To Every Thing there is a Season...

                                                                                        
                                                                                       

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up
that which is planted.
                                   Ecclesiastes 3:2

Mid-October and it is strangely silent here on our one slim acre. Normally the raucous scolding of the jays would shatter the Valley calm from dawn til dusk. The stealthy flight of those blue thieves leapfrogging from tree to tree along the property lines was as regular as the daily commuter traffic out front. But not this fall; the noisy marauders are nowhere to be seen, have taken their thieving ways elsewhere.

"I'm going to pick up a walnut tree for my arboretum," Herman Zylstra, our retired dairy farmer neighbor told me. "Do you want me pick up one for you?" With the holiday baking in mind I told him, sure, it would be nice to have a walnut tree on the place, and that's how we came by the tree at the back of the property. That was over forty years ago....

I planted the sapling, watched the slip of a tree grow. It definitely liked the Valley soil, was quite at home here. The tree grew with a surprising vigor year after year even after its kin, light deprived, stunted, died in Herman's arboretum. Patiently I waited for my first walnut crop. Seven years, eight years, perhaps ten went by until I spied a few green orbs peering from the foliage. It was a crop, however, not destined for holiday sweetmeats. A flock of crows appeared out of nowhere, descended on the tree like the Black Plague and in five minutes the first ever walnut crop disappeared into the blue (or black).

The tree, a species (a Bastogne walnut) different from its the kindred English walnut, grew to a height of eighty feet (my estimate) and 127" in circumference chest high (my tape measure). The tree's vast canopy shaded the garden from the heat of summer sun, made afternoon gardening bearable. Its shadow spread across the backyard like a thunder cloud, cooled the west end of our house those hot summer evenings. The first hard fall frost would send the large leaves spiraling to earth nearly en mass and until early May the next year the branches would be bare.

Not only the robbing jays but also smaller bird species would flit about the leaves and branches. From their sentry posts atop the tree, hawks scanned the garden below for unsuspecting songbirds foraging at the feeding station or in the garden. For two or three seasons we had a nesting pair of mourning doves raise young in the branches. The tree's main trunk was riddled with cribbage board holes, each a feeding station for sapsuckers which performed their drilling with such stealth I never spied a single one. At harvest time squirrels, as many as a half dozen at a time, performed acrobatics among the branches as if they were part of an act for Cirque du soleil. A wound from a pruned off branch healed into a scar that put me in mind of a barn owl's face The tree trunk gave me a critical stare every time I passed by on the mower.

In latter years the tree bore so heavily feathered and furry thieves hardly made a dent in the crop. We gathered walnuts by the buckets full, many dislodged by hungry jays whose harvesting technique made gathering the mast easier. The nuts would shower down through the branches ricocheting from limb to limb like caroming pin balls in an arcade machine. From time to time I'd be pelted by husk shrapnel. After giving the nuts a good washing in a bucket of water, agitating and rinsing them a few times to remove husk residue, I'd pour them into our garden cart to dry. The cart had a metal mesh floor that allowed for good ventilation. A day or two to dry and I'd dump them on the hearth behind the wood stove to dry and cure.

The last few years the walnut began shedding branches, not an indicator of a tree in robust health, but I dismissed this self pruning as part of the "maturing" process. After storms tossed and whipped the branches winters and early spring, I would find downed limbs, some the size of my forearm, dry and brittle as bone, scattered about the trunk. Before each mowing session I'd have to carry or drag the fallout to the brush pile. But the tree continued to bear fruit, some years more heavily than others. This year the tree had a prodigious crop of walnuts. The branches bent under their load, the lower boughs scraped the ground under the weight. Summer pruning was in order just to be able to mow beneath the tree.

One morning in late July as I stepped out on the deck to don my garden boots and head to the chicken coop I heard what I thought was automatic weapons fire, a ripping, staccato kind of noise. I first thought of the firing range west of the Valley and thought this gunfire was dangerously close to the back fence. Stunned and amazed by the awesome sound I froze for a moment, confused, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar. I gazed toward the sound and then I saw the scar, a white slash gleaming in the morning sun, a parting of the bark where before there had been a limb.

