Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 25, 1993 TAG: 9304250165
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
On the ridge above us a tom turkey gobbled. We could tell he was doing a lot of strutting because his voice would rise and fall depending on the direction he faced. What we couldn't determine was whether his love life was going well or poorly.
Down the ridge behind us came a couple of deer, their sharp, heart-shaped hooves noisy in duff yet to respond to the yeast of spring. They paused when they spotted us, their big ears erect and cupped like satellite dishes tuned into the world around them. Then they dashed off, leaving us to our work.
Wild animals don't perceive this as being our land. They aren't impressed with deeds filed at the court house or boundary markers or tax tickets.
Fences are something they leap over or crawl under, nothing more. Land is simply land to them - their land.
And people who call themselves landowners and who attempt to improve wildlife habitat hardly play a godlike role from their viewpoint. We are nothing more than occasional intruders, worthy of a brief pause or maybe something to be avoided altogether.
My family has shared these woods with deer, turkey and other wildlife since the early 1800s. There was a time when our people had the upper hand, and deer and turkey populations declined. Then life in the valley became more reasonable and family members moved off the farm, leaving the home place to tumble into a heap of stones and timbers, and the roses to run wild on the hillside. One generation a resident, the next a visitor.
Now there is little question who is in control, not after having to replace 170 trees last week, their tops gnawed out following last year's planting. We figured the damage had occurred late winter when the terminals stuck above the snow offering an inviting bite to the deer strolling through them as if they were following a buffet line.
You can't tell a deer to lay off, that if he or she gives the tree a chance to grow, its food and cover potential will multiply in the future. So we now plant our hardwoods - oaks and chestnuts - in 4-foot tall plastic tubes that protect them from deer and drought, and act as a greenhouse that speeds their growth. All this, however, takes time and money.
You realize that life is a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes when you become a tree planter. It may take 20 to 30 years for an oak to produce mast; twice that for it to become a saw log.
The fact that growing a tree is a slow process, like interest compounding at 1 1/2 percent, could be a morbid thought, but tree planters are optimists, or they wouldn't be tree planters. They will tell you that the best time to plant an oak tree is 50 years ago; the second best is today.
I do recall when I planted a grove of pine trees 13 years ago - my first planting - I prayed that I would be spared long enough to hear the wind whistling through their branches. I savored that soothing music last week while eating my lunch beneath them.
Should I now be bold enough to ask to hear the acorns rain from the infant oaks that stretch out behind my planting bar?
by CNB