head to Arbor Lodge in Nebraska City to see some amazing State Champion trees! 
We start out outside of Arbor Lodge getting to know Bob and Matt drops knowledge about the history of the lodge and J. Sterling Morton after which we talk a stroll on the grounds and get to see some amazing trees champion or not. We also stop at Wyuka Cemetery in Nebraska City to see the grave site of J. Sterling Morton and the many Treestones grave markers.
We end with some great food and a conversation at El Portal Mexican Restaurant in Nebraska City.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Hey, we are started. We're started. We are at uh Arbor Lodge. Hi, uh, welcome to the Slacker Dave Loves Nebraska podcast. Uh hi, I'm Dave. Uh uh we are at Arbor Lodge. And uh first uh God, I gotta thank everybody for listening and all the comments. Uh Zach, thank you for very much, right? Zach, track your time. Uh uh, all the people and uh, of course, my lovely wife, and uh our uh our our our our technical wizard and uh um advisor Kane Stevens. Um I am with Bob Hendrickson. Bob everybody uh we are at the uh Arbor Lodge. Uh Bob said, oh yeah, I'll do it. Can we bring Matt? So of course we brought Matt. I need a historian, man. It's just isn't about trees.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

This is about uh history here. We're we're we're definitely a historian.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Yeah, we're uh yeah, so perfect call there, Bob. And uh it's never bad having Matt on the show. Yeah, you know, thank you guys. The official Nebraska State Historian of the Sliker Dave Loves Nebraska podcast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:05

Um uh hey Dave, I'm gonna interrupt you right off the.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah, yeah, do it.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

I'm gonna talk a little bit of just a little bit about the history of Arbor Lodge and this property, and then I'm gonna leave it to you guys, and I'm gonna be uh third wheel, just like loving this tour better than anybody has ever loved a tour before.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Yeah, I love that idea, but one thing is we gotta tell them who Bob is.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

Do it. You do well, I'll tell you. Okay, here's where I'll see you. Yeah, yeah. Coolest guy around. Yeah, heck yeah. Now you can give the details or he can give his own resume.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

All right. Bobby, give us your resume. Okay, I am a horticulturist by trade. I work for, hey, Plant Nebraska, plant Nebraska each and every day, and I host a show on KZUM called How's It Growing each and every Wednesday, 11 till noon on your favorite radio station, KZUM. And yeah, I've been a horticulturist working. Just Tower on Radio. And I think it's high time. So thank you for doing this podcast because I want to, you know, I want people to kind of wrap their head around can we grow trees in Nebraska? What cool trees we have in this state? And uh, why not start where it all started, right? The home of Arbor Day.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Heck yeah. And Bob's from uh up in my uh neck of the tree.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Uh Dodge, Nebraska. Dodge, Nebraska, yeah, yeah. And people I say, Dodge, is that Dodge City? No, no, no, it's up by West Point, Scribberney. And once you say West Point Scribbling, everybody knows where that's at. Yeah. Dodge kind of got left off, you know. Yeah, howls. Yeah, yeah. Howl series. Snyder. Snyder.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

That's where fire trucks uh exactly. My sister works. They grow fire trucks. Yes, meal. Yep, yep, the fire truck nursery. Exactly. You know it. You know us. I've known Bob for a long time. Uh Amanda and I had our wedding in Bob's backyard. It was uh such a glorious occasion. Yeah. Uh in a in a beautiful yard. Uh you're a heck of a guy. Uh, you know, I you know, we want this to all be about trees, but you know, I think people deserve to know Bob Hendrickson, because you know, you're uh you do a lot of community stuff, right? Uh plant Nebraska, what is your uh what's the word I'm looking for? Mission statement.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Yeah, or mission statement, you know, uh bringing bringing trees to communities, right? Bringing plants to communities, um, making communities more resilient because small town Nebraska, you know, is isn't a healthy thing nowadays. So everybody's like, oh, you know, people move away, and how are we going to keep the community growing? So we bring these landscape projects to communities, literally from Falls City to Shatter and all points in between. And and over the years, I mean, pass through grants in the tune of $15 million to communities to plant trees and put in put in landscapes. Now that's not my main job. My main job is growing plants and and people, we have these affiliated arboretum sites. So we used to be called Nebraska Statewide Arboretum. This was our first affiliated arboretum site. So we're not here pruning their trees, telling them what to plant, but it's kind of to make what maybe a park setting into more of an arboretum. What is an arboretum? A collection of plants for educational purposes, right? Simple as that. So it could be a park in a small town, whatever, but we also do these grant planting projects. So there's a hundred affiliated arboretum sites, over a hundred throughout the state. And it could be Jocelyn Art Museum in Omaha, for example. Um, it could be Chautauqua Park in Beatrice, for example. Wayne State College? Wayne State College. Uh wait, is it still Wayne State College? Uh it's Wayne University. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how you get that status, but hey, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

Is the regional center part of your Arboretum?

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah, the regional center. Uh there in Lincoln is for sure. Um what was I thinking in western Nebraska? Yeah, Western Nebraska, like in Garing, we have one there at the Northfield. It used to be Northfield Park Arboretum. Um, yeah, so just it's really cool, shattered state. A lot, a lot of the state colleges are affiliated arboretum sites. East campus. So to be affiliated with us, so you can get your trees labeled through us, for example, because the idea is bringing the arboretum to the people rather than the people to the arboretum. Because if somebody came from northern or western Nebraska, their question would be well, that grow where I'm at, you know, I'm in Lincoln, you know, it's like or Nebraska City. And people even say that about the big trees we're gonna see today. It's like, oh yeah, but that's Nebraska City. It's like the banana belt of of Nebraska, which it is, you know. I mean, yeah. Lincoln's upper 20s in moisture a year. You know, Nebraska City's like 31, 32, 33, something like that. Because, you know, I you watch the thunderstorms kind of roll past Lincoln and south and east of us. Oh, it's Nebraska.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

Every night you're looking to the towards Nebraska City at the lightning and big thunderheads.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

But another thing people don't realize, you know, coming here, I like to collect seed because, you know, it's a good one-stop shop for me. I can get a lot of different uh seeds to collect. But then from here we venture on to some of the natural woods, you know, like the Missouri River Corridor, you know, like uh Indian Cave or some private properties we know near Indian Cave were able to get on and collect seed from Nebraska trees, which is pretty cool. Because prior to plant Nebraska, nobody was doing that. I mean, nobody. So I'm proud that we've that we still do that because most of the trees that are planted anywhere in Nebraska, 99% didn't come from a native seed source. What if they had, right? Uh is my question. Yeah. What if our communities were planted up? Uh we'd be seeing a lot more resilient trees. I think so. So that's what we're after. And these big boys here, I figured, man, why not collect seed from something that's lived all these decades, if not a century or more? Because a lot of the trees I'm gonna show you guys today, man, we're gonna see. Oh my god, I'm gonna blow your mind when we see this uh London Plain tree, Dave. It's you're gonna feel like you're in a spiritual place. Seriously. Hey, okay, now the history of get in there.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

We're gonna get in there, yeah. We're gonna get him on and make sure you can get on the mic really good there.

SPEAKER_04 8:02

Well, I want to I want to expand on what Bob was saying before I totally take it off the rails because I have been visiting these arboretums and and I have used it as a tool to I look at these trees and I say, hey, I want to grow one of those in my backyard.

SPEAKER_05 8:14

Right.

SPEAKER_04 8:14

And then you go to the plant Nebraska when you guys have the tree sales, I buy these little trees, I'm supporting plant Nebraska, I'm putting them on my farm, and now I got my own little mini arboretum. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

And it's and it's I mean, and I didn't even think about it until you were talking that I always say that with our when I walk into our shade house any day of the week, we could start anybody's at arboretum tomorrow. Yeah. And and cheap. Yeah. Or I shouldn't say cheap, inexpensive. You know, because you get a little eight dollar tree that that turns into a $300 tree.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

Yeah, and what's a tree really? What's a tree worth? I mean, they're invaluable. Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Uh uh speaking of like that reminds me of Doug Dittman's we just went to and his uh uh what is uh what's his tree?

SPEAKER_04 8:55

It's a savannah, oak savannah.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

That he's getting his seed source is three miles away, so he knows it's gonna go.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

And he got it from the old oaks that were in the oak creek valley by Raymond.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Too cool.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Where the old wagons used to rest in the shade.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

As they were hauling grain and stuff to Raymond before they went to the mill.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Well, I tell you, uh, getting off off cuff here, uh we're going off the rails. Okay, so people check this out. If you if you want to if you want to do a travel in Nebraska, a place you've never seen, cool. If you're a tree nerd, you know, there's a conference coming up, it's in October. I'm not gonna have to date my brain, but if you just type in Burr Oak Canyon, but they spell Burr with two Rs, B-U-R-R, Burrow Canyon Falls Symposium or whatever. I don't know if it's uh through the Forest Service will have information on it, probably has something up on it already. But we're gonna be able to tour Burrow Canyon again. It's where the Burr Oak meets its western limits in the world. You're out in this, you know, open prairie, short grass prairie, no trees around for miles and miles, and all of a sudden there's this little, they call it a canyon. I mean, it's canyon Nebraska style, you know what I mean? But these oaks are there, they've been there for probably 18,000 years, uh, living off this little spring-fed creek that runs through there. So tons of history. They found pottery there dated back 18,000 years ago. That's why they know it's it's been around that long. So to me, that seed is precious. I mean, it's a we call it relic baroque. We even gave it a name for that seed strain. And Great Plains Nursery, um, just north of Lincoln by Valparaiso, north of Valparaiso, is is the only place you can get that tree in the world. So how cool is that?

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Oh my god. Yeah, that's very how was this like what you and uh Doug were discussing the other day about the the Baroques and the uh oh yes, that's exactly, but we it wasn't on it wasn't on uh we didn't record it.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Yeah, yeah. But Doug and I talked about how what how these groves originated, right? And how ancient they are, yeah, and how each group might be kind of their own little strain and Native American isolated for so long.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Native American elders would tell you, and you white people think they were planted by themselves.

SPEAKER_04 11:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

I've heard it.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

Uh interesting.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

This is great. Yeah, because the acorn used to be the feeder of the world. I mean, the acorn flower, um, it was the cat's meow and still is. It's it's it we may be getting back to that someday. Who knows?

SPEAKER_04 11:21

So you think humans transported these seeds and planted them in these canyons? Bingo. Okay, good. Yeah, that it because that was our part of our job.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

For a food crop as well as shelter. Yes, totally.

SPEAKER_04 11:31

Yeah, for and for heat. Right. Because you burn wood for bingo. And shade, right? Like you say, shelter. Right. Oh, this is great.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Yeah, yeah. And and you go to you drive around Lincoln, you know oak people or around Nebraska, because oak people will notice the borough grows. Yes. That are like, I haven't seen them for like an hour. All of a sudden there they are. It's like you know, North Loop, uh, Comstock, you know, on and on.

SPEAKER_04 11:55

The first house built in Lincoln came from an oak grove up by Garland. They had to go that far from Lincoln to get enough wood to build the first cabin in Lincoln.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Bob, where's the canyon where this oak uh Oh, it's by McCook. Um West of McCook is a little town called Culbertson, Nebraska. And uh just south of Culbertson, out in the middle of New Wheels. Right on. So you say they're gonna let you tour. Is this like a two-day symposium? So you can go learn about, you know, have speakers and whatnot, and then they're gonna have a tour of the uh uh of this site as part of the uh uh symposium. And then uh Bruce Hoffman, who's a big tree guy out there in McCook, he has a great place called Common Sense Nursery, spelled S-C-E-N-T-S. I think that's great. Common Sense Nursery, Bruce, great guy, and he he has a uh a feast out there at his place, bonfire. I mean, it's just a really cool get-to-know Nebraska event. So maybe we can have Slacker Day podcasts come out uh during the borough trip. Wouldn't that be fun?

