“The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness” —John Muir
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Most of us recall the carbon cycle from high school biology. We know, on some level, the delicate interdependence of animals and plants. We literally “breathe” each other: they take in our carbon dioxide and generate oxygen through photosynthesis. But our symbiosis is more than biochemistry. Plants—and in particular, trees—inspire music, poetry, art, and architecture while playing a huge symbolic role in myth and scripture. When we consider these gifts in light of the global warming caused by carbon emissions, one wonders if our relationship with trees is out of balance. Are we in “debt” to trees?
In this Issue
Main Feature: Rick Sowash remembers Johnny Appleseed
Quick Escapes: Apple picking with Julie Malkin
Know your Neighbors: Daniel Stiver ponders the Osage orange and Linda Ford unpacks the pawpaw
Kids Corner: How to make pawpaw smoothies
Speaking of Faith: Yana Keck learns from a Japanese Maple
Book Shelf: Bill Bogdan reviews Richard Powers’ The Overstory
Pocket Pilgrimage: John Tallmadge finds old growth in your neck of the woods
Take Action Now: John Hancock explains how trees can offset your carbon emissions
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Rick Sowash writes:
Instead of writing some words about trees, I thought I’d share a song, a setting of a poem by William Cullen Bryant that expresses much about our relationship with the earth: the physical act of carving into the soil, our sense of parenting the tree we plant, the blessings we anticipate from our having done so.
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The Planting of the Apple Tree
Come, let us plant the apple-tree.
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;
Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots and there
Sift the dark mould with kindly care,
And press it o’er them tenderly,
As, round the sleeping infant’s feet,
We softly fold the cradle sheet;
So plant we the apple-tree.
What plant we in this apple-tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest.
We plant, upon the sunny lea,
A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,
When we plant the apple-tree.
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My piece, “The Planting of the Apple Tree,” was originally the second movement of “Three Apple Songs” for SATB chorus and piano, a work honoring John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. The other two movements mention Johnny by name but this movement sets a poem about the experience and meaning of the simple act of planting a tree.
Kids growing up in Mansfield, Ohio, as I did in the 1950’s, knew all about Johnny Appleseed. Johnny's name was in lots of places around town. During the War of 1812, he saved Mansfield from an Indian attack by running, alone, thirty miles south to Mount Vernon and alerting the soldiers stationed there. But what’s better remembered everywhere else in America is that he planted apple trees so that the pioneers, newly arrived in the wilderness, would find encouragement: fruit already burgeoning on the boughs.
Apples were the only domestic fruit available, and the pioneers used them in myriad ways. They made apple butter, apple sauce, apple pies and cider. They ran string through apples and hung them up to dry. They wrapped them in burlap and buried them in the dirt floors of their cabins, finding them crunchy and edible months later. There was ‘hard’ cider, too, but most importantly, the pioneers rendered vinegar from the juice of Johnny’s apples and used it to pickle vegetables for the long, cold Ohio winters, when gardens lay fallow beneath the snow.
When I left Ohio to go to college, I met students from other parts of the country who thought our hero was “just made up.” That was a shock. Even those who knew he was an historical figure didn’t revere him the way we did back home.
But they certainly had heard of him. He may be the best-known of our American folk heroes; every first grader has at least heard of Johnny Appleseed.
We always think of Johnny as raggedy, barefoot and wearing a pot on his head. Pioneer diaries and letters mention Johnny’s unusual headgear -- hats of his own making with a broad front brim to shield his eyes from the sun -- but none specify a cooking pot. Still, the image befits a saint. The pot is an “attribute.” St. Peter holds the keys; St. Christopher carries the baby Jesus piggyback; St. Cecilia holds a musical instrument; St. Johnny wears a pot on his head.
And Johnny is a saintly figure. Deeply religious, he practiced and preached his cherished Swedenborgianism to anyone who would listen, handing out pamphlets to all and sundry. He may have thought of himself as an American version of John the Baptist, a spiritual non-conformist, a prophet more focused on the future than the present, a voice crying in a literal wilderness.