The limb now sprawled across the back of the property. It had crashed down narrowly missing a pie cherry tree and now lay splayed out over the backyard. The rending sound brought my wife out of bed to ask about the commotion. I pointed to the tangle of branches, leaves, and globes of walnuts. In disbelief we walked out for a closer look and saw the large leader had split at the trunk, sheared off, leaving the other half still defying gravity. My wife approached that side of the tree for a closer look. I warned her to stay out from under the half leader still attached. It was a warning well heeded because not five minutes later the second half splintered and fell, coming to rest neatly around a hive of bees on the stand beneath. Branches and leaves had gently enfolded the hive as if hesitant to disturb its occupants which now swirled about in confusion trying to get their bearings.

Walnuts lay thick on the ground everywhere, made walking difficult--like traversing a skate deck covered with marbles. We now had a mess to deal with...and a big problem, a problem beyond us, a problem that required professional help. The two tree services we consulted both reached the same conclusion: pruning or trimming the tree would only prolong the inevitable. I had hoped to save the tree; perhaps a canopy trim, a pruning back of the limbs all around? The loss of the two large limbs, we were told, had the tree off balance, the weight now unequally distributed because of the heavy crop. In its weakened state more branches were sure to suffer the same fate. (In fact yet another large limb came down a couple days later.) Fate was a concern of mine, too. How often had I mowed beneath the tree over the years...that summer in fact? One thing for sure: having a leader that size crash down on me would have caused a headache no aspirin could cure. No way around it: the tree would have to go. A date was set.

The executioners arrived at eight in the morning. (Because of the sentiment involved, I say "executioners" although the tree service crew were polite and very professional. Still, as the tree was dismembered limb by limb, we felt like we were watching the execution of a longtime friend.)

The grand old walnut didn't go peacefully. The limbs were so heavily laden, the first one bucked back, narrowly missing the young sawyer. Compensating for the load per branch, after the near catastrophe the team made sure to set their chokers back up the branch, balancing the weight of the fruit against that of the leader.

The sawyer severed limb after limb from the trunk, working his way earthward one leader at a time. Swinging in space, freed from its parent trunk, the leaders were swung over the fence line, lowered, and then fed into the maw of a chattering chipper where each was shredded into thousands of chips off the old block.

Finally all that was left of our summer shade and the year's monstrous walnut crop was the last  twenty feet of the trunk and two heaping piles of rounds salvaged for firewood.

  













Walnut lumber is prime woodworking material. The owner of the tree service helped broker a deal for the trunk which helped defray some of the removal costs. The thought that someone somewhere might have furniture or wood crafts for their home fashioned from a tree that grew, flourished and shaded our property for decades helped somewhat to bear the loss of a significant part of our landscape.

It took a forty-eight inch bar to cut through the butt of the trunk which came down with a thud you could feel in your knees. To fit the truck bed, the trunk was halved, each half lifted skillfully and placed strategically for a balanced load. Then the old longtime resident left our one slim acre and rolled on down the road leaving giant hole in the sky where it had once stood. Gone now is the favorite perch of our avian visitors. Gone our summer shade. Gone the supply of nuts for holiday baking. Gone, too, the seasonal sunset displays bleeding through the tree's barren branches, a technicolor chiaroscuro of crimson fire. 

                                                                   *          *          *          *

The other day I saw a curious sight. A gray squirrel anchored on his haunches, sitting up in that quaint way of squirrels, tail puffed and curled at attention. He appeared to be pondering what was left of the walnut tree, looking at the slab of trunk as if it were a dance floor and he looking for a partner. It seemed to me his face wore a quizzical expression as if to say, "Seems to me I remember a walnut tree around here somewhere." He then scratched his head, obviously confused. He held this pose for a couple of minutes. Then in the way of all squirrels he darted off to parts unknown, taking the memory of the walnut tree with him.

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