SPEAKER_03 12:53

You know, pretty Nebraska, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Pretty soon you're gonna get sponsors, Dave, and they're gonna pay for you driving and traveling all over the state, and and uh you know, you'll have to quit your day job.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Is this like a is it a private area or is this like something? It's a private property. It's private property, not open to the public. So don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

And you're not gonna you're not gonna find it unless Bruce gave you directions. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

So don't go looking for it. Yeah, it's in the state. Yeah, you ain't gonna find it. I mean, you can go looking for it. Good luck. All right, so uh let's come back to Arbor. Where are we? Okay, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_04 13:28

We're at Arbor. That's right. And this is the home of Jay Sterling Morton, Jay for Julius Sterling Morton, who was born in New York State in uh 1832, and then he moved, his family moved to Michigan uh when he was uh two years old thereabouts. He ultimately ended up at the University of Michigan. Uh, and right before he graduated, less than two months before he graduated uh from college, they uh they expelled him because of uh not attending classes and not doing the duties expected of a good student.

SPEAKER_05 14:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 14:04

Uh he was a little bit rebellious. Uh-huh. And uh he continued that rebellion uh soon after he left Michigan, came to Nebraska City, bought 160 acres in approximately 1854, 1855, and built a two-room house here.

SPEAKER_05 14:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:23

Not two-bedroom, two-room.

SPEAKER_05 14:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Wood frame 1855. This is 13 years before 12 years before Nebraska became a state.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 14:33

12 years. Uh no trains.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

And that's one of the first, if you talk to people in Brownville, they'll say, well, we were the first community. Yes. And Fontenelle would say, no, no, no, we are, and Bellevue would say, no, no, right. So we're talking about the 1850s. It was just basically river river traffic. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

It was mostly, yeah, it was trappers, very few settlers. Uh but the few settlers that were here, permanent white settlers, were along mostly along the river. And we're close to the Missouri River here.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 15:00

Uh, and so he he predicted that Nebraska would evolve as it as it was before the Homestead Act, right? By by uh eight years. Yeah. Six, seven years.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

So he came here, bought the land, and immediately a a newspaper started up in Nebraska City, and he became its editor. Uh and he started pushing his anti-abolitionist views, which means he was pro-slavery, pro-Confederacy. And part of the reason it's speculated that he came to Nebraska City is because this is where the Underground Railroad was. So he wanted to counteract that, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 15:36

But I don't know that that's a fact.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Uh-huh. And as we say on the Slacker Dave Lowe's Nebraska podcast, the mystery is sometimes better than the answer.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

Yes, the mystery is more interesting than the solution.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

So uh anyway, he comes here, he builds his two-room place with his wife. Uh-huh. And immediately, in addition to becoming an editor on the newspaper and trying to influence people, he becomes a part of the territorial legislature. And uh and he was only like 24 years old at the time. He's on the leg he's a part of the territorial legislature, becomes a territorial governor for a while. Uh, most of these things he was appointed to didn't win many elections. In fact, the one time he ran for office to be as a part of the United States, uh, the U.S. House of Representatives as a territorial representative, uh, he won the election. Uh-huh. But it turned out his vote came from Missourians he recruited to come over the border to vote for him. So he was his uh his victory was invalidated seven months later. Uh anyway, Jay Sterling Morton went on to run for governor three times, lost all those elections, ended up becoming the uh he was the Secretary of Agriculture for uh President uh Grover Cleveland. Okay. But what Jay Sterling Morton did that he's known better for than anything else is he started Arbor Day in 1872.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 17:00

And we've been celebrating it ever since.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Internationally.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

Internationally. And it's so big in Nebraska that it's a state holiday. Uh huh. Nebraska employees get a paid day off on Arbor Day, thanks to Jay Sterling Morton. Jay Sterling Morton's son, Joy Sterling Morton, was the founder or creator or owner of a company called Morton's Salt. That's right. And another one of his sons ran the Argo Starch Company. Wow, I didn't know that one. And uh Joy always overshadows him. And Joy made so much that he rebuilt his dad's house that had been remote remodeled numerous times, so seven times altogether, but the seventh remodel Joy came out here after his dad died and redid what we see here. And he made it look a little bit like the White House. And it's a hybrid. If you know the White House on the uh on the north entrance of the White House in Washington, DC, it has a triangle pediment and a and a and a square portico. On the other side, on the uh on the uh south side of the White House, it has the round portico like what we have here. Okay. This is a hybrid. So it you can see some things about this house look very similar to the White House in Washington, D.C.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

So a lot of people don't realize that it was built after Jay String Morton passed away. That's right. So Joy Morton, I think, was in real estate as well, but you folks may not realize this. If you go to Chicago, Morton Arboretum, uh Morton Salt, obviously, everybody knows. Yes. But if you find yourself out in Chicago, you gotta go to Morton Arboretum. Uh it's outside of Chicago. It's it's a little bit of jaunt from the city proper, but I tell you what, it's worth going if you're a tree in a reader.

SPEAKER_04 18:38

It's uh got 4,000 different woody plants at the Morton Arboretum. 4,000. Yeah, it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

It's literally the creme de la creme in the country as far as collections. And the town is Leslie or Leslie, Illinois.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

1,700 acres, 4,000 varieties of wooden woody plants. Oh, yeah. I have an arboretum at my farm with 50 trees, different trees, and I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

So for a tree nerd like us, it took us, well, we we walked through it for six hours. We needed another six, uh just on the morton, on the morton.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Uh, I don't think we have time to get into it, but didn't he start the salt company here trying to get the salt from the going way off the rails when Jay Sterling Morton came to Nebraska and was a territorial legislator and and he he had these uh government warrants to claim land and he claimed the salt flats outside of Lincoln.

SPEAKER_05 19:34

Really?

SPEAKER_04 19:34

And he as his own. And it was fought in the courts for about 20 years, 15 years, and he was ultimately lost. But he started in the salt business in Lincoln trying to lay claim to the salt flats in Lincoln, Nebraska.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Uh yeah, why was that never a thing then? Was that because of the salt wasn't just plentiful enough?

SPEAKER_04 19:53

It looked plentiful. The ground was white, the grass the water bubbled up.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

We dug down six inches, there was nothing.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

It was mud. Oh my gosh. So there's salt, there's enough salt in Lincoln to poison our water.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

I see.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

But not enough to make harvesting salt. Yeah. But that's why Lincoln. That's really why they made it.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

So they go to Chicago, where the heck's Morton salt coming from?

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Yeah, where are they mining it? Right? Tim Buck too. I think you so Joy married a Supreme Court judge's daughter. I think he had money. And I think the salt company was more or less a wholesaler or or maybe some, you know, that was buying salt from other sources and then packaging it and reselling it. I believe, and who knows, but probably coming up on trains to Chicago from maybe Salt Lake City.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Well, there no, there's uh caves under the the uh uh Great Lakes that they harvest salt out.

SPEAKER_05 20:43

That makes sense. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh that's uh needs to be investigated more. But I'm sure I've seen uh uh how it's made on the Discovery Channel or whatever on the salt things. Uh good. But like they're underneath the Great Lakes.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

So just just just back to trees. I did hear that Caroline planted a lot of the trees here. It wasn't uh Jason Morton's wife. Yes, he was out calavanting around doing political things. She was back home planting the trees.

SPEAKER_04 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

And of course, uh, Joy also had a lot of trees planted after his passing as well, which is I think like 1903, something like that. Something like that. Early, early 1900s. So, man, we're gonna we're gonna take you guys on a tour around here and uh show you some really great trees. So, you guys want to get started? Are we ready?

SPEAKER_03 21:30

First off, first of all, I should probably just slowly do a little circle here because just even where we're standing in front, yeah, it is just like that big catalog right behind you.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

That's a cool tree right there.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

That's a that thing is just I mean, that's one of the bigger ones in the state, right? I mean, right there, come on, it's not a state champ, I can tell you, but whoa, it's a notable tree. And then uh, and then right across the drive here is a huge ginkgo. Look at that baby. Whoa, wow, the state champion ginkgo is. Not here, folks. Uh, that is at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Omaha, which is perfectly fine. It's a public right place, you can go there. But if you ever find yourself in old Omaha Florence area, uh, I tell you what, man, pay a visit to the uh uh cemetery there. Yeah because this is a big, big uh and the thing is when you're looking for state champion trees or any big tree, you've got to get out of the car, you know, because it doesn't do it justice just going, wow, that thing's big from a block away. You got right here. You gotta give it a hug. You gotta give it a hug. Why? Because trees have energy connected to the ground. I'm feeling it now. No, I'm just kidding. But uh look at that ginkgo, Dave. Is that ugly or what? Horrible tree. No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, come on, Dave. You can walk with that camera.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

Is there a tree more historic, prehistoric than the ginkgo biological?

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Yeah, the ginkgo, and I got this fossil in my uh office that a guy gave me from North Dakota. He's a tree guy from North Dakota. Yeah, no other tree has a leaf like that. Funky. And yeah, these go back to so the fossil I have that has a ginkgo leaf like this imprint in the uh limestone. I was told I was told it's 400 million years old or 40 million years old.

SPEAKER_05 23:11

Whoa!

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Yeah, and so they go back to that, they were once native to Nebraska, only Kerrina, China now. But um, well, what a gnarly uh tree, right? Uh certainly not native to Nebraska now. But Dave, what I what I want you to pan up with is up, you know. When when you're taking pictures of big trees, if you can if you can get on the ground and look up into the canopy, that's what we're gonna try to do to you today, Dave, is is every tree we look at, I want you to give them this view because that's when you truly appreciate that just the structure. Uh they don't have an arborist coming to prune this tree. The tree figured it out for itself. It's uh tree the trees have known about fractals long before humans figure out what fractals are. 40 million years ago it figured it out. And and yeah, so really, really uh an impressive bird. So let's go look at some more. I want to take you to this.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

I wanted to I wanted to do this. You see that the veining is very simple. It all comes from here, it doesn't branch out.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:07

That's what one of the things it's one of the most simple leaves of all the trees. Ah, you go.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

So now I'm gonna show you guys probably the rarest tree in Nebraska. All right. Well, uh uh we're gonna pop around for a while. So there's gonna be a lot of a lot of cuts. So this is the first one, and uh thanks for listening or watching. Hey, I want to thank Duffy Tavern for being a sponsor of the Slacker Dave Loves Nebraska podcast. I want to thank uh Scott and the whole family uh for uh believing in my uh thing here.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Uh James, uh tell us why we should come to Duffy's. You should come to Duffy's for original music and for a local community scene and come and see me and the rest of the people here that are wanting to take care of you, bring you into that community vis-a-vis that local music scene. Come to Duffy's every day. Open every day. Thank you very much. Thank you, David.

SPEAKER_03 25:07

Hey, want to give a big thank you to Rick Peters for sponsoring the Slacker Dave Love Nebraska podcast. Rick is an independent insurance agent, uh, AMS Insurance Center. The phone number is 402-476-3599. He's a great guy, great personal service. Amanda and I have been uh customers of his for years. He just real good guy. You just you want to come see him. But the most important thing about Rick is he is a host of not one but two shows on KZUM 89.3 FM. Uh he hosts Rockin' Bones on Friday nights from 6 to 7:30. Rockabilly and all that kind of related fun music, and then Tuesday mornings from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. It's the sugar frosted chocolate bomb diggity good time show. And you never know what you're gonna hear on there, but you know, they call him Rickabilly. I like to call him Rickopedia. He knows a lot. Great shows. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

All right, we're back. We're back. Where are we at, Bob? Man, it's the first tree I want to show you because it's probably the rarest tree in Nebraska. This, believe it or not, I mean it's an evergreen, right? It's a fir tree. This is called Algerian fir. Where's Algerium at? In Africa, so like North Africa? I think. And if you look it up online, Algerian fir is like from some mountain range up there. So if you go in Africa, it's like, wait, it's not cold enough there. Well, up in the mountains, it is. Yeah. And why Jay Sterling Morton planted an Algerian fur, who the heck gave it to him, I don't know the story. But if you, I don't know if the camera can capture it, but it's got some really cool cones up there. These cones, a fir tree tends to put its cones upright rather than hanging down. And I wish we could reach some, but uh, maybe you can get them on camera there, Dave. But anyway, uh, we did collect some seed last year. We only got like three of them to germinate because they weren't filled. But hey, we got little baby Algerian firs, they're only about an inch tall. We'll see if they make it. But Dave, come on up close to and look at this cool leaf or cool foliage. It's just really, really a cool tree. So, anyway, you gotta visit this. This one's just south of the mansion. And come around this way, Dave, where you can really see. So, you're not recommending this for your home. No, no, no. Just it's just more for nostalgia's sake. Well, I mean, and then I walked around here and I was like, wow, it's just a whole whole different beast under here, right? Isn't that something? So this thing, this thing, I you know, I don't know exactly the age of it, but my guess is it's it's over a hundred years old, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Yeah, that is an amazing.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Isn't that something? You don't appreciate it until you come underneath and and look at the trunk. It looks like you want to climb it. Yeah, doesn't it? It's like uh or some spooky tree out of a uh a Hollywood movie or something.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

