"finding our place on the planet"

Every once in a while, one of Life's little ironies reaches out and trips us. Sometimes nothing actually changes except our perception. Today was one of those times for us.

There is an absolutely wonderful book by French author Jean Giono, titled The Man Who Planted Trees. We've read it several times and have often thought about the pleasures of a simple, focused life, oriented around the restoration of a place through tree planting. Such seemed beyond our reach.

backyard buckthorn

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier today it occurred to us, as we were researching shrubs to plant in lieu of the buckthorn we're pulling that, if we substitute pulling buckthorn for planting trees, we can live a life similar to that of the man who planted trees. This realization, and some of the lessons related to distinguishing buckthorn from the black cherry trees and seedlings on the property, is helping us also learn just how much attention we need to pay to minimize the mistakes could make by unnecessarily cutting down a cherry tree because we (mis)identified it as overdeveloped buckthorn.

nearby wild serviceberry

Photo by J. Harrington

While we're on the theme of pulling and replacing buckthorn, we'll share the tidbit that the Minnesota DNR's list of deer-resistant shrubs doesn't seem to have any overlap with their list of shrubs to replace buckthorn. Sigh! So, the other two constraints we're looking at are sandy, well drained soils and a moderate to very shady site. One the plus side, we'd like to be able to forage fruit from whatever we plant.

At the moment, we're leaning heavily toward juneberries (serviceberries) and/or chokecherries. One reference suggested nannyberries which we'll consider if we can find references to use in any foraging guides. We're also contemplating the fact that there's wild serviceberry bushes just down the road, so either the local deer herd doesn't find them that tasty or ours will just be one more cluster in the forest.

It's a pleasant feeling to think we've made some progress this week and that we're engaged in a process more than a project or series of projects. We're actually following Gary Snyder's advice to:

“Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.”

For the Children

Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
The steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

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