The drop-off circle drive has been established around the tower; the compost and brush piles are behind the Red Cedar Trees on the north end of the property. Where the corn maze was, is now Run the Rabbit. We have been fortunate to have volunteer extraordinaire, John Miller create for us, some very popular attractions in recent years with his agricultural wizardry. The rabbit maze is made from soybeans. The grass field East of Tower Hill has had a small circle cut into the tall grass as seen on the left.

Fall Harvest Festival

I have only one photo this year related to the fall festival and reminds me that in those years, we let the grass grow in the East field, but needed to use it during the festival. The solution was to mow it right before (someone donated their time and equipment for this task in exchange for the hay bales.)

In 1997 we talked about a Master Plan Element called the service building which is the red dot. We built the Head House in a different location and used it for a service building. This year we are going to build a new service building, which we will call the Barn. It is going in this spot called for in the Master Plan

Funding for the Barn comes from three grants; Leighty Fund with the Community Foundation for $1,000, the Waterloo Hotel/Motel Tax Fund for $10,000, the Black Hawk Gaming Commission for $42,000 and private donations totaling $10,000.

Here is how it happened:

Rock Garden

From meeting notes of the planning and operations committee, we learn:

This space had been called the Alpine Garden but the group of volunteers that care for it decided a more appropriate designation would be the Rock Garden. They will be incorporating various types of ground cover and succulents as well as making a stepping stone path.

Tree Collection

A sub-committee was established to re-inventory the trees and update the entire collection database. The existing record for the tree collection was a computer disk that had an inventory for 1996-2003. This record used d-base software, which is somewhat difficult to use. The new record is an X-cell spreadsheet and is current through the present day.

Benches

One on-going project for several years is the creation and repair of our Leopold benches thanks to John Miller.

The gardens are always a joy to see each year they seem new and exciting and even though things are constantly changing, there is a peace and serenity that overtakes me whenever I view the Arboretum

We have moved into a new Barn and the Head House is looking pretty empty

Not a lot of information in the archives for this year but for those of you that have read about or experienced that first year of planting trees on the wet and blustery day here is a photo to contemplate.

My how you have grown Sesquicentennial Forest