Oh yeah, there's a hobbit living up there for sure.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Do you know of many more in the state? I don't know of any other one in the state. This is it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is it. And and again, it's like, is it my job to try to get more out there in the state? I'm sorry. I'm yeah, I'm not gonna work that hard on it. It's just uh a cool part of history. You can, right? Cool part of history. Yeah. All right, let's go look at more. We don't. We got uh how far are we? We're gonna have to walk. You're gonna have to shut her down and start her up again. Right on. All right, the next tree we're at here. This is the state champion, persimmon tree. Man, maybe you've heard of persimmon. It's native to southeastern United States. It gets up into uh St. Joe, Missouri area, uh far northwest Missouri, even, um, but not quite native to Nebraska. But I wanted to show you this tree. Come on, walk up to the trunk. Yeah, I'm gonna show everybody where we're at. We're like right on the uh northwest corner. Northwest corner and the carriage house is over there. Most of the time you just walk by this tree and say, Oh, it's another tree. I mean, there's like gazillions of them here. But man, this is this is like a big for a persimmetry. Usually, you know, 35 feet, we would tell people. This thing's what would you say, 60 feet? You know, something like that. Yeah, 50, 60 feet. And persimmon trees, they're male and female. So this is a fee a male, a male because I've been here to try to collect fruit. It never has fruit on it. So uh, yeah, so I just uh, but still, it's uh an important tree. First of all, that they even planted a persimmon, I think is pretty cool. But yeah, state championed persimmon. And you can see an older tree like that. If you can get up with the bark, uh, we call it that, it looks like the back of an alligator, an alligator back bark is how you can recognize a persimmon when you're walking like say in some woods of nature, and that bark will kind of jump out at you because no other tree quite has that alligator back bark. That's cool.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

What's this tall, narrow, uh tall, narrow tree over here?

SPEAKER_02 30:04

You know, this is uh Taylor Juniper. It is a Taylor. Yeah. Wait, was he planting Taylor? No, he wasn't. This was planted oh a number of years ago, uh, probably in uh I would say the late 80s, because there's a story there too. You see these all over Lincoln now and all over Nebraska. And I'm telling you, Plant Nebraska saved the, you know, me saved this tree. It was found near the town of Taylor, Nebraska, which is a whole nother podcast in itself, Dave, up at Taylor, uh, on the edge of the sand hills, folks. And this guy found it out in a pasture. He owned a nursery in Columbus, Nebraska, and uh and so he he was he goes fishing up at those little lakes south of Valentine, right? Yeah. Those refuge lakes. And uh so he spotted this thing out in a guy's pasture, asked if he could take cuttings, and did, and brought it back. And and the statewide arboretum at the time, our former name, uh, got it registered with the International Society of Whatever, and uh and started planting it to see how it would do in landscapes. So this is probably one of the first ones planted way back in the late 80s, and I shouldn't say way back in the 1980s. You gotta say that when you're at Arbor Live. This is giant. Yeah, it's huge. And one of the bigger ones, too, is at Union College campus where I walk my dog every day, and that thing's as tall as a four-story building. So, and anyway, when I arrived at Plant Nebraska, you couldn't find this anywhere. You couldn't buy it, maybe from Columbus, where Evan Wilkie, Wilkie Lamscape, his dad's the one who found it. And the only reason they were selling it is because it was dad's name, you know, it was dad's baby. Well, I contacted the wholesaler and they said, Well, yeah, this guy sends us Zion wood and we graft it and he buys them back from us. Otherwise, we don't sell them. I said, Well, I'm here to tell you that the demand's gonna go up because I'm gonna make sure of that. Now it's at every nursery in Lincoln, yeah, all over the place.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

I have one growing in my yard.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Yeah, everybody kind of gave up on it.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

What's the plant that every what's the tree that everybody uh cedar? No, the ones to do that. This took the place of uh uh the uh Oh the ash, or what do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 32:10

The conical, conical Oh, oh, what's the name of the former one? Yeah. Skyrocket? No, like uh Italian, what is it? Oh, Cypress, yeah, Italian cypress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That look. Yeah, and then this, yeah, this is what exactly. Arborvita, you might be thinking of arborvitas, they're tall, sticky, they get broken up in storms and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 32:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

The thing about this guy is the windier, the drier, the hotter, the better. You know, it doesn't want protected areas.

SPEAKER_04 32:34

You know, what's grown at the entrance of Pioneers Park? What are all yeah, those are tailors?

SPEAKER_02 32:37

They are tailored, they used to be something else, but they are dying out. Woodland, yeah, and they replaced them with Taylor's.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

Is Taylor not a mutant of the Eastern red cedar?

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Eastern red, yep, it's an eastern red cedar.

SPEAKER_04 32:47

It's an eastern red cedar that mutated into this shape.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Exactly. And maintained that shape. And that's what we wanted to find out with testing. I say we but my predecessors, yeah, to find out with is it gonna maintain that shape? Where are we going?

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Where are we going? Okay, let's go. Keep walking, let's just keep walking, keep walking. Do they uh do you does anybody know? Do they have those uh tailors uh grown in the background at the uh uh Pioneer Park? Do they have some like you know, backups just in case they need to get one in there?

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Oh no, no. I mean, that's just it when you do symmetry designs. If you lose one, you gotta start all over. But you know, you might know one of the most public places that they're planted is at um the state capitol, the west side of the state capital. Yeah, yeah, there's some nice ones there. Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, exactly. Yep, yep. All right, now we're gonna head to one of my favorite trees here. I mean, I'm just gonna throw this. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

I'm looking in the camera a lot. Uh if anybody's watching on YouTube, I'm not staring at myself. I'm just watching because I'm like, these are some great shots I'm trying to get here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

I mean, these are just beautiful. They don't want to see us, Dave. They want to see the trees, man.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

Is this a walnut?

SPEAKER_02 33:53

Yeah. Holy moly. Isn't that something? That is Jesus. So I nominated this tree. So this is one of one of uh, I'm proud of saying I nominated this as a state champ, and of course, you can see why, right? I mean, uh, I mean, there's your human scale for it.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

I'm gonna give that one a hug. Yeah, you gotta give that is awesome. I'm like, maybe a third, maybe. Isn't it something?

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Maybe if all three of us got around it, we could touch, right? That tree is something else. And okay, so one year we were here collecting seed and we were getting black walnut seed, but we didn't dare park under this thing because there was probably a 40 mile an hour stained wind. These things, I mean, it sounded, and there was a dude's car here just getting pummeled. And we went inside to say, hey, I don't know whose car is out there. And there was somebody just out walking around, and it's like, okay.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

These are pretty hard.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

We would not walk under this tree that day because it was it was dangerous. Uh yeah. Isn't this something? Probably. State champion. Oh, we got and it's just north of the lodge, so it's easy to find.

SPEAKER_04 34:55

It is a state champion? Yeah. I'll be down. Yep, biggest.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

There's a little plaque right here. I'm trying to get now. A lumber person would say, Boy, there's some bored feet in there. We're not gonna let you cut it down. Yeah, cool tree. Um, probably the one of the most impressive trees here, right? Wouldn't you say? 1871. Wow, cool. Whoa. See, so there's a lady that works here at Arbor Lodge. She is the historian. I wish I knew her name, but man, she's really good. She uh she is that the reason that's there is because of her, I guarantee you.

SPEAKER_04 35:35

150 years old, 155 years old. Yeah, if my math is correct.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Yeah, I don't even want to think of it. I need my calculator. Oh my god. Didn't you?

SPEAKER_04 35:44

Nebraska was four years old when this plant.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Come on over here now. Wow. Now we're gonna walk to this grove uh of ginkgos. Uh, you know, you can plant a ginkgo. You saw how big that one was, right? You could plant them 50 feet apart, right? And and and and let it get to its mature size, or you can plant trees and groves. And I say plant trees and groves because then when you visit the groves, these are just even impressive. Those are big old ewes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they're probably who knows, 80 years old, right? Because they grow slow. But anyway, this grove of ginkgos uh has never been pruned. Um they didn't listen to the literature that says plant them 40 feet apart. They planted them more like what, eight to ten feet apart?

SPEAKER_04 36:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

And let them grow up as a as one unit.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

And they're they're working in tandem together.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Yes, and so you're more able to withstand storms. Yes. Oh, yeah. Everybody's working together. Isn't that cool? So, yeah, the ginkgo grove, we call it here at Arbor Lodge. Um and and I know the Asian community. Those look, they've been pruned. Okay, right. They had to prune those because the branches died, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's the only reason. Yeah. Uh they didn't have to prune them because the branches were locking together, is what I wanted to. No, no, they're every we call it canopy shyness, where where the trees will kind of grow next to each other, but not interfere with the its buddy growing next to it.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Um, yeah, so I just personal space. I thought you needed to see this place. I always felt this place needed a bench. Oh, look, they put one right over there.

SPEAKER_04 37:22

Bob, it's really harvest to it's hard to difficult to get the seed and restart plants from ginkgo. Do you do that at the uh Nebraska?

SPEAKER_02 37:31

I in fact I planted one for a friend of mine. Her her son passed away at a very young age, a toddler age, and planted a ginkgo next to his uh grave site. Uh and now I can drive by that cemetery in Lincoln and be proud that that tree's uh is 25 feet from seed, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:49

Uh that I grew. Do you do that at the uh that's pretty new, Ben? Do you have plant Nebraska?

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Yeah, plant Nebraska, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:57

So I can come and buy a ginkgo tree from you.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Well, not every year. Not every year do we get seed. Um, not every year do I have them, but yeah, you just gotta hope I have them that year.

SPEAKER_04 38:05

Right. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Is uh Plant Nebraska? Is it still uh membership uh based?

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Yeah, we're a membership-based organization. Uh we're we're a uh private nonprofit, and we're housed on UNL's East Campus.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

These are I there are so many, not every tree, but there's a lot of trees that are uh marked out here.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Yes, yes, you're right. And and I'm proud to say, Dave, I'm the one that uh printed those labels and uh and supplied them to Arbor Lives. That was my job. Uh now I've kind of pawned it off. And you can see sometimes they'll marked, they have a little spring in there, and that's so as the tree grows, they can back it out so it doesn't overtake the label.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

This was uh oh god, I'm a horrible cameraman right now.

SPEAKER_04 38:53

Arbor Day 1987. Oh, yeah, planted in honor of Ed Zerensky, Senator Ed Zerensky.

SPEAKER_02 38:59

In a Pinnook of all things, Lincolnites are going, really?

SPEAKER_04 39:02

Yeah. We're learning, we're learning. It's taking a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is uh I'm floored right here. These.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:10

I thought it was a sycamore when I first walked by.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Right. And you haven't seen the best London plane tree yet.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

That's what I was waiting for. Because this thing, look at that bark.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Isn't that cool? I mean, that looks like uh and London plane trees are a cousin of the uh sycamore, Matt. They are the European version of the sycamore. And quite honestly, part of me wants to say they might have this mislabeled. It might be part of because this is not typical of a London plane tree bark, it doesn't have that camouflage bark like a sycamore.

SPEAKER_04 39:40

That's why I was gonna have to do it.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

But I could be wrong too, because and I probably am because a sycamore in the bottom part of its trunk is typically uh dark, yes, and and and bark covered. So, yeah, so they do have it right. I'm the one who has it right.

SPEAKER_04 39:54

But that is that isn't that something. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Oh, it's it's awesome. Oh my god, there's there's a bunch of them.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

They're like, but I'm taking gonna take you to the uh a location down on the corner here that I just found out about last year. I've been coming here for like 30 years, and I found out, oh, I didn't even know this was here. What are you looking at? Oh yeah, magnolia. They'll do that.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

Late flower.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah, they'll do that, kind of a little rebloom. It's usually very sparse and yeah, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

Is that maybe because of the uh shock of cold weather?

