Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

Raise the song of harvest home!
All is safely gathered in....

Well, not quite all.....not quite yet. But a good start has been
made.

We picked the hazelnuts early this year. Got them all in at about the
end of August or the beginning of September. We took the advice of a
couple of experts we heard on Wisconsin Public Radio back in March:

http://wpr.org/wcast/download-mp3-re...&iNoteID=88938

For those few not interested in hearing the whole program, the salient
point, for our purposes, was that hazelnuts can be harvested a week or
more before they are fully ripe. They will continue to ripen after
picking without suffering any detrimental effects. So what? Well, it
turns out that the squirrels don't know this. They wait until the
nuts are thoroughly ripe before committing their thefts. So this year
we beat them to ALL of the nuts! Not that it did us much good in
terms of overall yield as compared to last year. A late hard frost in
May killed the flowers on most of the hazels as well as the walnuts
and butternuts. The chestnuts, late bloomers, suffered lesser damage,
though still enough to put a severe dent in nut production.

Thus, despite beating the squirrels to all of the hazelnuts, our share
was still considerably less than half of what we got last year.
Disappointing, yes, but not disastrous as nut production has always
been a sideline, mostly for home consumption, in what is after all an
operation based on the production of veneer quality hardwoods,
primarily red and white oak and black walnut. The only seeds in which
we have a great interest for purposes other than consumption are those
of the butternuts and the chestnuts, both of which (as some may
recall) are severely threatened species.

Larry grows both butternuts (Juglans cinerea) and chestnuts (Castanea
dentata) as a part of widespread efforts to save both species from
their respective fungal nemeses; Sirococcus clavigigenti-
juglandacearum and Cryphonectria parasitica. The loss of the
butternuts is especially keenly felt because the trees they grow on
are hybrids which may (or may not.....too soon to tell) be resistant
to the blight. If so, the seed is valuable for the obvious reason.
This year's complete loss of the entire crop is all the more dire
because our yield last year was also exactly zero. Last year the
squirrels got them all a week before our scheduled picking date. This
year the frost killed all the flowers.

The chestnuts, as mentioned earlier, fared somewhat better. In fact,
most of the trees produced no nuts at all this year, and those few
that did that did produce behaved badly. Typically, chestnut burrs
hang on the trees late, till most of the leaves have disappeared from
most species of trees......in other words, till about now.....and then
drop to the ground intact. This makes collection easy.....provided
one has stout leather gloves to handle them with. Then it is just a
matter of waiting till the burrs dry enough to split at the seams and
extracting the nuts. This year, virtually all of the burrs split and
discharged their seed while still hanging on the trees, and they did
this early. By the time we discovered what was happening, perhaps as
much as half of the crop had already fallen to the ground and the
squirrels. Morevoer, harvesting what was left was problematic in that
the individual nuts are much harder to spot than the intact burrs in
the leaf litter and vegetation under the trees.

Luckily, the three most prolific producers (out of a hundred or more
old enough to produce nuts and only a dozen or so that actually did)
this year are all in places that were mowed recently enough to be
clear of detritus other than fallen leaves and a few twigs. The
problem of finding the nuts was solved by using a leaf blower. It
turns out that chestnuts are not quite round enough to roll away
through the grass if the blast of air from the leaf blower is managed
carefully. The leaves blow away and the nuts remain. It's still a
bit of work and it takes a fairly keen eye, but with a bit of practice
we managed to collect several hundred fine young embryonic trees.
There WILL be enough to send another shipment to interested
prospective growers come late winter/early spring. Huzzah!

One last search for errant nuts will be conducted later
today.....might get as many as another dozen.

Ere the winter storms begin.

And while all is sunny and bright and warmish and pleasant right now,
winter's storms are waiting in the wings.....but not for long.

Autumn, as the old hymn reminds us, is the time of plenty. The
larders, cellars, pantries, granaries and other storage media are
full, or at least we hope so. We humans, unlike many other species,
are incapable of living off of stored fat for long periods. Nor can
we simply go to sleep for three to six months awaiting the return of
new growth. We used to (or, some of us did, anyway) emulate some of
our more mobile cohabitants on the planet by heading for balmier
climes during the bad months, but that is no longer practical, or even
possible, for most of us. We pretty much have to stick it out where
we are and make the best of what's available.....and god help those
with little available.

