| <div class="ck-content"><h3>Fall is falling (the leaves, that is)</h3><p>Hiking with the dogs in Brumley last week, I glance down and noticed the lovely but muted colors of the leaf on the left. Turned it over and my eyes popped wide with delight. </p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1M-0EKp9xAO6quPbfwRA_6Wqogv1QUb0l&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE"></div><p>I enjoy lots of human art, but am convinced that we would feel much less of a need to create our own art (and consume precious, formerly living parts of nature to do so) if we spent more time outdoors and could appreciate the beauty that is our natural world.</p><h3>Elon U students tear into wisteria</h3><p>Every single tree rescue (aka, invasive removal event) I do with volunteers is special and impactful. But some really stand out. Generally, the events with students, university and/or high school, are my favorite, because I get to work with young people, and hopefully inspire them to heal our planet their whole lives.</p><p>And then very once in a while, we have a very special time together. That's how I felt about my second outing with students from Elon University on October 7th. Their teacher, Amanda, invited me to come back out for a different class this year. I readily agreed.</p><p>Amanda did a site visit with Zach, the park manager, a few weeks in advance. They identified some privet down by the creek, and small ailanthus (Tree of Heaven) in the pasture. From my last time there, I knew that the park was generally in really great condition (compared to many that I worked in). I wanted to make sure we'd have lots for the students to do, so I arrived 45 minutes early on Monday and did my own scouting expedition.</p><p>Tried to get down to the creek to check out the privet, but as Amanda warned me, the mosquitos where <i>intense</i> - and intensely interested in me - so I didn't even bother pushing through. There was no way I was going to inflict them on my volunteers. So I turned away and up, walked the trails….and could not find very many invasives, including any of those small ailanthus. This is great news, right? Right!</p><p>But still….well, I discussed the situation with Amanda, and we just decided we'd start hiking up to the field (where Zack had pointed out ailanthus that I could not find) and we'd sort things out along the way. Anyway, there was always stilt grass. :-) But even that was not so bad here.</p><p>Really, I should have known better. There are <i>always</i> invasives, once you look closely enough. We'd barely gotten 100 feet from the parking lot, when Amanda reminded me about the little mimosas (ie, 6 inches tall) growing right next to the trail. So we stopped and I pointed the out, and as I did, realized that there were dozens and dozens of them. A perfect demonstration of how invasives spread.</p><p>I put the students to work, scouring the forest floor, pulling up the baby mimosas. Some were big enough to need a cut-and-paint job. Along the way, we found some wonderful mushrooms and, best of all, baby white oak trees. Which gave me the opportunity to wax poetic on how important white oaks are in our ecosystems, how many other species they provide homes and food for. </p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1mqo1jxVQx6uBrdDoUNAFustH-vj51Lh7&sz=w400-h600" alt="white oak"></div><p>Once we'd pulled 100 or so baby invasive trees, we continued up the trail, reveling in so many lovely native trees (hackberries, pines, red and white oaks, maples, sourwoods, beeches), and then we came to the field where the ailanthus were supposed to be. It was nice and sunny, and the pasture was thriving - but there no ailanthus to be seen. Amanda finally found a small mimosa amidst the grasses and wildflowers, and decided <i>that's</i> what she and Zack had seen - not ailanthus. In any case, we weren't going to have the students flogging their way through thick prairie to find little mimosas. Nope.</p><p>So we decided to head back down towards the parking lot and pull stilt grass. Fortunately, instead of taking the trail back, we walked down along a wide access road likely used by park management. I was doing my usual hunt for mushrooms when I realized I was looking at a small wisteria plant. I called everyone to take a look, saying “This is really bad. The wisteria will spread through the understory and cover trees. We should pull them up before they get well established.”</p><p>And as I said that, I looked around and realized that in fact the wisteria <i>was</i> well-established already, and there were thick vines running along the ground, out into the understory away from the trail. So I showed everyone how you can start pulling up the vine, and follow it along the forest floor, pulling and pulling.</p><p>Well, they sure liked that idea! Everyone spread out and started unraveling years of wisteria spread. These were some highly motivated and excited volunteers. </p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1D7DBnAMfXbbdmbIqr1Rmd5nKHyEStjQS&sz=w600-h400" alt="wisteria"></div><p>They were blown away by what they were finding; what initially looked like the usual leaf-covered forest floor was actually full of these invasive vines! And that wasn't all, no siree. </p><p>Because as I was yanking up vines from the ground, Walker came over and said excitedly: “I think I found some really big wisteria vines growing up into the trees.” So I dropped the vines and followed him over to this amazing sight:</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=171qp5Y8oztGxyIQGbvds4VAF2FgPtdaI&sz=w600-h400" alt="wisteria"></div><p>Massive vines, the left a good 6" in diameter, climbing high into mature trees and on their way to killing them (check out this <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12NlpC9s3wk4H1yJVY470N-KGoPsAESLQ/view?usp=drive_link">video</a> to get a sense of the vines going up and up and up). My fingers itched to grab my Silky Ibuki saw and kill them, but I remembered my place. So I offered