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Yeah, I don't think that's but they spring them blue and yeah, it's not really the cold weather. Yeah, I'm not sure, Dave. As I was just saying, windy day in Nebraska. So these two trees here are some of the biggest tulip trees in the state. Yeah.

unknown 40:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Yeah, and so tulip tree, folks, uh, I mean, the leaves are way up there, but we have some sucker sprouts to show no other tree has a leaf that cool. This is a tree native to southeastern United States. Some of the biggest in the country are at Smoky Mountains in Georgia. 130. This is the tallest tree uh east of the Mississippi. You know, you go out west, you got the redwoods, but you go east, who's the tallest? These guys are. And it it follows all the way up the eastern seaboard. I think native as far north as, say, Maryland, I believe. Tulip tree, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 41:17

Tulip tree. Does it make tulips? Does it make flowers?

SPEAKER_02 41:19

The flowers you could argue kind of look like a tulip. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 41:22

Um spring bloomer.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

And but some people also said the name came from the leaf looks like a tulip.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

Oh, yeah, I could see. So you could argue both ways. But yeah, obviously the tree says, Will it grow in Nebraska? Where Jay Sterling Merton said, Well, let's find out. And uh look at this. Till the tree does grow. And what I found is they're very resilient to storms, too. These aren't the only two on the whole property. There's there's like five of them over that way that are just as big. Right on. Impressive. Oh wow. And the Coast State champion is in of all places, Dave, being from Northeast Nebraska, Humphrey. Humphrey. A church in Humphrey, Nebraska, and Oakland. Go figure. I never would. It's like, what is a tulip tree doing in Oakland as big as this boy? Uh, somebody that moved to Oakland, my guess is from was from out east. Oh, okay. And said, I gotta have my tulip tree. If I'm moving to this godforsaken country, they call Nebraska. I'm gonna plant my tulip tree to remind me of home, right?

SPEAKER_04 42:21

Bob, have you ever heard that Germans would plant linden trees in front of their homes?

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Well, I've heard of linden trees planting in front of a meeting place of contention, like a city hall. Okay. And the reason is if you make linden flower tea, the tea is a very calming tea. So it's meant to symbolize if you walk in this meeting hall, we don't want you crazy ruckus. We want a nice calm meeting. So the linden trees were meant to kind of start that feel.

SPEAKER_04 42:49

I need a linden tree in front of my house, is what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. No problems at home. Plant the dang linden tree, man. Here's another impressive ginkgo. Look at that baby. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:58

What's this big fur? Is it a fur?

SPEAKER_02 43:01

That there is uh a Norway spruce. Norway. And as they get bigger, they get that very pendulous uh uh uh look to them. Man, the biggest in the state that and the most that I've seen is at that Forest Lawn Cemetery in Omaha. You go to that cemetery, there's a sounds like a pretty impressive uh the state champion um London Plane tree is there. So we're talking, you got the London Plane trees you guys just saw. These have five foot trunks.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Wow. A little side note. Uh from what I understand is like the modern park um design came from cemeteries. Oh, really? I wouldn't doubt it.

SPEAKER_04 43:43

Cemeteries were really a lot of communities private parks. Cemeteries were places where people had picnics.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:51

They weren't exclusively just for burial.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

And it's interesting, the pioneer cemeteries you see, or and a little bit older, like the nineteen twenties or whatever. The trees were very important to him because you see those, you you know, you see those uh arboretums, if you will.

SPEAKER_05 44:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

And some of those have become arboretum affiliated sites of us, you know, of the of Plant Nebraska. Yeah, there's some pawpaws down in Bird. Did you see that?

SPEAKER_03 44:13

I just I just went, I just uh I just spotted some pawpaws, he said.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

Oh, look at him.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

I think I made a some kind of guttural sound.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

Okay, so what I'm gonna show you guys now is from where we're walking on the trail. You see him?

SPEAKER_04 44:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

We're heading back in there, okay? Yeah. We're heading back there. So, Dave, if you want to trape through with your weaponry and just uh I I can't remember exactly how to get there, but I think we should just I'll just follow. Let's go uh there's a trail over here.

SPEAKER_04 44:42

Bob, what kind of oak do we have right here?

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Uh looks like a swamp white oak.

SPEAKER_04 44:48

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yeah. And how do I know that?

SPEAKER_04 44:53

This is that's what I want to know. How do you know?

SPEAKER_02 44:56

Well, the bark and stuff said it, but but the first thing I did is like it's Quercus bicolor. So you see the one side of the leaves green, the back side is white.

SPEAKER_04 45:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Bicolor, get it? And uh more of a southeastern U.S. native, but does great in in around here.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

I've noticed the city of Lincoln and other plant them around town a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

Yeah, probably the most well known in Lincoln is along uh Woods Park. They're from 33rd Street to and O to J. Those are all swamp white oaks. Okay, right, and people collect acorns from there far and wide. I mean, by the hundreds of pounds. I see people there all the time.

SPEAKER_03 45:32

I think I'm gonna go by the pawpaw.

SPEAKER_04 45:35

So some of my neighbors have been using wood bulch uh around their, you know, gardens, flower beds around the house. And there's swamp white oaks growing out of them.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

And I think it's from all the this is like a little, almost a little grove of it is, it is, and that's what pawpaws do. So, folks, this is our native pawpaw trees, and uh native to southeastern part of the state. What I love about it is they're tropical looking foliage. But people got to realize you plant your landscape, let it become a grove, right? Let it, it'll sucker and produce uh pups, and then you'll get many stems. And then as that thing ages, you've got just a really cool area to walk through. Happiness is walking through your own backyard collecting pawpaws, because I do it every fall. But from here, um, I think we need to actually venture through the woods to get to those. Okay, okay. So follow me with the camera if you want. We may have to, you may have to duck a little bit, Dave. That's fine, that's fine. And I've only been back here once because we're with that lady who is the historian here, and she says, Well, it says somewhere on the map there's some there's some uh uh London plain trees that were planted in in like 1903 or some ridiculous number like that. And it's like, well, I don't, I've never seen any plane trees. And then I look up above the canopy and I'm like, oh wait, what's back there?

SPEAKER_03 46:56

Oh man, look at this beautiful isn't that something? I I I I uh I love the fact that there's uh uh I don't love the fact all this construction trash down here, but uh the uh dead tree just leaving it. Yeah, just leaving it. Oh man, they've been doing something back here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

I guess we could have taken the road, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

That was more fun, Bob. That was more fun.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

Well, anyway, I wanted you guys to see these trees.

SPEAKER_05 47:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

I mean, look at that. I mean, can you get up, look it up into that, baby, Dave? So this is uh a London plain tree that lost all of its bark. That's why I was questioning the other one. So these are over 100 years old, around 120 years old. And I think they're around they're over a hundred feet tall. Let's put it that way. Oh my god. Yeah. Can you see these back here, Dave?

SPEAKER_03 47:56

Yeah, I see at least uh three more past this one.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

That'd be some good kindling. I mean, come on, man. Isn't that something? Yeah. So this is this is the let's call it the belly of Arbor Lodge. You know, the belly where you know you gotta get off the map, you know, and look for the look for the canopy, look, you know, explore. And and shoot, there's no slouched silver maple right next to you, too, right there. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. So the land of big trees, Arbor Lodge, aren't they something?

unknown 48:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:36

Gee, sorry, you just want to slap her. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Sorry, but almost like a little bit of an oval pattern to their to me.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

You could have put a dinosaur in here and filmed uh Jurassic Park, right? It just has that feel. But another thing I want you to notice is well, what are they 25 feet apart? Yeah. And they're over 100 feet tall. And guess what? They're all getting along together, right? And so we need to be planting more like this, I think. And what's more is you've got these a hundred over a hundred foot trees, let's say 120, and then you've got these Siberia or these uh spruce trees that were also planted, what, eight, ten feet away from the trunks of those, and they're half the size, because stunted, probably.

SPEAKER_05 49:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

But getting along, I'd hang out in here and build a little fort, wouldn't you? Oh, heck yeah, heck yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:26

These seem to have like a little bit of an almost an oval triangle pattern to them, a little bit. Yeah. What do you mean? The uh just the trunk. The buttress. Yeah, just like so. It's almost like this is uh not perfectly round.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Yeah, yeah. And you'll see that some trees will actually have a twist to them. You ever notice that? Oh and if you ever notice what architects are looking at for the world's tallest buildings, they're twisting, they're twisting it over.

SPEAKER_03 49:51

And guess who they're getting that from? Heck yeah. Nature. Kind of like I love the bald cypress just because of the shape of it.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

So why would a tree bother to do that? It's structurally stronger if it's twisted. But then my question always ways to the tree. Well, if it's such a good thing to do, why isn't why isn't every tree doing it? Why did you just do it? Well, I've got the smart jeans, you know. I don't know. Uh okay, guys, so now I'm gonna take you to guess what, more cool trees. More cool trees. And they're not far away, so you can keep that running if you want. Right on, we'll just keep it going. Yeah, yeah. And so pecan trees, big advocate, always push a man. And people, we need to plant more pecan trees. Why? Because they're such a cool tree, and they're heart perfectly hardy here. And the native nut trees of Nebraska? It's not a native nut tree.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

No, I mean, what are the native nut trees of Nebraska?

SPEAKER_02 50:41

You know, really the black walnut obviously is one hickories. We've got uh Shag Bark Hickory uh in Nebraska. It's uh, and then one called bitternut. And there's actually a dude I follow on Facebook, uh Forger Chef. Um, he's a big advocate of producing groves of bitternut hickory. Although the nut meat is bitter and we wouldn't want to eat it, it has a lot of oil in it. You can actually go online and order hickory oil for cooking. It's got a high heat value to it and whatnot. So the potential out there is through the roof. You can have about five acres. Yeah, yeah. Nice impressive bulk hypers grove right here. Yeah, this is a great spot here, too. Um, so right here is uh a great big pecan. So if anybody says to you, yeah, but pecans won't grow in Nebraska. Well, this one begs to differ. I mean, this guy, this guy, and this isn't even the biggest one in the state, you guys. You gotta go, you gotta go to Brownville by the uh uh um elevator there, the grain elevator in Brownville. That's where the state champ is. I'm not kidding you. I mean, that honky's like this. What an impressive tree.

SPEAKER_04 51:52

So native tree.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Yeah, no, no, not native. They were planted. They were planted that long ago. Oh, yeah. Wow. But you know, you can go to northwest Missouri and that's where they're at. So they're not far. Not far. Not far.

SPEAKER_03 52:03

So where do you measure for a state champion tree?

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Uh you want to go to chest height, basically, four feet up, four feet up. Yep, yep. If you think you got a big cottonwood out there, you can quickly do that measurement, compare it to the uh there's a database with the Nebraska Forest Service on in the drop-down will show you a champion tree. And then you're like, well, I got a big one. I'm just gonna put a tape around it chest height, and uh and see if it how it compares to the current champ. But if it's close, uh still get a hold of the Forest Service because Justin wants to put that notable tree down because the champion might blow over or die, and then he's got a record of another big one to go recheck and see, you know, does that make sense? So the Forest Service who determines the state champion, right? Right. Exactly. So, so uh this pecan here, you guys, and then here's its buddy. So I wanted to prove to you that it ain't just two of them down here. Uh, in fact, there's a third one there, a fourth one there, fifth one there. Uh, there's a big wall over there. And then I've discovered there's probably a dozen more big pecans off just on the grounds. So a lot of people say, well, yeah, but it's just one tree. You can't you can't say it'll grow here with just one tree. Well, there's a lot of big trees here, a lot of pecans. And then over here, Dave, uh, let's go look at Do they bear nuts? Yeah, they do. And I was here, um, um, you gotta time it, right? Uh the critters will get them and and oh look. Um I'm glad you mentioned something. Yeah, so um the biggest problem I usually have is the branches are way up there. I don't have a big ladder or anything, you know. And and so I'll but I'll bring my stepladder, my eight-footer, and get up as high as I can. The thing is with the native ones, the nut aren't as big. The Nebraska nut growers, they did research at UNL, and that's why that pecan grove is there at the corner of 48th and Holderge, is they knew they would grow here. Hardiness wasn't an issue, but we they wanted a bigger nut, easier to crack, because a pecan grown in Nebraska has more oil in it. To the tree, it's a antifreeze. So this so the nut doesn't freeze as fall is setting in and the temperatures are getting cooler. But to us humans, more oil means better nutrition, uh, because it's the good oil.