The robins (Turdus migratorius.....hey I don't make this **** up!)
take no such risks; they fatten up and head south. Common knowledge.
Common, yes, but most people never actually witness the event. I
never had till yesterday. Standing out on the deck in the predawn
light with a cup of fresh hot coffee and a cigarette, I was greeted by
the usual chorus of early risers.....robins, chickadees, nuthatches,
various woodpeckers, bluebirds, crows, and several others. What was
NOT usual, I soon noticed, was a more or less steady stream of birds
coming out of the north, in front of me, and passing to the south,
through (well, over, technically) the valley in which the tree farm
sits. It was already light enough, and the birds were low enough (no
more than two hundred feet or so) to see that they were almost all
robins, with only a few small clusters of smaller birds. The robins
were unevenly spaced. Sometimes there were as many as a couple
hundred visible at a time, and sometimes only a few scattered birds,
but over the next half hour the sky was never entirely clear of robins
and, in all, several thousand flew over. A few of the resident birds
could be seen joining the stream ("flock" doesn't seem like the right
term given that the birds were so widely spaced, though they were
still close enough that all of them could undoubtedly see those ahead
of them). By 7:30 the show was over. Most the residents were still
here.

Later, around midday, I saw my first junco (Junco hyemalis) of the
season.

This morning the robins reprised their perfomance, but there weren't
nearly as many as there were yesterday. On the other hand, there were
several juncos flying about and landing on the lawn at the edge of the
deck, where the seed scattered by other birds at the feeders comes to
rest. Even in the very low light of early morning they were easy to
identify by their habit of staying on the ground under the feeders and
by the telltale white feathers at the outer margins of their tails.
The juncos are an unmistakable portent.....winter is not far off.

Come to God's own temple, come,
Raise the song of harvest home.

giles
at play in the temple of the lord.

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

Hi Mate,
Isn't it funny how little things can bring so much joy - like beating the
squirrels. I'm picturing the your facial expression the moment the penny
dropped regarding picking the hazelnuts a week early. It would have been
priceless! Hope you have a better harvest next season.

As good as any "Reidism".

Rob.





"Giles" wrote in message
...
Raise the song of harvest home!
All is safely gathered in....

Well, not quite all.....not quite yet. But a good start has been
made.

We picked the hazelnuts early this year. Got them all in at about the
end of August or the beginning of September. We took the advice of a
couple of experts we heard on Wisconsin Public Radio back in March:

http://wpr.org/wcast/download-mp3-re...&iNoteID=88938

For those few not interested in hearing the whole program, the salient
point, for our purposes, was that hazelnuts can be harvested a week or
more before they are fully ripe. They will continue to ripen after
picking without suffering any detrimental effects. So what? Well, it
turns out that the squirrels don't know this. They wait until the
nuts are thoroughly ripe before committing their thefts. So this year
we beat them to ALL of the nuts! Not that it did us much good in
terms of overall yield as compared to last year. A late hard frost in
May killed the flowers on most of the hazels as well as the walnuts
and butternuts. The chestnuts, late bloomers, suffered lesser damage,
though still enough to put a severe dent in nut production.

Thus, despite beating the squirrels to all of the hazelnuts, our share
was still considerably less than half of what we got last year.
Disappointing, yes, but not disastrous as nut production has always
been a sideline, mostly for home consumption, in what is after all an
operation based on the production of veneer quality hardwoods,
primarily red and white oak and black walnut. The only seeds in which
we have a great interest for purposes other than consumption are those
of the butternuts and the chestnuts, both of which (as some may
recall) are severely threatened species.

Larry grows both butternuts (Juglans cinerea) and chestnuts (Castanea
dentata) as a part of widespread efforts to save both species from
their respective fungal nemeses; Sirococcus clavigigenti-
juglandacearum and Cryphonectria parasitica. The loss of the
butternuts is especially keenly felt because the trees they grow on
are hybrids which may (or may not.....too soon to tell) be resistant
to the blight. If so, the seed is valuable for the obvious reason.
This year's complete loss of the entire crop is all the more dire
because our yield last year was also exactly zero. Last year the
squirrels got them all a week before our scheduled picking date. This
year the frost killed all the flowers.

