Autumn Nuts Like Me

 As I wander about in the Autumn, I stuff my pockets with acorns, hazelnuts and whatever seed that catches my attention with the goal of growing a tree. Some particularly magnificent trees, I admire enough to collect a dozen or so seeds in order to cast them onto other sites. I am sure to carefully choose places where other like trees are growing with the thought of preserving and spreading the mother tree's genetics.  I fully understand that the odds are against the seed ever reaching maturity and here's the reason why - squirrels.

Oh sure we are all told as small tots that birds, deer and squirrels are helpers as they disperse seeds near and far. The ugly truth is however, that a squirrel will choose the one nut that you cherish from thousands of others and that will be the one he cracks. I know this to be fact because I have finally learned how to outwit the beast under very controlled conditions. Well to be perfectly honest, I have outwitted them on one occasion and that was more than ten years ago now. You know, that if you really consider a squirrel, you will find that they are in reality little more a furry rat that raids our birdfeeders.

And so it was that I had my eye on a Black Walnut tree growing along 142 behind the school. I thought it would be an easy task to grow one myself and so brought a nut home and popped it in the produce drawer of my fridge. Wayne thought that I had gone nuts every time he wanted an apple from the fridge. When it was time, I brought it out to the garage, potted it and waited for spring. It was thieved right out of my garage. The next Autumn, I potted several nuts right away, sunk them in the ground and covered them with chicken wire. The plastic pots were gnawed through and the nuts pillaged. After a couple more Autumns of trying, I finally managed to sprout one tree by potting it in a clay pot, wrapping the entire pot with chicken wire and completely burying it. Who I ask you, Is the nut now?

These days my tree is taller than our roof and I spend time each summer digging out or cutting down Black Walnut saplings growing in my rhododendrons, planter boxes, blackberries, up through my deck boards... I am positive that had we not put on a chimney cap, I would have trees growing in there too. Here is some sage advice, never never never cross a squirrel for they and their hoards of relatives will spend the rest of their days exacting revenge! "Oh so you want a Black Walnut do you? Well here are five thousand more nuts buried in your snow blower!"

This year I am attempting to grow Shagbark Hickory (again).

                                                           American  Chestnut (hybrid?)

                                          

                                                               Horse Chestnut

    

                                                                    Shagbark Hickory

    

                                                                      Black Walnut

    

                                                                    Red Oak

                                                                       Black Oak

                        A Common gray squirrel peers down on me planning its revenge!

Sadly, this year I missed finding the Beechnuts and Butternuts before the squirrels, bear, deer and birds got to them. The American Filberts (Hazelnut) that I planted last Autumn are still too young to produce nuts. That leaves the White Oak which I am certain to find on the forest floor before winter snows cover them. For someone who is allergic to tree nuts, I'll admit that it is a strange hobby to be collecting nuts and planting nut trees; but our wildlife depend on Autumn nuts to survive our Vernon Winters. -Norma Manning                                                                   

    

                                                                       

25 Foot Tall American Chestnut

I seem to have accidentally stumbled onto a theme of chestnut trees here; but how could I resist letting readers know that I think that we found a hard boiled egg at the chicken farm?

Wayne and I hiked in the town forest today looking for Eastern Mountain Laurel in bloom and stumbled upon another "stand" of American Chestnut. I put the word stand in quotes because the saplings will in all probability succumb to Chestnut Blight.  A few trees however can survive to be between fifteen and twenty feet tall and produce nuts before they die.  For most, "The blight kills the above ground portion of the trees, but the root system can survive and form new sprouts" -LEAF The American Chestnut: Extinct or Returning These are the chestnut rings that I wrote about in, "Doesn't it Look Like a Banana."

Wayne and I had previously found a small American Chestnut tree in the town forest and so have kept a lookout for a possible mother tree on subsequent visits there and in the adjacent Roaring Brook Wildlife Refuge.  That's as much information as I can give you on the location of these trees as it is not allowed to share the exact locations of rare and endangered species.

The tree that we found today, Wayne estimates to be between 20 and 25 feet tall. I plan on revisiting the tree in late summer to see if any nuts have developed and if so, I will visit again around the first frost as that is when the nuts drop to the ground.

It's important to note that Chestnut Blight is easily transmitted. If you do locate an American chestnut tree, please do not touch it if you have been in contact with other chestnut trees. I was informed by forester Corey Keeffe that he cleans his tools between trees with Lysol spray to help prevent disease transmission. I sprayed my shoes when I got home today. Even with the greatest care, it is likely that this tree will soon die as blight resistant trees are rare.

Reference - I am 5'9"

Tree base

Just above the base 

American Chestnut in center of photograph

Doesn't it Look Like a Banana?