SPEAKER_04 54:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

And uh that's why the nut growers did that. And so a lot of the cultivars that are out there in the trade um came from that research on U and L, which is cool.

SPEAKER_04 54:28

Right on.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

Let me let me show you another rare tree for the country, really. Um this is a uh this big boy is uh American chestnut. Oh wow. And American chestnut uh ended up getting a blight in the early 1900s. This blight came from China and uh wiped out. Actually, no, I got it wrong. This is a Chinese chestnut. This is the American over here, sorry. Um and and how can I tell the glossier, well, the one I just have been collecting here for years, and you gotta beat the squirrels. Um, there's the fruit is just developing now. And have you touched one yet? No. Well, touch it. Well, it's not pokey yet, but it's gonna be. Oh, yeah. Okay. I mean, they're like needles. Yes, and and I imagine to the tree, it's like uh squirrels hands off until my fruit develops. So it's a deterrent for critters, and then these will split open literally on the tree, and the nuts will drop on down, and so I'm collecting them in the grass and stuff. And we have to sell it as a hybrid because this is the only known American chestnut here, and so it's getting accepting pollen, we think, likely from the nearby Chinese chestnuts. And so we're calling it a hybrid, but we still think it's gonna have obviously it has 50% uh genes from an American. So anyway, uh great tree. Um, there used to be a couple more bigger ones here that ultimately died. We don't, I'm not sure if it was from the blight out east. They they say in Maine, where it was native, it's it's wiped out all East Coast, it's gone. And there's a foundation trying to get it back again. This blight was introduced by the Chinese chestnut because somebody said, Why there's one in China that grows twice the size and it's just as sweet. And American chestnut people say no, it's not just as sweet. This one's far superior, but it's half the size.

SPEAKER_04 56:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

So you remember Nat King Cole's number? What is it, Dave? Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Well, that's a fun thing to do, I'm telling you, folks. And um, I've done it before in a cast iron skillet over an open fire. But anyway, we collect seed from this and try to perpetuate it in Nebraska. Um fun tree, and again, one of the rarer trees in the country because the blight had wiped them out. But a squirrel could jump on a chestnut tree in Maine and ride the canopy all the way south to Georgia, is what they say. And if you see historical pictures from the early 1900s, if you Google uh American chestnut history, historic photos, you'll see. I mean, they had they were like the redwoods of the East.

SPEAKER_04 57:08

Bab, you said when you uh fry them up, you need to uh when you roast them, you gotta slice them or they'll explode.

SPEAKER_02 57:13

Uh if you ever, you know, because you'll you can now buy chestnuts in the grocery store, right? Around uh Thanksgiving time, it seems, when they're coming out. And just know you can get them, if you get them fresh, they're better. Uh, but yeah, you have to cut a little slit in that uh husk because if you don't, there's so much moisture in there that they'll explode in the pan and blow everybody out of there. So you got to cut a slit to let them breathe. And so, so if you look over here, these are Chinese chestnuts behind us, but you notice some dieback in there. Yeah. Um, I think they're starting to get, you know, just I don't want to say reach their age limit, but just, you know, does a Chinese chestnut belong in Nebraska? But, you know, there's people growing them, uh, people growing them for the net.

SPEAKER_03 57:56

Um that is a great, this is a great view right here over here.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Yeah, yeah, really nice.

SPEAKER_04 58:01

Yeah, well, and also 10 years of below average rainfall.

SPEAKER_02 58:05

Right.

SPEAKER_04 58:05

You think that might affect?

SPEAKER_02 58:06

Oh, for sure. Now we're gonna head up this way.

SPEAKER_03 58:12

Well, you know what? Uh, we need to uh take a break for a second. Sure. We gotta get some stuff done and uh uh do all those, uh put the sponsors in there. Uh we'll be right back. Hey y'all, I just want to thank uh Rourke's Tavern for sponsoring Slacker Dave Loves Nebraska. Rourke's Tavern, it's Lincoln's downtown. It's like a neighborhood bar right in the middle of downtown. We're at 1329 O Street, and uh, you know, Rourke's I've always described as kind of like the backstage to the Lincoln uh musical community. They do fun things all year round, they got specials every day, they got two pool tables, they do dance parties, they got a chili cook-off every year. So you just want a nice, relaxing time, come on down, see Jordy and the whole family down here at O'Rourke. Thank you. All right, we're back. Hey, uh I just want to once again thanks to everybody for listening. Stay in tuned. Uh, I'm uh we got Bob Hendrickson. Uh what what was your title again?

SPEAKER_02 59:16

Uh horticulture program coordinator. Yeah. That one. Uh and then uh Matt, uh uh, and we're at the uh uh American beach. Son of a beach. Yeah, it is uh the American beach. And if you've ever been like, oh, let's say Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, that's kind of beach country, beach forest there. And honestly, this is the largest American beach I know of in the state. European beach, there's also those, this real pendulous, and there's reddish-colored leaves, one from the European beach. That's likely the one you're gonna run into uh planted in Nebraska. Yeah, very few places I know of have American beach. But uh the trunk, uh what's cool about the beach tree, to me, they they remind me of uh elephant legs, uh, you know, like very smooth bark, really uh, really cool bark. Oh yeah, that is that does uh I was on a bus trip with a bunch of planters in Ohio and I was mesmerized by the beach forest, and he's like, Well, don't you have trees in Nebraska? And I'm like, Well, we don't have beach, so yeah, I'm gonna admire it. I'm sorry, buddy. You know, but yeah, uh state champion American beach. How cool is that?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:27

That means it's the biggest one in the state.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:28

We don't know an estimated time on this one.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Yeah, it didn't have a date on it, but I would imagine it's it's solid 80 years old. And it leaking out its little holes here. Yeah, a little cool or you know, it's probably I could put my hand in there. I bet if we put a probe in there, we got a branch handy. I bet it's got a hollow in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:48

Animal?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

Well, just natural rod or whatever. Um, I can feel it goes all the way through this branch, you know, about that deep, you know. So, but the outside the tree will kind of compartmentalize that that hollow too, as it's trying to close this up, is what you're seeing. Now it's kind of folded there. We call it callus tissue. So it's trying to try to heal itself up there. Yeah, trying to we call it sealing the wound. Yeah, so will this tree fail? Uh at some point, yes, because we call these defects. Defects to the tree, it's like I'm expendable.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:23

And then, you know, just uh we are not recommending if painting anything on any stores like in the old that was so 70s. Uh yeah, but I mean, still people still you know, that's don't tar and feather your tree, it does no good.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:37

That's how grandpa used to do it. Yeah, yep, yep. There's a bunch of beaches here, aren't they? Yeah, son of a beach. There's like three of them. Yeah, three nice beach. I mean, this guy's no slouch. No, no. And then really, right across the trail, Dave, right here, we've got the biggest uh uh sweet gum, American sweet gum in the state. And uh this tree is popular planted in Kansas City because it's so tough. And I used to think this tree maybe gets 35, 40 feet. Well, this tree says, uh, dude, uh recheck that size. Uh it's more like what 70, 80 feet, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:19

Yeah, it's up there. It's up there.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:21

It's up there. And and if I can find a leaf, um, yeah, here's one off the up. No, that's a vine. That's not the uh well, anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:30

Similar to a maple.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:31

Yeah, it's a star-shaped leaf, we call it. Very, very unique. Oh, wait, yeah, I'm getting the other one over here. The trees.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:38

Yeah, we'll see. Uh it kind of looks like a traditional, like the oak leaf on a on a clip art. Right. Oh, wait, there we go. What's this one again?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

This is we think it's uh ash right here. Yeah, we think it's an ash. Uh yeah, so here's the the star-shaped leaf of uh uh American sweet gum. That's pretty cool. No other leaf looks like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:05

I want to do a pressing with that.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

You know, what's also interesting, you guys see the the sucker things coming at the base of this tree. And we're seeing those same suckers at the base of this ash and at the base of that sweet gum and the base of that one. Um, and I often use my nose to identify things. What does it smell like? Because it will actually. I mean, is that a uh sumac? Is that a black walnut, right? Is that a London plant, or I mean a uh tree of heaven? I mean, it looks like a lot of different trees, but but oftentimes, so I just went up and went, phew, yeah, now I know what it is. It's a Korean evodia. And I was gonna show you guys that tree, but I think it got taken out, it died. But I remember collecting seed from this Korean Evodia, going, oh wow, this tree's really cool. And then I learned it's invasive in other states. Uh-huh. So I'm like, okay, I'm done with that. And um but we're saying, oh, well, we're not seeing it seed around here in Nebraska. And I'm like, well, because the mother tree that I was collecting from is surrounded by grass, the seedlings had nowhere to go. Well, guess what's happening? Now we're seeing it, it's like it's it's tucked up against the dang trunk of this. The only reason it's not anywhere else is that it's mowing, right? Yes. That's what's keeping it.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:17

These are the these are the sweet gum uh pods that I picked up off the ground. They're everywhere. Yes. These sweet gums make a lot of seeds.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:24

Yes, they do. And down in Kansas City, people will love them or curse them because they call it a messy tree. Because those balls.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:30

I can see that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:31

And and what's interesting is those little holes you see in there. So as that seed pod dries, those holes open up and out squirts that little seed in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:41

And so collecting it, if I try to collect it, I'm too late always.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:45

Because like shooting out.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:46

Yeah, because it's like spitting it out. And then the guy told me, we'll collect them green and let them dry on a sheet of paper, and the seed will just drop on your paper or in a bag or whatever. And I was like, oh, lo and behold, it works. You could probably make that into a molt. What I've done, Dave, now these are old, but I love taking them uh when they're fresh that fall, when they look a lot better, and dry them, and then I'll paint them silver and gold and use them for Christmas ornaments. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:08

Wait, is I have uh uh uh one of your uh legendary wreaths. Oh, uh-huh. Uh and it's not a Christmas wreath. Right, right. It just prairie wreaths. We have it up. It's it's year round. Year round. Uh-huh. You know, probably shouldn't do that. It's oh no, that's what it's meant for, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:26

I should tell people that. It's not meant to hold up seasonally, it's year round.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:29

Yeah, because when you put it in a if you try to store it, that the the it I I noticed it just kind of tends to lose more and more when you put something touching it, you know. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:41

Once you hang it, it is it's not gonna drop anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:43

But are there some of those? I think there might have been some of those in it, I think. Never done sweet gumballs, nope. Look like something. Oh, look at that big buddy right behind us, right behind us over there. That's a sweet dog.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:56

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:57

Whoa. Wow, that's a huge dog.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:59

That's a big old dog. Wow. I've been hauling this around. This is one of those walnuts from the state champion. Oh, is it? I'm taking it home. I'm going to try to grow it in the house.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:09

Squirrel already kind of removed some of the husk going, I give up, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:14

150.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:15

It makes you almost want to get the story on that dog, doesn't it? It's like going, okay, lady, so. I love bugs. Yeah, that's a big old dog. All right, where are we uh where we got coming up here? So now um I think that's all the trees I'm gonna show you in this area. So uh yeah, Dave, it's up to you if you want to just take a stroll. Yeah, let's just take a stroll.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

Honestly, you guys, unless Tell us more. Uh, how did you become uh in your chosen world, like a kid growing up in Dodge, Nebraska? Yeah, yeah. Uh farmland. You know, it's not, you know, stereotypically when we grew up in the 70s and 80s in the small town, yeah. There it's not uh, you know, conservation wasn't that uh thing, uh, you know, not until, you know, later. How did you get into doing what you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Yeah, that's a good question. I think I think you talk to any any adult that says we got to get kids out into nature more often. You know, for any small town Nebraska kid, we didn't have smartphones back in the days. So you grew up in the 70s and 80s, you're on your banana seed bike and going down to the creek and messing around, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:20

Yeah, we had the river.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Yeah, you had the river, we had a creek.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:23

Mom always said, if you drowned, I'll kill you.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:26

Yeah, exactly. So quit it, man. Uh oh, oh.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:29

We got a state champion Sassabras.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:32