the saw to Walker and he went at it full-bore. The result:</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1XBViMyhBCLbCODR60P7FZNXMDQu-EYY0&sz=w600-h400" alt="wisteria"></div><p>Once Walker had found those first massive vines, others started being more visible. We'd walked right into a major infestation, and almost walked right by it So we cut and painted every vine growing up trees. And I took this wonderful celebration of planet healing:</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1-cug1XjYVoCImlQwymUIsikh7XTyvWDP&sz=w600-h400" alt="wisteria"></div><p>Meanwhile the vine pulling continued. We ended up with this pile of coiled wisteria:</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1EH8toaOsgQoCQRaDEVagca_B0rcUNDrg&sz=w600-h400" alt="wisteria"></div><p>Even more amazing, the vine that I first started pulling, and was “taken over” by students, ended up being over 150 feet long! Check out <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FrBBbB4dwxS5PVaTqbeDe2fGX71Lvox-/view?usp=drive_link">this video</a> of the vine being dragged out to the parking lot. And here's a panoramic shot of the students holding that vine aloft:</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=18rYSGViQsXKFZ9bMDAwv7hT-sodCfHTJ&sz=w600-h400" alt="wisteria"></div><p>Everyone was so pumped up about what we'd done: by pulling up these vines from the forest floor, by cutting those massive vines growing up into and covering the crowns of mature trees, we'd set the wisteria back by <i>years</i>. We'd stopped a major incursion into an otherwise clear forest understory. We had, in short, <i>rescued trees</i> and changed the entire course of growth in this area of Shalow Ford Park for years to come. </p><p>Students of Elon University, I salute you!</p><h3>Ant Farmers</h3><p>I <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(15,20,25);">❤️ </span>my world, the natural world that is, <i>not</i> the human-manufactured world. Every species, every individual of every species, is so wonderful and amazing, so full of mystery and beauty.</p><blockquote><p>Researchers have now used DNA analysis to uncover just how long ants have been farming fungi, now described in a study published Thursday in the journal Science. It turns out these insects have been some of the world’s tiniest farmers for 66 million years, thanks in part to the asteroid that struck Earth and set off a chain of events that led to the demise of the dinosaurs.</p></blockquote><p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/04/science/ants-fungi-farming-asteroid-study/index.html">https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/04/science/ants-fungi-farming-asteroid-study/index.html</a></p><h3>A possible positive outcome for your stretchy plastic?</h3><p>Barb Stenross, a longtime Carrboro promoter of native plants and remover of invasive species, followed up from last week's rant about sequestering plastic with this:</p><blockquote><p>Plastic is horrible and also very hard to avoid. Maybe it's a scam, but I started to participate in this <a href="https://store.compostnow.org/collections/triangle-products/products/the-plastic-film-stretchy-bag-triangle">pay-to-play composting program</a>. I save stretchy plastic (farmers market packaging for lettuce mix, wrapping from other things) and separately, #1 clamshells. Just starting on #5 plastics. They say my stretchy plastic goes into decks. What do you think? Is this just a money maker for Compost Now?</p></blockquote><p>My response:</p><p>I doubt it's just a money maker (though I hope they <i>do</i> make some money, because their composting program is great! I took a look and found that the plastic goes from <a href="https://www.orangerecyclingservices.com/"><strong>Orange Recycling Services</strong></a><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(105,114,123);"><strong> to </strong></span><a href="https://www.trex.com/"><strong>Trex</strong></a><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(105,114,123);"><strong> </strong></span>to be turned into composite decking.</p><p>I used to feel more positive about that recycled plastic timber stuff. Now I just think about it degrading and flaking little pieces of plastic into the surrounding areas....plus the energy used and pollution generated by processing the plastic.</p><p>So it just all comes back, for me, to a simple principle to live by: consume the least amount of plastic I can, and try not to throw it away. :-)</p></div><div class="ck-content"><h3>Receive all my reports on tree rescues</h3><p>If you'd like to get some good news about restoring native habitats delivered straight to your brain upwards of a few times a week, sign in to <a href="https://rewildearth.net">Rewild Earth</a>, click on your name in top right, then My profile. Under Communication Preferences, switch “Send reports of all events” to ON. </p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1BeynVqu8taOGrsvi56u0mmDKuNJko22h&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="358" height="138"></div><h3>Resources you might find useful</h3><ul><li><a href="https://shop.naisma.org/collections/buckthorn-blaster">Buckthorn Blasters</a>: safe, easy herbicide delivery system from the North American Invasive Species Management Association. Don't start cutting without them!</li><li><a href="https://nc-ipc.weebly.com/nc-invasive-plants.html">NC Invasive Plants list</a>: recently updated by NC-IPC, the NC Invasives Plants Council.</li><li><a href="https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AG259">Overview of different herbicides</a>: glyposphate, triclopyr and others - which should you use?</li><li>Volunteer for <a href="https://triangleland.org">Triangle Land Conservancy</a>: the biggest land conservancy group in our area. </li><li>Volunteer for <a href="https://ellerbecreek.org">Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association</a> (Durham): a wonderful group working hard to maintain contiguous natural areas along Ellerbe Creek.</li></ul></div> |