Sometimes when wandering about in nature you encounter a heart stopping moment that has nothing to do with smacking face first into the web of a Black and Yellow Garden Spider. I was so excited about this possible find that I didn't dare confess to Wayne exactly what it was that I thought that I had found for fear that I had gotten it wrong. "Look at this long banana leaf, doesn't it look like a banana?" I don't even know what that means, bananas don't grow in the town forest I silently scolded myself.

Honestly I was unprepared for how excited I was; but it felt like that time I was eating church breakfast in the basement of St Rose of Lima church in South Hero when Governor Jim Douglas and Dorthy Foster walked in and sat down with my family to eat Red Flannel Hash. I just don't know how it is that Wayne remained composed while I went all paparazzi on that banana leaf. "Do you know what this is? Do you see any more?" I asked Wayne who speculated that we were looking at an American Beech. "Beech tree leaves are wider in the middle" I informed him. I desperately wanted to slam dunk my identification, however I hadn't a clue what the difference was between  American Beech bark and American Chestnut bark. We had some discussion about it as we continued on the trail and it went like this; every time I saw a Beech I pointed to it and said there's a Beech, there's a Beech, see the bark that's a Beech, that leaf is wider in the middle, it's a Beech.

Now I knew that there used to be American Chestnuts in the town forest because I went on a guided tour into the Black Gum swamps last fall when the guide announced that she had heard that there was a Chestnut ring near the area where we were standing. Like Scouts who had just failed their hiking badge test, the entire lot of us went off trail in search of the ring. I'm not entirely sure that we found it; but it was a lot like hunting for a hard boiled egg at a chicken farm. Speaking of finding treasure, Wayne thought that it would be nice to take the State Line Trail and lo and behold that is where we once again bumped into Karen Saunders who is a scientist with Antioch College and studies the swamps up there. I didn't immediately recognize her as she was carrying different instruments than the last two times I met her. I inquired about her tools which turned out to be depth rods and she told me that the deepest swamp she had found thus far is the State Line Swamp (she dubbed it that) at 19 feet. She said that the upper and lower swamps though purported to be deeper, she had measured at 12 feet. Slyly now, I worked my leaf photograph into the conversation after learning that the swamps are located in troughs created by upright rock that predates the glaciers. I queried, "Could it be that the swamps are filling in with dead trees, and oh hey speaking of trees look at this picture." With that Karen both confirmed a tree on my bucket list and then dumped it back out by adding that it was the big mature trees that they are interested in. The little ones like in my picture wouldn't survive due to the blight.

Karen showed us a neat trick, she explained that on the Beech, the underside of the leaf's base is hairy while the Chestnut's is not. With all of this information, the next time I venture into the forest, I'm bringing my binoculars and looking for a mother tree. In the meantime I'm going to do a better job of my homework and find out more about this rare and once queen of our forest. One last note, if you think that you have been in contact with an American Chestnut, take every precaution to not transfer the blight from one tree to another. - Norma Manning

American Chestnut Comeback? CBS This Morning

The American Chestnut Foundation Note there is a VT chapter that can be accessed through this link

Karen Saunders of Antioch College with depth rods

By 1920 Chestnut  Blight fungus had decimated the mature tree population

Elongated toothed leaves

The American Chestnut is a member of the Beech family

The American Chestnut can reach 100 feet and live 300 years

Shoe Trees part three: Who or what decides?

Vernon is a working landscape. We have multiple generational dairy farms as well as backyard farms, seasonal operations such as sugaring, stone quarries, railroad, hydroelectric dam, a mulch company,  logging, a large neighboring lumber industry and the growing presence of eco tourism. With each of these industries, decisions have been made as to how best utilize our resources.

 I'm sure that over the four hundred years at Black Gum Swamps, more than a few close calls were had in the name of progress, commodity, home heating as well natural causes such as fire, disease and changing environment.

A short hike up Black Gum Swamps' red trail reveals American Chestnut rings where mature trees once graced the swamp's landscape. Did these valuable trees fall victim to the blight, age or logging? Is it possible with careful management to restore the stand?

Last Autumn I was with a group of naturalists touring the swamps when the leader requested that no participant who had been in contact with chestnuts previously, approach the rings for fear of transferring the blight. This group seemed more excited about the rings than the Black Gums Vernon is so famous for.

Though the pictures of trees I take today may seemingly lack the romance of others found in or once found in Vernon, I can't help but wonder if our maples, ash and hemlocks without purposeful intervention, will someday go the way of the American Chestnut and American Elm.  With the Asian Long- horned Beetle, Emerald Ash Borer, Woolly Adelgid, land use pressures and climate change, one thing is certain, the foresight of our community members to conserve Black Gum Swamps and our town forest was wise, but will it be enough?

Wouldn't that be a shame if in twenty years shoes hung from our Sugar Maples instead of taps? - Norma Manning

Sapline running to a collection barrel on Huckle Hill