Sassabras. I'm so glad you stopped it because I was just thinking right as you stopped. Okay, get this, you guys. So kudos to the Arbor Lodge people because this grove was a mess. Uh, literally, they just got this cleaned up. This was a there, it was all overgrown, a bunch of understory stuff that just seeded in.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:52

And you could hardly tell. So, yeah, this is a sassafras grove. And sassafras is another one of those go, whoa, that won't grow in Nebraska. Well, tell these trees. And and really, you'd be hard pressed to find sassafras trees this this big in Missouri. Um in Missouri, they're kind of in a road ditch tree. They're they're a suckering tree. That's why we have a grove here. Yeah. Um, and I, if we can find a leaf, uh, I'll let you trade around while I'm talking talking the slides. Yeah, that is uh, it looks to me like the uh Japanese beetles love sassafras. Right. Um, because they are riddled.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:33

We might not like Japanese beetles, but man, they do some amazing artwork.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:37

Yeah, they they they do some you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:42

I'm trying to find a every one of these. It's like lace.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:49

Man. Darn, I'm not finding any of the typical leaves that look like a glove or a handprint. Um, they're way up there on the tree that we're not gonna be able to see.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:57

Well, anyway. Well, I yeah, you can kind of see them, but not really.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:01

Yeah, the palm one?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:03

Right here.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:04

Yeah, kind of that mitten-shaped leaf. And and the thing is, the tree will have like three different leaf shapes on any individual tree.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:13

And uh so I have a young one grown in the nursery, and I read online, it's like the new emerging leaves, the tiny little leaves, um, taste like fruit loops. And I'm like, whatever. So I tried one, son of a gun. Yeah, it tastes like fruit loops. It's crazy. Wow. And sarsaparilla, the roots of this plant, that's where sarsaparilla comes from. And down south, where this tree is king, they'll take the leaves, dry them, and grind them up into a powder, and that's what they add to gumbo. That's the thickener in gumbo. So a person that's looking for true gumbo, if they don't have sassafras in it, they don't know what they're doing, is what somebody from Gumbo Company would tell you. Louisiana, right? Gotta have sassafras. They even have a name for it. I don't know it off the top of my head, but isn't that fun and interesting?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:00

Is root beer use the same? Where does root, what, what goes into root beer? Because I always thought sarsaparilla tasted like root beer.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:07

Right? Yeah, gosh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

Well, we'll do that. We'll we'll I'm taking it off the rails. We'll come back to that another time.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:13

I know there's a I can't quite remember uh because I my brain's going to licorice root, and even though that's not it, uh, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:21

And while we're here, what are these is a state champion?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:23

Is it yeah, which one, right? Right. Yeah, good question. Yeah, I would almost call the whole dang grove the state champion. You did call it like a yeah, almost the whole grove is a state champion because because it's a suckering trees, they're they could have planted one, and now we're seeing these are all offspring, right? Right. They may have planted a half dozen of them just to see, but who knows? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:48

Uh so I saw a great documentary one time uh on this island in the uh Pacific, more toward, you know, Thailand in that in that area, the uh where every seven years or something like that. So I can't remember the number, uh, and I might be wrong, but the rats take over the island and eat everything. And they figured it out is uh the bamboo that lived on the island. Um was one family.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:22

Which one is the champion what? Uh that's what we were asking. Which one is the champion? Hey, we got we got Arbor, we got Arbor Lodge visitors. I was telling them I think the whole grove could be considered a champion. So these are these are all sassafrages.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:34

These two right here. But this is the biggest. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 1:11:37

It's champion.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:38

Yeah, I'd say so. Yep, I'd say so. Uh but the the bamboo is dies, it all dies on the same time. Even if you took a clump of of that bamboo and moved it across the halfway across the world to a different place, the same time it's gonna die. And what would happen is the bamboo would die. So, what's it gonna do when it has gonna die? It drops tons of seeds. The rats eat the seeds, the seeds do something to their brain where if if a normal time when before you start having babies was like, you know, four months, uh-huh. They were having babies at like one month.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:24

It was speeding up the gestation.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:26

It was speeding up the gestation problem. The and the rats would take over, yes, wipe out everything, the seeds would done, and then they would just all die off. Yeah, and it happened all the time. And I was wondering maybe, you know, like how many other plants have that internal clock, death clock in a grove? Because the is the aspen one plant?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:50

Yes, exactly. Aspens uh will sucker underground and create a big grove. In fact, they say the the oldest plants in the world are those grove plants, as well as the the largest, the largest trees. They'll say, Oh, it's the redwood, you know, General Sherman or whatever out in uh coastal California. But then others said, no, no, it's the aspen because collectively it's all the same tree. It's like tomato, tomato, whatever. But you know, as as the fires rage in places like Colorado and it takes out the pine trees, the the aspen are gonna take its place and they're gonna move in, and people are gonna go, whoa, I've never seen the mountains so gold before because of those. And then, of course, the beetle also taking out. So it's that natural succession where you're gonna have the aspens move in and then the pine trees ultimately behind them. And I saw that in action uh camping. We stayed at Grand Lake uh a couple years ago, and they had a big fire there only four years prior. And we went to the burn scar because I wanted to see how what it looked like. And because why wouldn't you, Bob? Exactly. I want to see what you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:56

You know, uh, I'm just gonna say right now, you are a lucky man, uh, as am I, uh, and you met, but to have a uh a wife that believes in you.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:08

I don't want to go to the burn scar. Why would I want to go hide that? But she knows that's who you are, yeah, and that's what you're gonna say.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:16

She indulges your curiosity.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

And I'm telling you, she thought it was cool, you know. And and you know, to see like this this tree 50 feet high that was all black, you know, going up. And well, the thing is, I there's like little baby pine trees up on the up on the the crest of the buttes. Little baby pine trees, little lodge pole pines that need fire to germinate. These things were like knee high, maybe thigh high already, four years later. Yeah. So the forest is saying to humans, we got this, man. Don't don't fret none. Why do we panic and put the fire out? Because we built structures where those fires were. And certainly they're burning hotter than they did historically, because with managing the forest, we prevent fires now rather than let them go through. There's a whole story there, but we won't get too deep into that. But bottom line is the the woods will recover ultimately, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:02

Yeah. So the ginkgo, though, these are all separate plants.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:06

These aren't ginkgo. Sasaps. Yeah, these are all these are all, I mean, sucker sprouts. So basically, a sprouts coming up from a root that's kind of growing away, a tree is gonna develop from that root.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:16

And it's a it's its own being. Exactly. Right, so it's gonna break off. It's gonna break off.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:23

We call it an appendage. It's like Dave growing an arm off of his arm.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:26

Well, maybe if I could grow fingers, I could, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:30

You need more append, we need more appendages, Dave.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:33

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:34

All right, fellas. Well, I think, you know, quite honestly, I think that was the only I can't think of another tree to show you guys that uh I mean the whole place is impressive, Bob. I mean, I mean, just I'm I wanted to mainly show you guys the champion trees, but yeah, like you said, Dave. I mean, there's there's tons of area here that we'd never covered, you know. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:58

What's this tree?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:00

Uh this is a sugar maple. Okay. And probably it's I don't know if it's ever been measured, but it's probably one of the bigger sugar maples in the state. So this is your classic uh Canada flag maple. Right. And in the trade, we call it a hard maple because they they grow slower than the silver. They don't get as beat up bad in windstorms as a result. Yes. Um, sugar maple is not native to Nebraska. Again, northwest Missouri is where they decided to stop.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:28

But um yellow foliage in the fall?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:30

They tend to get so you've got your red maple that gets planted a lot in Lincoln and and elsewhere, uh, autumn blaze, whatever, those are red maple hybrids that turn a nice, pretty red. These are more of a kaleidoscope. So you get reds, oranges, and yellows all in the same tree. And what I've discovered, if the tree is more shaded by other trees, it'll be more yellow. If it's out in the blazing sun, it'll be more red. Right. That's what tends to happen. But yeah, one of my favorite trees, the sugar maple. Yeah, good spot uh um to talk about that, maybe. Because yeah, here you'll bypass all these like huge trees because you've just seen, right? Ten other huge ones. Um and we're getting visitors around, which is great to see. And what's great for the community in Nebraska City is walkers use this a lot. They'll take their kids here, walk on their dog here. I mean, what a cool place to go.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:17

Um, yeah, I mean, you can bring a little picnic with you, a little backpack picnic with you. There's tons of benches around. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:24

Uh I mean, just it's just and of course they have with their Applejack Festival, you know, it's a big deal here uh in the fall.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:32

I'm gonna shoot that view right there because that's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is a beautiful place. I'm glad you uh let's walk, let's walk toward the uh the thing over here.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:42

The big catalog again calling our name.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:44

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:45

It's almost like speech to you.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:46

Oh, yeah. This one's no, this one's no slouch right here either. Exactly. Yeah. So I imagine uh if you're ever driving with Justin, I imagine you can't go more than like 20 miles an hour, can you?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:57

Well, the story with Justin is first of all, I'm impressed with how many people he knows in Nebraska and just how he knows Greater Nebraska.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:04

Well, I just heard him on your show today. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

Uh and so traveling with Justin, my one of my first times, we made 17 stops. We drove to like Taylor, Nebraska, and back and making 17 stops, or maybe even further, I can't remember, all in one day. And these are all grant projects, people that he had been working with. So he's meeting meeting maybe the mayor of the town or a city council person or whoever was, you know, in charge of that grant, uh, getting them planted for maybe it's around a baseball field, right? Or maybe it's in their park, or maybe it's a street trees. And we would, I was impressed that we were always 20 minutes late though, wherever we went, because he never seemed to be in a hurry. And I appreciated that about him. It was like we'd get to town, and I'm kind of looking at my clock, going, aren't we supposed to be there at like one o'clock? It's like, it's like one now. And he, oh, I'm gonna cruise around and look at some trees. So we would we'd always drive around town and look to see what the town had, you know, what is doing well in this town. And I always appreciated him about that because then you can get surprised going, what is a pecan doing in in uh Unadilla, Nebraska, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or or you know, whatever the strange tree is, and it really taught me a lot. And uh yeah, there's some cool trees out there in some cool communities in Nebraska that tree planters say, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:20

So right on. Well, uh, let's end this segment and then uh let's go find us uh someplace to eat. Uh maybe a Mexican, maybe we can find Matt a patty mount. You never know.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:33

See you guys later. See you, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:41

All right, we're back. Uh we're at uh Wayuca Cemetery in Nebraska City. Yes. Not uh, not uh uh uh what's the word I'm looking for? Lincoln.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:56

Yeah, and this is not a log. So we're at the gravesite. So we started off at Arbor Lodge, the uh the home of Jay Sterling Morton. Well, this is the gravesite of Jay Sterling Morton. So his wife Caroline died in 1881. Uh yeah, here it is, 1902 is when Jay Sterling Morton died. So his family's all here too, or at least the young ones that are here, but really cool example. I don't know. You've been a sister. This this is all concrete casted, you know, basically, you know, over 100 years ago. And the concrete hasn't eroded away. I think that's pretty impressive. And you can see a number of cemeteries in Nebraska, the pioneer cemeteries, that have this example.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:34

And all of the uh moms on here too.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:37

Okay. Yeah, 1857. Um died at Arbor Lodge in 1857. Um, yeah, and so even the uh the vine work has symbolism, and I can't exactly there's people you can go to websites and find out information on the history of these things. Um, there's some really impressive work here. Uh, and we'll I don't want to walk you down quick, Dave. Well wait, there's a the way who is who is this? Right? I have no idea who W. E.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:08

Hill is, but I mean that other one down there looks the same uh pattern as the one we got here. Yeah, super cool. I mean yeah, 1970. Look at that. They look at the nice work they did on those logs. That would be perfect uh joinery right there. W. E. Hill. Matt, you got anything?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:29

When we met up with Doug Dittman on episode 12. Yeah, we remember the fake logs he had?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:35

Yeah, what he'd call them.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:37

I can't remember. Oh it was we need to rewatch episode 12. But this is similar to what he did. Remember, he made those out of the room. And with my retention, but I can't remember anything because my brain is overloaded with information.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:54

But this is like almost the same pattern as the other one over there. Almost. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:59

Even they made it even look like they cut logs. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:03

Really cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:04

Really cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:05

Yeah, and again, the flowers, everything had symbolism, but I can't tell you what. Well, look at that. See, it's growing out of the pot and everything. Yeah, and and books, likely a reader or a librarian or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:17

Well, it was William S. Bector, Rector, Rector, and his wife, Martha A. Rector.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:24

So if you look at the the their ages, you know, 1832. So these were true pioneers of Nebraska, you know, that moved to Nebraska. This guy died.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:33

William Rector died in 1883.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:35

And she lived quite a few more years, 30 years longer.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that there's if you glance over there with your camera, you see that big, big uh Baroque trunk? Oh, yeah. So that was commemorated when Joy Morton, or I'm sorry, Caroline Morton, uh Jay Serling Morton when she passed away, they commemorated that oak in her honor.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:57

Um another that's another thing about cemeteries. You could just Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:01

And I I want to take you, if we can take a quick stroll. Yeah, they're everywhere. Look at this one.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:13

What yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:19

Uh died in 1878.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:21

Chief of Justice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:23

Woo!

