Dear Blog Reader.
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. It has been a while since I have set down to a blank screen and a blank brain. Most of the time the posts have marinated in my brain for several days. Certain lines and phrases have assembled themselves and been edited for maximum literary impact. The goal by the time I get to the blank page is to stitch those lines and phrases together into a semi-coherent essay.
Is it any wonder that my brain is blank? I am sure that several of your brains are blank too. We are at the end of February; at the end of a weird winter; a little cold, a little warm, very little snow. We were fortunate. We watched as blizzards went to our north and to our south, lining up to hit those out east or last week, our neighbors to the North. Like all winters, it has doing its best to sandblast my mind. The weather isn't the only problem. How many dark winter nights can you scroll through your Facebook "newsfeed" without some mental atrophy? You sit there scrolling cursing your cat because it doesn't do any tricks that are viral worthy. That kind of mindless pursuit is going to leave a scar. It is going to scour you blank.
I have found signs and portents of relief on the horizon. I was out in the pasture field yesterday. Sharritt land has 180 acres of tillable farm land and 30 acres of permanent pasture. Permanent pasture is an old time farm term. Back before farming evolved (or is that devolved) into corn and beans, farms had wet spots that wouldn't support a tractor and plow, or hills that tractors would tip over crushing the farmer. Yes, farming had limits. There were places where no farmer could go. Farmers, being practical, didn't try to go where they couldn't. They simply put a fence around those spots and put their cows, sheep or horses out there. Sharritt land has 30 of those acres.
Permanent pasture has several advantages. The tractor and the plow don't get stuck in bogs and the tractor doesn't fall on top of you. If managed correctly, a permanent pasture can provide the farm with meat, milk, even eggs for years on end. A cow can eat the tall grass in the wet spots and can eat the grass on the side of a hill without falling on top of you. Permanent pasture does take some management though. Nature left in a natural state long enough will return to its intended state. Indiana's natural state is timberland.
I find it amazing that 200 years ago Indiana was covered in trees. There may have been some prairie and grassland on the western edge but our natural habitat is woodlands. Our farming ancestors went out every morning with an ax and started chopping. That is a lot of chopping to clear the millions upon millions of acres in Indiana. Those trees don't return when plowed under every year or when hit with a dose of herbicide. However at the edge of those fields where the plowshare can't reach, in the fence rows the trees make their comeback. In the permanent pasture, where the plowshare never treads and for me, herbicide is never sprayed, the trees come marching back. It takes constant vigilance.
Constant vigilance isn't a hallmark of Sharritt leadership. I believe that we have a secret desire to see the wilderness win. The problem is the first rank of wilderness invaders is represented by the honey locust. In a field of lush spring grass a cow is not very discerning between a blade of grass and a two inch oak sapling. So while the cows are running amok, no wilderness is creeping back. Nature figured out a work around. It sends in the honey locust. A short lived tree with enormous large thorns come in and teach the cows a lesson. The cow takes a bite. The cow moos and moves on. The thorn tree survives that first year. Over the years they invite their friends and provide enough cover for the maples, oaks and walnuts to get established. As these bullies of the tree world spring up and blot out the sun from their lesser thorny brethren, the honey locusts fade away. The dominant trees shoulder their way into the sunlight until Abe Lincoln shows up with his ax fresh from Kentucky to spend his formative boyhood years cutting trees into split rail fences to section off the permanent pasture from the cornfield.
As I mentioned, constant vigilance isn't a Sharritt hallmark. This is the second time that the honey locusts have nearly made permanent inroads into our pastureland. Forty-three years ago, my father and grandfather marshaled forces to nearly clean out the pasture. I still remember being sent out as a ten year old with 5 gallons of diesel fuel and a book of matches to finish burning heaps of felled thorn trees during the winter on Saturday mornings. I know that you are shocked. A 10 year old with 5 gallons of diesel fuel and a book of matches with no adult supervision on January, Saturday mornings, it was paradise. To think that we don't even trust 25 year olds with their own health insurance these days. The decline of civilization is upon us.
Yes, you read correctly. My grandfather and father nearly cleared the pasture of thorn trees. They may have left 20 on a hill a quarter mile away from the house. The weather turned. It was time to build fences in that 2 weeks between ground thaw and planting I time. Those tress were left until the following winter when there would be plenty of time to wipe them out. That winter never arrived and the thorn trees have steadily marched their way across the valley. Taking 43 years to reach the back door again. So, I have got out the tree girdler and started working my way back. I don't have the time or the energy to attack them all at once. In order to keep a honey locust from growing back out of the same stump with four new trunks, you have to use a pretty heavy duty herbicide. It is the hydra of the tree world. Cut one head off and four grow back.
I could glove up and use protective gear, but as I mentioned earlier constant vigilance isn't a Sharritt hallmark. Before you know it I would be using the same cup that I measured out the herbicide to get a drink of water. It is just who I am. I read someplace that you could girdle a thorn tree. It would die. The roots would die. No suckers would branch off of the trunk. The thorns would decay on the trunk and the bark would slake off within two years. By utilizing a little patience the lumberjack experience would be vastly improved. I have decided to give it a try. So yesterday on a lovely late February afternoon, I was out girdling thorn trees. While I was out there stripping an inch wide strip of bark and cambium layer off, I noticed that the multi-flora rose had broken its dormancy. It's stems were turning green and the start of buds were appearing.
We are still a long way off from spring. There are still snow flurries in our future. However, the flock of robins in my front yard toward evening yesterday let me know that with a little vigilance on our part, this too shall pass.
Take care.
Roger
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