The chestnuts, as mentioned earlier, fared somewhat better. In fact,
most of the trees produced no nuts at all this year, and those few
that did that did produce behaved badly. Typically, chestnut burrs
hang on the trees late, till most of the leaves have disappeared from
most species of trees......in other words, till about now.....and then
drop to the ground intact. This makes collection easy.....provided
one has stout leather gloves to handle them with. Then it is just a
matter of waiting till the burrs dry enough to split at the seams and
extracting the nuts. This year, virtually all of the burrs split and
discharged their seed while still hanging on the trees, and they did
this early. By the time we discovered what was happening, perhaps as
much as half of the crop had already fallen to the ground and the
squirrels. Morevoer, harvesting what was left was problematic in that
the individual nuts are much harder to spot than the intact burrs in
the leaf litter and vegetation under the trees.

Luckily, the three most prolific producers (out of a hundred or more
old enough to produce nuts and only a dozen or so that actually did)
this year are all in places that were mowed recently enough to be
clear of detritus other than fallen leaves and a few twigs. The
problem of finding the nuts was solved by using a leaf blower. It
turns out that chestnuts are not quite round enough to roll away
through the grass if the blast of air from the leaf blower is managed
carefully. The leaves blow away and the nuts remain. It's still a
bit of work and it takes a fairly keen eye, but with a bit of practice
we managed to collect several hundred fine young embryonic trees.
There WILL be enough to send another shipment to interested
prospective growers come late winter/early spring. Huzzah!

One last search for errant nuts will be conducted later
today.....might get as many as another dozen.

Ere the winter storms begin.

And while all is sunny and bright and warmish and pleasant right now,
winter's storms are waiting in the wings.....but not for long.

Autumn, as the old hymn reminds us, is the time of plenty. The
larders, cellars, pantries, granaries and other storage media are
full, or at least we hope so. We humans, unlike many other species,
are incapable of living off of stored fat for long periods. Nor can
we simply go to sleep for three to six months awaiting the return of
new growth. We used to (or, some of us did, anyway) emulate some of
our more mobile cohabitants on the planet by heading for balmier
climes during the bad months, but that is no longer practical, or even
possible, for most of us. We pretty much have to stick it out where
we are and make the best of what's available.....and god help those
with little available.

The robins (Turdus migratorius.....hey I don't make this **** up!)
take no such risks; they fatten up and head south. Common knowledge.
Common, yes, but most people never actually witness the event. I
never had till yesterday. Standing out on the deck in the predawn
light with a cup of fresh hot coffee and a cigarette, I was greeted by
the usual chorus of early risers.....robins, chickadees, nuthatches,
various woodpeckers, bluebirds, crows, and several others. What was
NOT usual, I soon noticed, was a more or less steady stream of birds
coming out of the north, in front of me, and passing to the south,
through (well, over, technically) the valley in which the tree farm
sits. It was already light enough, and the birds were low enough (no
more than two hundred feet or so) to see that they were almost all
robins, with only a few small clusters of smaller birds. The robins
were unevenly spaced. Sometimes there were as many as a couple
hundred visible at a time, and sometimes only a few scattered birds,
but over the next half hour the sky was never entirely clear of robins
and, in all, several thousand flew over. A few of the resident birds
could be seen joining the stream ("flock" doesn't seem like the right
term given that the birds were so widely spaced, though they were
still close enough that all of them could undoubtedly see those ahead
of them). By 7:30 the show was over. Most the residents were still
here.

Later, around midday, I saw my first junco (Junco hyemalis) of the
season.

This morning the robins reprised their perfomance, but there weren't
nearly as many as there were yesterday. On the other hand, there were
several juncos flying about and landing on the lawn at the edge of the
deck, where the seed scattered by other birds at the feeders comes to
rest. Even in the very low light of early morning they were easy to
identify by their habit of staying on the ground under the feeders and
by the telltale white feathers at the outer margins of their tails.
The juncos are an unmistakable portent.....winter is not far off.