SPEAKER_03 1:23:25

Take a picture of that, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:26

I'm going to. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:30

Get out of your way. Yeah, I got the the oh, hands of justice over the ways of scales of justice.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:39

God darn it. Hey, and now I want to show you, guys, that that's close to the state champion, our final state champion of the day here in Wayuca Cemetery. A lot of big old trees in Wayuca. It's a cool place. I usually will check this to see if I can collect seed here as well. Usually I'm after the hickory seed, because uh this is one of the biggest uh shag bark hickories. Yeah, you gotta look at that one, Dave.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:02

Isn't that cool? That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:06

He died in 1878.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:07

He was 23 years old. And so I'm telling you, those broken off trunks mean something. It means he died at too young of an age. Yeah. Is what there's the story they're telling you.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:19

They even have mushrooms growing on the side of them. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:23

What kind of mushroom is that, Bob? It's uh it's uh just another polypore, it's a uh shell fungus. What year was the state what was year was the state, man?

SPEAKER_04 1:24:32

1867?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:34

Here's 1856. Whoa! Right?

SPEAKER_04 1:24:38

Whoa. Wow. Yeah, there wasn't much in Nebraska in 1856.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:45

No, no. Okay, so this is one of the largest shag bark hickories in the state. Is that not an impressive pig? Oh my god. And uh yeah, you gotta walk up to him to really impress him. And look at all the fruit on there. Uh, I'm gonna have to be going after this. I'm telling you what, you guys, it's hard to beat the squirrels. They love them too. And the squirrels will start taking them when they're dark when they're green, when they're not quite ready for us humans to collect. But uh I'm glad we visited this tree because I I was kind of selfish, you guys. I wanted to see if it had fruit on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:18

See uh shag bark. See how the bark is uh shaggy, falling off of here.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:22

So get this, and I've done this before. Um, and I'm not gonna advocate that you do this, but if I peel this off, it's not hurting the tree, right? Native Americans made a syrup out of this, and I've done the same thing at home. Now, I'm telling you what, it's weird to wash bark in your kitchen sink, but I've done it. And then you break these into like one-inch pieces, like this, and after after you wash them, you know? Yeah. And then you uh bake it in the oven for like there's a recipe online, you bake it in the oven for like 40 minutes at 350, and you can already smell the hickory in the air from that. And then you take that baked uh uh bark and boil it and for like 30, 40 minutes. To do it over, I would have had more bark and boiled it longer because it wasn't strong enough. And then you make a simple syrup and you and you marry the water with that simple syrup, and you've got homemade hickory syrup. I'm telling you, it's the bomb. Is there any medicine? I'll have to bring slacker some. So he says, here's some of that hickory syrup that Bob was talking about. Is there any medicinal properties to it? Well, I think not that I'm aware of. Not that I'm aware of. I think it was just uh more or less a sweet treat, right? For him. But um, certainly the hickory nut is is very uh health beneficial. Yeah. And and we need more of those in the in the world. But yeah, shag bark hickory, and I'm telling you, this tree, they they they don't they don't start shedding and shagging their bark till I know some trees on East Campuses still haven't started shedding and they're 50, 60 years old.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:50

Oh wow, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:50

So this tree is a solid hundred years old.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:52

Man, uh whoever was the casting of the uh markers uh really really had a business going on here because there's a ton of them out here.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:04

There is, and honestly, I don't know of a cemetery in Nebraska that has more than Wayuca here in Nebraska City. Yeah, there is. That's what's going home to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:12

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:12

Right now, they're probably no good, unfortunately, being still green. I notice how I'm rolling in my hand. Yeah, I'm feeling if they're hollow inside. Okay, it probably has nut meat. Uh, and we'll know maybe we'll take find one more. We'll crack it on the ground and see if it's uh filled. There we go, there it is. He's rattling it in. Is it rolling inside there?

SPEAKER_04 1:27:31

Usually it's an interesting smell.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:33

It's got some weight to it, is what I'm after. That weight. Yeah, if it feels like a styrofoam peanut, it's hollow. Right. But and they have a distinct smell. You smell that? They do, they do. To me, it smells like a fine furniture store. Use the nose to identify plants, it helps. So cool. Your phone can't do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:50

It can't, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:52

Yet. All right, are we gonna we're out of here, man? Right on. Uh well, let's go. Uh Let's go uh let's go find some food. All right. Hey, I just want to thank the zoo bar for sponsoring the Slacker Dave Nebraska podcast. Pete, I want to thank you a lot for doing this. Uh I appreciate it. Tell people why they should come to the zoobar. I mean, where else are you gonna go? Upstead right there. All right. Thanks, Pete. Yeah, we're going straight in.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:24

Wow, no countdown.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:25

No countdown. I didn't set it up that way. Oh well. Uh so we're um we're finishing off the uh episode at the uh El Porto or El Porto, Mexican restaurant in Nebraska City. Should have looked up the address before we said that.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:44

Well, you know, they'll find it.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:48

Bobby and Bob's suggestion.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:49

Yeah. And any of you who have ever eaten here, you know why I suggested it, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:54

Um there's one in Waverly, too, I saw in the menu. And I think one in Aurora, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:59

Oh wow. Matt's off camera, so we had to choose. I wanted um I wanted those two on camera, and Matt said no, you two on camera. Uh so I mean, excellent day, Bob. Uh, this is a wonderful way to finish this off. Uh Nebraska City. Um when was uh do we have any idea, Matt, when Nebraska City was established? How early was it in the territory?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:29

Well, the cemetery was established in 1855.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:33

So you have to pretty much assume that that's about the time the town was established because people were dying pretty fast. But you know, Nebraska City was a hub of the trails from the 1860s on. And so all this stuff going to Fort Kearney and going out west to Wyoming and further west pretty much all came through Nebraska City. Cross the river here, then you hopped on the trail from 1862 to 1868, before there was a railroad through Nebraska. Everybody came through here to go out west on the Fort Kearney cutoff trail.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:04

You know, and funny you should mention that there's a place here in town called Old Freighters Museum that you can go to. And the reason I know about them is uh the folks there uh they got grant money from Plant, Nebraska. So there's stories like that all over the state of uh people saying, well, we want to do this, but and the butt was like we don't have the budget usually, right? To to get landscaping done, you know, because they're they're putting all their efforts to the inside of the building. But that that museum then, of course, recognizes that the freighters that stop there uh carrying their goods all the way across, you know. So like you say, Fort Kearney and whatnot.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:44

Yes. And the freighters, you know, that's they were teamsters, they drove teams of oxen pulling wagons.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:51

That's where the word teamsters come from for truck drivers.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:55

Um anyway, I could go on about Nebraska City, but I I don't want to if I you know you know it seems it just seems like one of those cities that had to be early right by the river.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:05

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:06

Um yeah. Um is there another river that comes by here or is it just the Missouri? Is there anything that is there a is there a not a major, I can't think of one.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:16

Yeah, you gotta go by Platmuth to get to where the flat comes.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:18

That's where the flat comes in.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:19

There's gotta be like Nimaha has to be pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:22

I don't know where the Nimaha dumps in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:23

You're right, you know. Because all the big cities are on the river. Yes. Except for Lincoln, Denver.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:30

Oh, you mean big cities?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:32

Big cities. I okay. I mean Chicago, yeah, New York. Yeah, I mean you got the Chicago River. Any of the big cities down through the south, you know, Pittsburgh, you know, all those are all there's always a river. St. Louis. I think Nashville. Yeah, I think there's a river by Nashville. I might be wrong on that one, but I'm not an expert on that.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:53

So there's no river through Lincoln, Nebraska.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:58

No, like uh, yeah. Uh yeah. Would what Basil say we just Lincoln just stole the state capitol thing?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:05

Uh he did say that. That's a little bit exaggerated.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:10

But uh, no, let's keep on track. We're we're going off the rails here.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:14

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:15

Hey, you know where we need to go, though. Uh one of the my favorite parts of your interviews is when you ask your guests. Oh, yeah. We haven't even asked Bob. We're gonna go. Oh, we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:24

This could take the next 20 minutes, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:27

So it will.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:30

So, first off, uh we're just gonna do a little Lincoln quick. Okay. Uh where uh where is your favorite restaurant and what are some of your favorite restaurants in Lincoln? Where if somebody's coming into Lincoln, where are you gonna suggest to go eat?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:45

Yeah, right. Uh and usually for me, it if I have a guest coming to Lincoln, it's somebody with a hot baby cutter.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:53

Oh, yeah. Oh, wait, look, um, I used to work at a restaurant. I grab it. It's just hot plate, so what do I do? Touch it. Thank you, sir.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:02

Well, okay, so love Mexican food. Here we are at El Portal, right? Yep, yeah. Gotta and well, anyway, so if people say, say maybe they're coming plant shopping, or it's like, hey, where should we go have lunch? I'll always send them to Super Taco.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:16

Oh, Super Taco. Uh Denora uh uh one time told me she approves of Super Taco. She says that's that's the that's a Mexican restaurant.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:26

You know, don't let the name fool you. I wish they'd have picked a more, you know, authentic style or something, but you know, don't be fooled. It's it's yeah, it's good, authentic Mexican food. And yeah, I yeah, that's probably that's probably my go-to. Uh, we certainly like when we're downtown, Pita and on. You know, gotta go support Pita Nan.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:44

Love their food and get a little that shaky, shaky.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:47

Yep, yep. And uh their uh their uh soup we really like, and uh oh gosh, what's Pat's go-to?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:57

But anyway, yeah, I would say those two. Uh uh uh what else? Uh drinking. Oh, where do I like go drinking? Yeah, if you're going out for an adult beverage, where are you gonna send somebody?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:09

Well, I'm not much of a drinker, so we don't we don't go out to drink just to sit around together.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:13

I don't drink at all, Bob.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:14

But but we go out, in other words, there's got to be music with it. So for us, it's Zoobar. Zoobar, baby. That's it. That's kind of it, really. I mean, we'll go to other ones if they have a band there. Right. But but that's it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:30

Tourist attraction. What's your favorite tourist attraction in Nebraska? Now you got the whole state.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:36

Well, wait, I want to do Lincoln first. Okay. Let's do Lincoln. What's your favorite tourist attraction in Lincoln? God, man, it's like I'm not very good at a very touristy guy. I don't know. I I know what Matt would probably say. Well, I it's gotta be the Capitol. That's what my guess was.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:51

Yeah. If somebody asked me the place to go, you gotta visit the Capitol because of just the artwork and just the architecture, it's just beautiful, right? I think it's a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:00

But when you asked me, I said Sheridan Boulevard. You said, yeah, he did, yeah. Because I just love that architect. I agree. I'm taking a walk down that street on a bike is what I was gonna suggest. I've done it. Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:11

So I call it biking for big trees. So I don't know. I'd go around with my bike and and have my backpack on, so I'd have my tape measure with me because I was always looking for a state champ. So I kind of scan the skyline to see for a big tree, right? And then you, like you say, you discover those neighborhoods that are like, wow, the homes beautiful, yeah, just beautiful area. And it's not just Sherida Boulevard, but a lot of a lot of neighborhoods around there, you know, Woodsdale and whatnot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:36

All right, and then a last Lincoln question, unless I figure another, I think of another one. Uh, where are you getting ice cream?

