Gardening

When we bought our farm in 1978, there were two black walnut trees. One of them has died, but the other stood by itself out in what was then a cornfield and is now a pasture. We put a lane along one side of that pasture to access the lower pastures past two cherry trees, and planted a few other trees along the lane. But the squirrels had other ideas.

Now many of the trees were planted have died, but it is lined with black walnut trees of all ages. In addition, when we did some clearing about fifteen years ago I had the debris put in a brush pile just downhill from the original black walnut. The brush pile is gone, but the black walnuts that were protected from the horses are now big enough to be safe from them and are doing well. There are some other trees, such as cherry and chinaberry but the walnuts are what we will preserve in that stand of trees.

We also planted Southern red cedars around the farm and the birds have spread them. When we bought this place, there was not a single cedar to be seen. Now they are everywhere and we're going to have to thin them out to have our view!