Come to God's own temple, come,
Raise the song of harvest home.

giles
at play in the temple of the lord.

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

On Oct 15, 8:53*pm, Todd wrote:


Geez Giles, when do you have any time to go fishing?

I don't.

Congratulations are in order.

To whom and for what?

Better luck next year
with the non-producing trees.

Thank you.

Hopefully you will have
learned a bunch of new techniques to help you.

Yes, I hope to have mastered weather by then. Global climate is
likely to take a few months longer.

You know them squirrels is edible.

I've heard rumors.

At any rate, they
make good fertilizer too.

Before or after passage through the alimentary system?

Doesn't whathisname eat
them things?

Maybe. Maybe not. Depends. Who is whathisname?

Be careful of that dancing in the Lord's temple stuff.
The Lord can be catching. *:-)

Hold your breath.

g.

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

On Oct 16, 1:54*am, "Robert from Oz"
wrote:

Hi Mate,
Isn't it funny how little things can bring so much joy - like beating the
squirrels. I'm picturing the your facial expression the moment the penny
dropped regarding picking the hazelnuts a week early. It would have been
priceless!

Alas, the victory is bittersweet. Our motivations and accomplishments
(mine and the squirrels') converge on certain points and diverge on
others. We agree on the primary objective.....getting as many as we
can. We also remain on the same track in eating a bunch now and
saving some for later. Where we differ is in our intention for the
reserves. I deliberately plant them in the hope that they will grow
into mature trees which will, in turn, produce more nuts. They plant
them with the intention of coming back and eating them later. And
therein lies the irony; squirrels have planted more trees than humans
(let alone little old me) ever will.

Still, I remain willing to follow my own agenda for the time
being. :)

Hope you have a better harvest next season.

A near certainty. It couldn't be a lot worse.....barring some
unforeseen catrastophe.

As good as any "Reidism".

No human beings were incapacitated, slain, dismembered, rendered
unconscious, maimed or in other way permanently damaged in the making
of this report.

giles

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

On Oct 18, 12:18*pm, Todd wrote:
On 10/17/2010 06:54 PM, Giles wrote:

On Oct 15, 8:53 pm, *wrote:

Geez Giles, when do you have any time to go fishing?

I don't.

That sucks.

No, it doesn't.

One hears much about the necessity of choosing the lesser of two
evils. I am continually cursed with the need to choose the greater of
two or more joys. The matter is complicated considerably by fact that
they constantly change value.....and more are added to the list
frequently.

Congratulations are in order.

To whom and for what?

To you for having a vision, starting a huge project
based on that vision, and not quitting when the result
was not what one expected. *It is to be admired.

Hm.....

I think you don't pay very close attention to what you read. Or maybe
you're just not good at it.

To the best of my recollection, the only project I have initiated at
the tree farm (and reported here)is the use of a leaf blower to expose
loose chestnuts on the ground. Granted, a certain degree of visual
acuity is needed to spot the damned things, but it's nothing that most
people I've known couldn't do pretty well. As for quitting.....well,
I did that last Saturday at about 11:30 a.m. There just aren't enough
nuts left to make further efforts worthwhile. Besides, I was on my
way out. Won't be back there till sometime late on Wednesday
evening. The squirrels will most definitely have finished the job for
me by then.

In the meantime, no, you're right, the results were not as expected.
The leaf blower turned out to be a lot more effective than I
anticipated.....and I found three more nut-bearing trees that were
overlooked in the first three rounds. In all, I collected two or
three hundred more nuts than I hoped to. And yes, I suspect you are
right once again.....persisting under such circumstances IS
admirable. Thank you; I haven't felt this good about myself since
Carol B. said, "WOW! Let's do that again!," and we did.

Doesn't whathisname eat
them things?

Maybe. *Maybe not. *Depends. *Who is whathisname?

He will incriminate himself when he writes in to protest

Eating squirrels is a criminal act?

Where did you say you're from?