SPEAKER_02 1:35:44

Oh, wow, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm kind of sucker for nostalgia. I gotta go to Zesto's there. Zesto? Yeah, on Holdridge, or I'm sorry, on South Street.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:55

Um, yeah. Uh, and so uh you work on East Campus. So my I like to uh promote the greatest date night that you can have. Oh uh. Get to know date night, walk around, get some ice cream at the uh I've said it on the podcast before, get some ice cream at the dairy store. Yes, and then walk around that arborinum right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:15

You know, and like like if I could say my favorite ice cream store, A B. It's definitely uh the the uh dairy store on East Campus.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:26

Yeah, I agree. Matt, nor Matt or Sweet Basil had ever tried the sweet corn ice cream from the case.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:32

Oh wow, I haven't either, no, no. Oh my god, you guys are missing out. I know, man. It's like, but it's hard to bypass. I love their lemon custard, and I heard they brought it back.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:41

Oh, yeah, we were yeah, I mentioned that.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:43

Lemon custard with uh Juneberry rhubarb uh pie. Oh come on, man. Best on the planet.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:50

Not served in stores. I'll stop at the uh dairy store uh and come to your house, and uh you'll supply the Juneberry Juneberry rhubarb pie.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:59

Which one is Kay Young's more famous response?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:01

I was just gonna say, you know, I mentioned her earlier, Kay Young, but uh well, I guess it wasn't on the podcast, but I mean, uh, you know, I thought ever since I started this, I mean, I'm I would kill, you know. I mean, I got to interview her on your show one time. I was subbing, and Jill brought Kay Young to the show. Yeah, yeah, remember that. Uh tell uh we should talk about Kay Young for just a second here. Uh-huh. Uh give the people uh the rundown on Kay Young. If people people don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:34

Yeah, Kay Kay's got a lot more history to her than I'm gonna be able to provide as far as her importance to our state, in my opinion. But um, her and Roger Welsh were really tight. Roger Welsh, if you folks remember from Postcards from Nebraska and good friends. And Kay has been a longtime advocate of uh uh plants or medicine, you know, food is medicine. And so she actually wrote a book called Wild Seasons. You can find it, uh order it, and it's a good place to start for anybody interested in foraging. So uh she has this wild seasons where she goes through what you can harvest at the very beginning of the year and what's the last the last thing you're gonna be able to harvest. And I have a friend that tried to do every every plant she talked about being able to harvest and didn't make it, you know. And I said, You're gonna have a hard time getting every restaurant the first year. But yeah, great, great resource. She used to be the naturalist out at uh Chadager Nature Center there at uh Pioneers Park, long history of that, uh, and really I think her her uh background is in um like history, uh sociology, kind of like she did a lot of interviews with elders and yeah, yeah, yeah, like ethnobotany things. Uh yeah, uh for sure. Um yeah, that's why her Roger Ross were so tight, you know, and um certainly had the respect of Native American elders interviewing them, and she talks about a lot of that in her book. That foraging became more than just, oh, that's survival food, you know. To me, it makes uh a lot of it's five-star food. It's just a lot of folks don't realize that. It's tasty stuff, right? Not just good and good for you, you know, really healthy as well. So yeah, and she had the respect of the elders where they would talk to her about recipes that uh Native Americans would make, and that stuff started to make a comeback. There's even restaurants out there now.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:24

Oh, yeah, yep, yep. If you listen to KZM every day at seven o'clock, is the uh uh national native news. Uh, and there's a lot of uh uh they talk about restaurants, they talk about there's some ads for some chefs that have books.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:40

I think some James Beard Award-winning chefs out there now running those restaurants. And uh, you know, I what I appreciate about your intro that you did for Native Sounds, Native Voices is Wojapi. Wojopi. Wojopi, and I'm like, oh man, that that's quite a history to that word right there.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:58

Uh Dave is a sad boy right now because uh, you know, uh I've been a judge in the fry bread contest at the Lincoln Indian Club Pow Wow through Native Sounds Native Voices. It's not an official contest through the Pow Wow. We just decided we're going to judge fry bread and we make a thing about it, and we give awards away, and they have us come announce who wins and everything like that. Sad boy today, I mean, right now, because uh they announced that they're not having a powwow this year. I don't, I don't know. Wow. I don't know why. I don't I don't, I mean, I know I don't I I'm just too sad to even wonder why. It just I'm just sad because we don't get to do a primary contest this year. Speaking of Wo Shoppy, one you know, one of my favorite things. But I want to kind of get back. I'm gonna I'm gonna basil this up and we'll get back on track. And uh Matt, uh uh give us some give us some Nebraska City facts that you know that we can just drop on you and uh make you uh okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:02

Here's one for you. Did you know some of the streets in this town aren't called streets or avenues? They're called corsos.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:12

Did not know that.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:13

Yeah, eighth corso, seventh corso. So that's really on the street signs. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:18

I saw Corso on a street sign. I just thought it was the name of a street.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:22

No, corso is like a word for street.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:25

I think I don't know for sure, but I haven't researched it because the mystery is better than the solution, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:35

Um otherwise, um you caught me so off guard. I'm my my my brain is in food coma mode because I have been jamming this in my mouth. Watching you guys not eat while I have been eating and I have been loving every single bite. Every bite.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:55

He can't stop.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:56

He's like, yeah, it's so good. It's so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:59

All right. So, okay, let's leave that track.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:01

Let me uh the high school mascot, the pioneers, of course. Yeah, I think that's important to note. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:10

All right, I'm gonna put the lever down and move us back on a different track. Good. Uh uh, Bob, I don't care how many answers you have about this. You can say times of year, this, all this, but if someone's coming to Nebraska for a vacation and wants to see Nebraska, wants to do something cool in Nebraska, anywhere, anytime, where where are they going? Man. Where are you sending them?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:41

You know, okay, so if they if they if they don't mind driving, uh I'm gonna send them to a canoe down uh Niabrara River. You know, I'm gonna send them to Valentine area.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:52

We should be keeping track of these answers, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:55

Uh, and maybe get a cabin at Merritt Reservoir and uh take a trip down the uh down the Niabara the next day. Heck yeah, that's where I'd probably send them. If they're like going, I don't want to drive that bar. I'd say no, it doesn't we're not gonna be. I'd say you gotta go to Indian Cave State Park. All right, there we go. And if you're way out west, I'd say Shadown State Park.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:14

No, uh Shattern, you want to go springtime, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:43:19

When is the when is the springtime in the uh Yeah, if if I was to go there, I I don't think when is the western wildflower? Yeah, yeah, I would say a good time to go is early June to camp out there, um, you know, before it gets too hot and whatnot. But their nighttime in out west, their humidity is so much lower than than our area in the east. It's always gonna get cool at night, always gonna get in the 50s, um, beautiful uh evenings, you know, and humidity's probably a uh a 45 degree dew point out there where we're at sitting at 75. And they think it's humid, you know. You know, oh yeah, we think it's humid right now, they'll say what anyway. Yeah, I mean, if you've never been out there, the Pine Ridge, um, I love Fort Robinson. I love the history, and I'm a history nerd too. And if you ever camp at Fort Rob, you know, you stay in the officers' quarters, whatever, that's cool. And they got a restaurant there, and they've got a pool, they've got horseback riding, um, which is all cool. But I just love the hiking trails around there. There's a number of uh really um unknown uh hiking trails around Fort Robinson to take you back into the bluffs, which is a a special historic area, and their museum is top-notch. Um, in my opinion, one of the best museums in the state. I mean, we're pretty much four corners of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:36

Hex yeah. Thank you. Uh we're pretty much at three of the four corners. We got the the oaks in the like down by McCook. We got Fort Rob. Yes, Indian Cave, uh-huh, south, south Valentine. And then northeast, you got Ponka State Park, uh the Sioux City area. That's uh a whole different world. I mean, all four four corners of the state is something different and something amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:04

Exactly. Yeah, I agree. And Ponk is a great uh just camped there last year. Getting out of Lincoln on the 4th of July is always a good thing in my book.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:13

Um and no, I imagine your dog, knowing your dog, your dog doesn't care, does it? No, she just shrugs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your your dog. She's chill.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:22

Yeah, she's chill. And uh, in fact, if there's a loud boom, unexpected boom, I'll jump and the dog won't. You know, it's like ugh, you know, those half sticks of dynamite that people are blowing off five days before uh they should. Um, anyway, yeah. Um yeah, I love it for that. And I just love that area of Nebraska up a Ponka, you go up Sioux City. I think Sioux City's a nice town.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:46

Amanda and I had a great visit there. We took a weekend there, it was amazing. Yeah, nice town. Uh not Nebraska, but uh Amanda and I also took a weekend uh in St. Joe, Missouri. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:58

Yeah, that's a cool town.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:59

Oh, they have so many museums. I didn't we didn't even hit them all because I mean there's so many museums. Yeah, a lot of history.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:07

There's some well, speaking of the trails.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:10

River town.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:10

Yeah, that's that's where the trails had started west. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:15

St. Louis to St.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:16

Joe and But yeah, you've nailed them pretty much all, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:22

Yeah, I think so. You know, uh central Nebraska. I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:27

I see.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:27

Oh I don't know. We got the same.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:29

I love going, I love it. We got the cranes. We got the cranes.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:32

Yeah, you gotta do the cranes. I think everybody in Nebraska, okay. Here's a quick story off the rail. Um You're learning, you're learning. So I took I took uh ornithology in college. I was a wildlife major, uh, not even a horticulture major, but got bit by the horticulture bug. But anyway, so I took ornithology in college and the great uh Paul Johnsgarde, who wrote like 50 books, most prolific author in Nebraska history, period. Um so I was fortunate enough to take his ornithology class before he retired. And one of the uh we had a Saturday field trip. So imagine being a college student and your your Saturday class started at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday morning. Oh, it's when the birds are out. Well, anyway, this this trip was a trip to see the Sand Hill Cranes. We left Lincoln that morning, and I remember I was in shorts and a t-shirt because it was a record high of 81 degrees in Lincoln that day. But being a college student, I didn't pay attention to the forecast. Front's moving in. By the time we were looking out of the blinds at sunset, there was snow spitness in the face. So I don't know if the goosebumps were from that or from what I was witnessing, because it I'm literally under my breath saying to myself, I get it now. This is what all the hoop is about. Because if you're just driving out there, sitting in your car on a gravel road watching them dance out in the field, I'm sorry, it ain't gonna cut it for you. You you need to rent space in a blind, do it, and just hope that they because they don't always roost in the same spot every night. He estimated around 70,000 birds in front of us, so they were coming in all different directions and that that cool, you know, prehistoric call that they have from all different directions. It was loud, it was it was just crazy, and I had never seen anything like that. It was truly a wildlife spectacle. Have you seen the morning and the evening? This was an evening, so I haven't seen a morning. More I I think, but I think I'd prefer the evening because they're coming in. It's like like who made the call going, uh, yeah, we're landing over uh 100 yards uh down right from there. Meet us there at the crossways. Like, how do they get all the information out to their buddies? Because they're coming in from all different directions, you know, groups of 15, groups of 20, group, you know, hundred, whatever. And and all kind of just circling and descending on down. Yeah, I just think that's really cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:50

Oh man. I mean, I but I've heard the morning when they're waking up. Yeah and they start singing and dancing. Yeah, it would be cool, too. Yeah, it would be but there again, Dave.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:59

So picture the last day. I don't want to say the last day when they all leave because they're not all leaving at once. Okay, so they're roosting overnight, let's say 50,000 strong in this area. And who's the leader that says, Today is the day? We head to Alaska. Okay. It's like uh it's March 24th, so I think it's high time we get out of here. Yeah, who makes the call? I think it's entertaining to that wondrous pageantry of nature.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:26

Oh man. Yeah. Well, uh Matt, stick your head over. Can you get in here a little bit? I don't know. You want to have the uh the food's amazing. The food's just amazing. Uh Matt's Matt's done with his. Yeah, there's the food. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:45

He's got one bite left.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:47

I saved the sour cream until the last.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:49

Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Um, this has been great. Thank you guys for going on. This is gonna be a long one. Thank you, Dave. Uh, thanks, Pat, and Kim uh putting up with uh putting up with this.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:02

They love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:03

Yeah, but all right, uh hey, uh hey, will you put that button for me? Be excellent to each other. Party on kids. Adios, we should be able to do this.