Hi, all you cool people!

A few months ago, I elected to spend another 45 minutes with my sisters visiting from Wisconsin, taking them to the Asheville Airport instead of staying home and supervising the felling of a widow-maker locust tree out back. My bad. I’d intended that it would be simply felled, and later I’d have somebody split it for fencing, but instead it got cut up into useless 4’ lengths.

Those “posts” are still stacked up out there; apparently they are of no use to anyone, as I’ve offered them to friends and even posted it on the local online community bulletin board. Locust wood is famous for not rotting, so they’re going to be there for a long, long, long time.

I have lots of trees of all types back there. My knowledge of trees is somewhat limited, but I’ve made a point of learning leaf shapes and trunk heights/diameters, and what I can actually do something about - for instance, get rid of all the black walnut trees (except one, so I’ll still get those delicious nuts), because they - although native - are invasive and toxic and kill whatever is trying to grow beneath them. Even if you cut down a black walnut, the toxic roots continue to poison the ground below its canopy.

I remember my neighbor Daisy Renfro out in Higgins telling me 30 years ago that nothing would grow under a black walnut. She didn’t give a scientific explanation for it, but it is local folklore and it’s true.

So - and this is what I don’t understand - there are dozens of honey locust seedlings/saplings growing out back! Aside from the one that got cut down, there was only one other honey locust back there, with saplings growing out of a long exposed root. Whatever Mother Nature’s system is, it’s working.

One feature of the honey locust is that the limbs have spikes on them. The beautiful rounded leaves might lead you to think only what a sweet-looking and sweet-named tree it is, but =ouch!= gotta watch it.

Honey locusts love the sun, and pollinators love honey locusts, so I plan to girdle all but one of the useless black walnut trees in order to give the honey locusts the sun they need. Woodpeckers and other birds will continue to use them as they age in place.

I’d heard sometime back that the honey locusts have some problem that kills them off once they’ve gotten about 20’ tall, but even then they are prized for being virtually indestructible fence rails - you’ll see them all over Yancey County, including quite a few in town. It’s possible there are so many back there now because a couple of years after I’d bought the parcel in back, I had it mostly cleared.

That cleared debris is still racked up on my side of the lot line between me and the adjacent neighbors - ground-nesting birds have colonized it, and the deer pass from my neighbor Terri’s yard into mine through a very narrow gap where our fence lines meet.

My neighbor Shane keeps 10’ wide paths mowed back there, and I try to walk the paths at least once a day. I regularly and inadvertently scare off a doe who apparently lives back there; I’ll be looking at the ground in front of me in case there are new morels or other mushrooms (or glass shards from debris thrown back there from decades ago), and I’ll hear her “blow” and take off down into Jimmy Ray’s field. I really would like to think I’m Snow White (minus dwarfs) and the wildlife would not run off when they see me. Oh, well.

Until Friday, I’m dog-sitting a big white Husky named “Winter,” speaking of cool things. He’s very laid back, and lives to go for walks (something my dogs will not willingly do). So, I‘ve been getting up at 6:45 to walk him uptown to check my bulletin board (except this morning, when I somehow slept through my alarm).

Yesterday morning, Winter and I trekked to the bulletin board, and on our way back up North Main, just across from what used to be the fire department, we saw a black rabbit! I didn’t know such a thing existed - it was soooo cool. It was in the road, but hopped to the sidewalk in front of us and up the hill right where that chain-link fence runs up, holding in a forest of kudzu, Oriental bittersweet, English ivy, Virginia creeper, and all kinds of nuisance invasives. Later, I did an online search for black rabbits, and only came up with breeds that are pets. But still . . .

The last cool thing for today is a fabulous thunder-boomer that rolled in about an hour ago, and for once, I actually put ON some clothes today.

There may have been more cool things to relate, but it’s time for some MidSomer Murders and a little Kimmel or Colbert.

xox

Lucy