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May 24, 2001 - Invasion of the nonnative plantsThe Suffolk Times • May 24, 2001 Invasion of the nonnative lants -R-za Wooden boats are \almost a thing of the past but the memories they bring back are sweet and clear. This is a 70- year -old photo by Uncle Henry Barning. WE HAD FRIENDS OVER THE other day and to pass some time'we went out into the garden to sit. It wasn't long before one of our guests said, "What is it that smells so sweet ?" We looked around and decided it was probably the Russian olive or, FOCUS as some people call it, autumn ON olive. This plant, once given out NATURE by the state De- by Pau partment of En- Stoutenburgl has now broken its oounas of iucai plantings and is found in every vacant lot and roadside. The reason: in the fall there are tiny, olive- shaped fruits about 3/16 of an inch long that turn reddish when ripe, which the birds can't resist. You can actually eat these tiny fruits. Seeing they are so numer- ous, they supply the birds with a won- derful supplement to their diet. The Russian olives are in blossom right now, and soon will be dropping their petals. In their place will be clus- ters of tiny green fruits. As I said, it makes an ideal bird food, particularly in the fall when birds are fattening up for their long migration south. It's the time when your Iocai mocx- ingbird, who lives almost exclusively on berries, will try to protect his or her holdings of berries along the pasture fence. The mockingbird is one of the great imitators of all time. It can sing just about every song from the crow to the robin to the blue jay to the chick- adee. It's a master copycat. It stays around through the winter living on holly berries, rose hips, dried -up wild grapes and those small blue berries found on the catbrier, along with other winter fruits. All these berries that linger are the mockingbird's food sup- ply and he guards them well, chasing Back to the Russian olive, I chuckle when I think of 30 to 40 years ago when the state DEC gave out free packets of conservation plantings in hopes that they would provide cover and food for wildlife. Also in the pack- et were multiflora roses. The multiflo- ra rose hips are one of the bird foods that linger on the vine into winter and in this sense it does provide food for wildlife. On the dark side, however, both these plants — the multiflora rose and the Russian olive — have seeds inside their fruits that when ingested by the birds pass through them and are deposited throughout the countryside. That is why you find these invaders growing in the woods, in the open fields and just about any- where. It has gotten so bad that these two "conservation plants" are now restrict ed and in some states are actually out- lawed in the retail market. They are persistent, particularly where you try to keep an area open, such as a pas- ture. So, once a year I walk over my pasture with a hoe and dig them out. If I didn't they'd soon take over the whole area. It's one of those things that has a good side and a bad side, which brings me to-another plant that's finding its way into our wet areas. It is purple loosestrife, an immigrant from Europe that's now being sold in nurseries because of its beauty. Long purplish spurs of loosestrife are most appealing. The problem here is that they escape your garden and take over freshwater areas, pushing out our native plants, such as cattails and reeds, that wildlife depends on. So beware of the purple loosestrife; keep it contamea ana Keep it away from our wet areas. Each -year about this time boats get taken out and brought into the yard to be worked on for the coming sea- son. This year we did a major over- haul on our old Boston Whaler. It must be 30 years old. It's got bumps and lumps and cuts and patches and what- have -you and so, with a grinder and some long hours of work, we brought it down to a condition we could paint. Boats have been in our family since I was a kid. It would be unthinkable not to have a boat to go fishing or crabbing or eeling. My first recollection of a boat — and I don't know if it's my recol- lection or the remembrance of a photograph with some skinny, blond- haired kid in a huge rowboat with great big, long oars, but that was me — was my Uncle Henry's boat. In those days there was no such thing as fiberglass. All boats were made of wood. When they were left out on the beach and the sun dried them out, the planks would shrink and as soon as you put the boat in the water, it would leak. And so, bailing was always part of the ritual 7177n you went in Uncle Henry's rowboat. It was a time when outboard motors were almost unheard of, so if you wanted to go fishing you rowed out to the black buoy or to the kingfish hold off Robins Island, or maybe just out in the channel for snappers. Everyone had a wooden rowboat and I can remember when we went swimming we kids would get in the boat (it wouldn't be Uncle Henry's because that would be too big, so we would use a smaller boat) and we would all get on one side of it and tip it over. Once over, it-would always have an air pocket under it so the fun thing to do was to dive down under- neath and come up inside the rowboat. Keep purple loosestrife contained and away from wet areas. There your voice would sound so i - ferent and you would all be spitting and sputtering under there.. All arounc you was this sort of greenish water. Then someone would tip the boat back over again and we'd sit in the sunken boat, laughing and giggling. Those were the joyous days of youth. (Barbara remembers doing this same thing in a different creek with differ- ent kids but with the same great mem- ories.) Then boats started to get bigger. Sailboats came in. Yacht clubs were formed. Regattas were gone to. I can remember Mr. Wickham had a huge boat he kept over in New Suffolk called the Alma, I think. He often towed four or five boats to the yacht club races in Southold or Dering Harbor or one of those exotic places and we'd race with the other clubs. Once I remember off Jessups (now called Morton Wildlife Refuge) where the tide runs rapid and the water runs deep, we lost the boats when the lines snapped and they were all flopping around and drifting with nobody in them. What a mess! The excitement of those days will never be forgotten. Then later, power boats came along, outboards were started and cussed at. Today we're into fiberglass boats and speedy motors, a far cry from years ago when we took a pair of oars in an old wooden boat and thought things couldn't be better.