Be careful of that dancing in the Lord's temple stuff.
The Lord can be catching. *:-)

Hold your breath.

Tried that. *Turn funny colors.

Those go away if you do it long enough.

Friends laugh at me. *:-)

They're not alone.

g.

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

On Oct 19, 1:57*pm, Todd wrote:
On 10/18/2010 05:58 PM, Giles wrote:

To you for having a vision, starting a huge project
based on that vision, and not quitting when the result
was not what one expected. *It is to be admired.

Hm.....

I think you don't pay very close attention to what you read. *Or maybe
you're just not good at it.

Sadly, both my reading comprehension and my writing can both use
some work.

Both and both? Wow, that's a whole lotta buncha.

I was not served well by my public education, where
phonics were banned.

I was served well enough by the educational system I was subjected to
(without my consent.....or even so much as my unsolicited opinion), I
suppose. I was much better served by my public libarary.....where I
went of my own free will, and where I browsed, perused, dallied, and
studied as I saw fit. And this all occurred before "phonics" was the
wet dream of the father of some nascent marginally literate
millionaire.

The other explanation is that your are
being modest.

That's not another explanation for several reasons:
1. My supposed modesty doesn't explain anything at all that has been
discussed here.
2. Your lamentations concerning public education don't explain
anything.
3. I'm not modest.
4. Shall I go on?

Those trees did not get there on their own.

Actually, many of them did. But that's beside the point....or so we
may safely assume as the point has yet to make an appearance and, if
experience is any guide at all, anyone waiting will do so in vain.

Virtually ALL of the rest (well, AND those that got there on their
own, for that matter) got there long before I arrived on the scene
about two years ago. To put it more precisely, if one includes the
orgy of redbud planting I engaged in this past spring, I have been at
least partially responsible for the generation of as much as one
quarter of one percent of the trees on the property.

Maybe
a bit of both explanations.

Maybe you need to give it a rest and come back when you are equal to
the task of holding your own against the doughboy, the pig,
and.....the diminutive member.

giles
who, hope springing eternal, thinks this could yet get
interesting.....but isn't holding his breath.

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

On Oct 19, 2:05*pm, Todd wrote:


Just out of curiosity, with your writings skills
being about 10 times mine, did you go to private
school?

Well, I'm no mathematician but if memory serves, ten times precious
little is damning with faint praise. But, to answer what we both
think may be your question, yes, I have been to privately owned,
funded, and operated schools. What I've found they ALL have in common
is not only that I eventually left all of them, but also that they
have precisely that in common with all of the publicly owned, funded,
and operated institutions of learning that I have visited. Of course,
it need scarcely be pointed out that there are many of both sorts I
have not yet graced or defiled with my presence.

Strange world, ainna?

Meanwhile, for what little it's worth, the majority of educational
institutions I've been enrolled at were of the public sort. It should
hardly be necessary to point out that neither they nor I go out of our
way to offer unsolicited advertisements of our association. On the
other hand, none of us has, to the best of my knowledge, ever
categorically denied affiliation.

Does any of this help?

g.

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:53:25 -0700, Todd wrote:

On 10/19/2010 06:33 PM, Giles wrote:
On Oct 19, 2:05 pm, wrote:


Just out of curiosity, with your writings skills
being about 10 times mine, did you go to private
school?

Well, I'm no mathematician but if memory serves, ten times precious
little is damning with faint praise. But, to answer what we both
think may be your question, yes, I have been to privately owned,
funded, and operated schools. What I've found they ALL have in common
is not only that I eventually left all of them, but also that they
have precisely that in common with all of the publicly owned, funded,
and operated institutions of learning that I have visited. Of course,
it need scarcely be pointed out that there are many of both sorts I
have not yet graced or defiled with my presence.

Strange world, ainna?

Meanwhile, for what little it's worth, the majority of educational
institutions I've been enrolled at were of the public sort. It should
hardly be necessary to point out that neither they nor I go out of our
way to offer unsolicited advertisements of our association. On the
other hand, none of us has, to the best of my knowledge, ever
categorically denied affiliation.

Does any of this help?

g.

