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November 27, 2008 - On the virtues of leavesNovember 27, 2008 • The Suffolk Times e virtues or leave Left: This buck has velvet on his antlers. When the time is right he will find a tree and rub the velvet off.. Right: A buck has used this tree to rub the velvet off his antlers in preparation for meeting and fighting off any other buck that challenges him in competition for a doe. We awoke to a new world, one of golden leaves that covered the ground; it was one of those rare times when leaves floated down during the night without the help of wind or rain. What once was a dark woodland glen with its leaf w cover became an open theater of bare branches and winter tapestry. Our world had been changed in the r+ � quiet of the night; not a sound of what was going on wr while the world slept. There was nothing new in the spreading of golden ' n' �° •a; �; " r �, ,� leaves that now covered the land.'It has been going on since the first leaf dared show itself. The falling of leaves is part of nature's way of building the rich earth for future generations of plants and trees. It's too bad we haven't as yet re- alized the full po- tential of leaves, though there are signs we're start- ing to utilize leaves as mulch. FOCUS Some people compost their leaves, some towns grind them ON up and sell them pulverized. Leaves come in a wide vari- NATU RE ety of shapes and sizes; some by Paul as big as elephant ears, others Stoutenburgh so small we can hardly recog- nize them. Without leaves our handsome old locust tree, shown stripped o w world would be a completely leaves for the winter, adds much to the area different place from what know today. :n fully clothed in its green attire. Left: This buck has velvet on his antlers. When the time is right he will find a tree and rub the velvet off.. Right: A buck has used this tree to rub the velvet off his antlers in preparation for meeting and fighting off any other buck that challenges him in competition for a doe. Leaves are ractones 'tnat create tood from air, water and, most importantly, sun. Through processes not fully understood even in this age of computers, digital this and that, the miracle of photosynthesis still leaves our best scientists scratching their heads. The leafy forest does several other things besides making food: It creates shade, it slows down the movement of wind and it gives off water vapor that protects the forest floor from drying out and turn- ing into a desert. All animal and insect life depend on green leaves For food . and don't forget humans, we, too, get' our "salad greens" through the food chain. An enterprising mathematician using today's mod- ern marvels was able to calculate that approximately 35,000 leaves would fall from a 60 -foot shade tree. And to think, for the most part, leaves from around our homes are raked up and discarded. If processed properly, the leaves could become rich mulch or fertil- izer to be used in place of commercial fertilizers. I've been expounding on the virtues of common leaves but in doing so forgot to speak about how they have affected me personally. When we built our home some 52 years ago, we purposely built it just as. far back (300 feet) from the road as pos- sible. We, being outdoor people, wanted to capture the peace and quiet that would be ours. One of the great features of our property was that it was in the woods, which gave us almost a soundproof location where we could hardly hear the traffic going by. ac in t nose early days the sighting oo- a Geer — was front -page news. Since those deerless days things have changed dramatically. Today we see deer everywhere; they walk through our woods eating every green leaf they can reach; opening our natural buffer to the busy highway. Today when the traffic is at its busiest, the sounds are overpowering. And to add to this, in order to keep thQ deer out of our garden, we had to surround our little patch of greenery with an eight -foot fence. Others with bigger gardens and farms have to do the same to save their products, and it is costly. You can imag- ine the. cost of an eight- foot -high fence, thousands of feet long, just so the farmer can raise his sweet corn, strawberries, etc. And then there's the nurs- erymen who wait years to sell their rhododendrons, blue spruce, etc., only to have a group of deer move in some night and nibble the side out of a shrub or perhaps some buck feeling his oats and using a five - year -old tree to rub on. No matter what he does, he's made that tree unmarketable. There are.ways the farmer and nurseryman can fight back. They can obtain a permit from the DEC to shoot any deer that are damaging their crops, but that means they need a person there to do the shooting, and-this is junta temporary solution. Others have suggested trapping the deer live and transporting them to another part of the country xhere they are scarce. This sounds good but there ire always those who would object to any kind of :ontrol. In the long run an eight -foot fence seems o be the most permanent solution, and we see his being done throughout our East End. This is a )erfect example of wildlife out of control.