some of our buckthorn
Photo by J. Harrington
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While we're at it, in case the topic is of any interest to any of you, here's a list of some resources on buckthorn management:
- Buckthorn Solutions
- BUCKTHORN REPLACEMENT PLANTS
(extra points for quoting Margaret Atwood) - MNDNR Buckthorn
- MNDNR Alternative plantings for buckthorn
- Friends of the Mississippi River buckthorn removal
would black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) be a beneficial replacement?
Photo by J. Harrington
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When we first started, we hadn't thought much about what to use as replacement plants. That selection process is becoming a continuing education effort. Buckthorn as a lifetime learning motivator seems like a new angle. Plus, we're fortunate that we can usually burn a brush pile (after chasing out the occupants, of course) for several months of the year.
The tree in front, that we though might be an actual buckthorn tree is dropping fruit these days. Dark purple, but with one hard pit, rather than about three seeds, means it's cherry, not buckthorn. This discovery now has us thinking that the large tree behind the house might (we stress might) be another cherry surrounded by buckthorn bushes. We'll pull the bushes and observe more carefully before we have the tree taken down. We are actually learning to pay more attention to details and to, as the old saying goes, "measure twice, cut once."
If we manage to use this as an opportunity to develop some patience and longer term perspective, we might actually have to admit that coping with invasive species isn't all bad, just annoying and less fun than fly-fishing.
Autumn Psalm
A full year passed (the seasons keep me honest)since I last noticed this same commotion.Who knew God was an abstract expressionist?I’m asking myself—the very questionI asked last year, staring out at this arrayof racing colors, then set in motionby the chance invasion of a Steller’s jay.Is thiswhat people mean by speed of light?My usually levelheaded mulberry treehurling arrows everywhere in sight—its bow: the out-of-control Virginia creepermy friends say I should do something about,whose vermilion went at least a full shade deeperat the provocation of the upstart blue,the leaves (half green, half gold) suddenly hyperin savage competition with that red and blue—tohubohu returned, in living color.Kandinsky: where were you when I needed you?My attempted poem would lie fallow a year;I was so busy focusing on the desert’sstinginess with everything but rumor.No place even for the spectrum’s introverts—rose, olive, gray—no pigment at all—and certainly no room for shameless braggartslike the ones that barge in here every falland make me feel like an unredeemed failureeven more emphatically than usual.And here they are again, their fleet allurestill more urgent this time—the desert’s gone;I’m through with it, want something fuller—why shouldn’t a person have a little fun,some utterly unnecessary extravagance?Which was—at least I think it was—God’s planwhen He set up (such things are never left to chance)that one split-second assignationwith genuine, no-kidding-around omnipotencewhat, for lack of better words, I’m calling vision.You breathe in, and, for once, there’s something there.Just when you thought you’d learned some resignation,there’s real resistance in the nearby airuntil the entire universe is swayed.Even that desert of yours isn’t quite so bareand God’s not nonexistent; He’s just been waylaidby a host of what no one could’ve foreseen.He’s got plans for you: this red-gold-green paradeis actually a fairly detailed outline.David never needed one, but he’s long deadand God could use a little recognition.He promises. It won’t go to His headand if you praise Him properly (an autumn psalm!Why didn’t Ithink of that?) you’ll have it made.But while it’s true that my Virginia creeper praises Him,its palms and fingers crimson with applause,that the local breeze is weaving Him a diadem,inspecting my tree’s uncut gold for flaws,I came to talk about the way that violet-bluesprang the greens and reds and yellowsinto action: actual motion. I swear it’s truethough I’m not sure I ever took it in.Now I’d be prepared, if some magician flewinto my field of vision, to realignthat dazzle out my window yet again.It’s not likely, but I’m keeping my eyes openthough I still wouldn’t be able to explainprecisely what happened to these vines, these trees.It isn’t available in my tradition.For this, I would have to be Chinese,Wang Wei, to be precise, on a mountain,autumn rain converging on the trees,a cassia flower nearby, a cloud, a pine,washerwomen heading home for the day,my senses and the mountain so entirely in tunethat when my stroke of blue arrives, I’m ready.Though there is no rain here: the air’s shot throughwith gold on golden leaves. Wang Wei’s so giddyhe’s calling back the dead: Li Bai! Du Fu!Guys! You’ve got to see this—autumn sun!They’re suddenly hell-bent on learning Hebrewin order to get inside the celebration,which explains how they wound up where they arein my university library’s squashed domain.Poor guys, it was Hebrew they were looking for,but they ended up across the aisle from Yiddish—some Library of Congress cataloger’s sense of humor:the world’s calmest characters and its most skittishsquinting at each other, head to head,all silently intoning some version of kaddishfor their nonexistent readers, one side’s dead(the twentieth century’s lasting contribution)and the other’s insufficiently learnedto understand a fraction of what they mean.The writings in the world’s most spoken languageacross from one that can barely get a minyan.Sick of lanzmen,the yiddenare trying to engagethe guys across the aisle in some conversation:How, for example, do you squeeze an imageinto so few words,respectfully asks Glatstein.Wang Wei, at first, doesn’t understand the problembut then he shrugs his shoulders, mumbles Zen... but, please, I, myself, overheard a poem,in the autumn rain, once, on a mountain.How do you do it? I believe it’s called a psalm?Glatstein’s cronies all crack up in unison.Okay, groise macher,give him an answer.But Glatstein dons his yarmulke (who knew he had one?)and starts the introduction to the morning prayer,Pisukei di zimrah,psalm by psalm.Wang Wei is spellbound, the stacks’ stale airsuddenly a veritable balmand I’m so touched by these amazing goings-onthat I’ve forgotten all about the autumnstaring straight at me: still alive, still golden.What’s gold, anyway, compared to poetry?a trick of chlorophyll, a trick of sun.True. It was something, my changing treewith its perfect complement: a crimson vine,both thrown into panic by a Steller’s jay,but it’s hard to shake the habit of digression.Wandering has always been my people’s waywhether we’re in a desert or narration.It’s too late to emulate Wang Weiand his solitary years on that one mountainthough I’d love to say what I set out to sayjust once. Next autumn, maybe. What’s the occasion?Glatstein will shout over to me from the bookcase(that is, if he’s paying any attention)and, finally, I’ll look him in the face.Quick. Out the window, Yankev. It’s here again.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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