Hi Giles,

Your weaved, and darted, hit a few curbs, ran off in the
ditch a few times, hit a squires or two, but you eventually
it get there. Yes it does help.

I thought of my (non-college) educations as compulsory
day care and did not care for it too much. I did home
work three time in four years of public high school and got
an A- average. Such is the quality of public education.

Boy did I have a real awakening when I hit college, where I
also got an A- average. This time it was real. In engineering
too, not basket weaving. I worked my ass off to make up for
all the goofing off in public high school. The lack of
phonics, which was taught for hundreds of years, because
it worked, before "Hooked on Phonics" hit the scene,
still haunts me to this day. (Ye gads, what a run on sentence.)

By the way, it sounds like you were no stranger to detention.
Just in case you were wondering, it wasn't me that ratted
you out for throwing the squirrel into the teachers lounge
at lunch. Really. Trust me. Perhaps.

Note to the humor impaired: I do not really think Giles
threw a squirrel into the teachers lounge. Nor do I have
any actual knowledge of Giles ever being sent to detention.
And besides, everyone knows it wasn't a squirrel. It
was an excessively large chipmunk.

-T

Yo Todd!

Why the fu** would you try to reason w a goat.

A goat eats, licks their organs - and then they mount other goats from
the rear
Giles goatboy is no different.
He would probably prefer to mount you as he is quite a randy goat.
I know, I owned a few goats - Nubians

Farmer Brown

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

"Todd" wrote in message
...


I did not say you were humble. I said you were being
humble. Big difference. This was a once time incident,
which I presume you will not repeat any time soon.
You are still your same old some what endearing arrogant
self.

I do believe that the mis-communication here is that you
are looking at complement in the small picture mode. "Ah
Shucks Todd, I just learned a new trick with a leaf blower
and a new trick to cheat the squirrels out of their annual
bounty." Okay, not your actual words.

What I was admiring you for was the the whole picture. The
project you undertook. At some point you gazed across those
trees and said: "there are nuts [and squirrels] in them there
trees." Okay, again, not your actual words.

Now, go to your Bingo Ball machine, with all your favorite
insults written on the balls, run it around, throwing ball
after ball back into the machine until "Nitwit" pops up
and hurl a good one at me. Hopefully, you have not pulled
"Nitwit" out of the machine, smashed it to a powder and
fed it to the squirrels in a nut paste.

Oh, you wanted us to think you "agonize" over what insult to
hurl at us over saying something really stupid or something
brilliant that you disagreed with (a clear abuse of your
power by the way). No, it is just a Bingo ball machine.
Sorry for ratting you out. I apparely have a history of that.


I'm glad someone is having fun with nutsack...

It's fairly amusing,
JT

Come Ye Thankful People Come,
 

On 2010-10-21 16:39:08 -0400, "JT" said:



"Todd" wrote in message
...


I did not say you were humble. I said you were being
humble. Big difference. This was a once time incident,
which I presume you will not repeat any time soon.
You are still your same old some what endearing arrogant
self.

I do believe that the mis-communication here is that you
are looking at complement in the small picture mode. "Ah
Shucks Todd, I just learned a new trick with a leaf blower
and a new trick to cheat the squirrels out of their annual
bounty." Okay, not your actual words.

What I was admiring you for was the the whole picture. The
project you undertook. At some point you gazed across those
trees and said: "there are nuts [and squirrels] in them there
trees." Okay, again, not your actual words.

Now, go to your Bingo Ball machine, with all your favorite
insults written on the balls, run it around, throwing ball
after ball back into the machine until "Nitwit" pops up
and hurl a good one at me. Hopefully, you have not pulled
"Nitwit" out of the machine, smashed it to a powder and
fed it to the squirrels in a nut paste.

Oh, you wanted us to think you "agonize" over what insult to
hurl at us over saying something really stupid or something
brilliant that you disagreed with (a clear abuse of your
power by the way). No, it is just a Bingo ball machine.
Sorry for ratting you out. I apparely have a history of that.


I'm glad someone is having fun with nutsack...

It's fairly amusing,
JT


Amusing? It's down right hilarious.

d;o)