The pioneers loved him, eccentricities and all. The Native Americans honored him, understanding his eccentricities as a sign that he was ‘tetched,’ God-kissed. They accepted him as he was and he accepted them and their hospitality. He is just about our only non-violent American folk hero. Think about it. The others are a rough and tumble lot, human dynamos, victorious in a vortex of violence, whether it’s Paul Bunyan felling old growth forests or Davy Crockett falling at the Alamo.
By contrast, here's our Johnny -- a nurturer! His energy is quiet. He favors slow growth: he establishes and tends apple orchards. Our kinda guy, right? Let’s erect a monument and plant an orchard to honor him!
To hear baritone Noel Bouley and pianist Phil Amalong perform "The Planting of the Apple Tree," click here:
To see a PDF of the score, click here:
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By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them
Julie Malkin writes:
In this time of social separation we seek safe and enjoyable ways to be together. We are grateful for the gift of good weather for dinners on decks and patios, walks in parks, bike rides on the Little Miami bike trail, a memorial gathering in Spring Grove, porch concerts and a drumming circle. Many are discovering the abundance of local agriculture, including “pick-your-own” farms. The blueberry and strawberry harvests may have passed, but we are heading right into apple season. Pick-your-own is a great way to connect with friends, family, and nature while practicing good nutrition! A picnic under an apple tree might even inspire a poem or a song.
Unfortunately, the May freeze hurt this year’s harvest, and some orchards are closed to the public. But Tuken’s in West Alexandria, Ohio and A and M Farm in Midland, Ohio will be open for picking in September. Both advise calling ahead or checking their Facebook pages to be sure of dates and times. Consider meeting your friends for a morning or afternoon in the orchard. Bring a picnic and poetry!
Remember that many orchards continue to sell at their own farm stands or local farmers markets, where the produce surpasses supermarket products for both taste and nutrition. As an added bonus, buying local also reduces your carbon footprint. Check out these nearby orchards:
Monnin’s Fruit Farm in Dayton, OH (check Facebook)
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Food for Ghosts
Daniel Stiver writes:
The prehistoric world often feels utterly distant and intangible. The gigantic megafauna that roamed North America during the Pleistocene are long gone, but in fact some close ties remain that are not immediately apparent.
My curiosity was recently piqued by a large elegant moth that became trapped in my parents’ car. After snapping some photos I went turned to the internet and discovered that it was an Osage orange sphinx moth, a hawk moth whose only host plant is the eponymous tree. Long ago I had read that the Osage orange initially puzzled scientists with its huge, soft-ball sized fruit popularly known as “monkey brains.” The green lumpy fruits have a sticky latex texture that no animals like to eat, so they simply fall and rot. Normally the purpose of fruits is to get animals to eat them; the seeds survive digestion and are deposited with the animal’s droppings, naturally fertilized. But the Osage orange has no animals to help propagate its seeds. Moreover, its branches grow thorns, which evolved to deter large animals from destroying the plant, especially if the plant has tasty fruit such as blackberries. But why would a tree have thorns on its branches far above where any native animals could reach?
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The answer was that these adaptations were for creatures that no longer exist. Mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths are among the Ice Age giants that scientists now believe helped propagate the Osage orange. This explains the fruit’s enormous size and the presence of thorns, which would deter such enormous creatures from knocking down the trees while they foraged for their fruits. Dramatic changes in the climate at the end of the last ice age, as well as overexploitation by recently arrived humans, newly equipped with more advanced Clovis points for their spears, are believed to be the two main culprits responsible for the demise of North America’s megafauna.
With its only effective ways to spread and propagate gone, the Osage orange’s native range began to shrink; now it survives in the wild only in Texas and in small areas along the borders of Oklahoma and Arkansas. The species would likely have died out due to competition from other trees, but a second chance came with the arrival of Europeans. Settlers found the young trees’ thorns useful for hedges, and they were planted in rows along many property lines. In addition, curious children would often pick up these “monkey brains” and take them home as souvenir, potentially spreading the seeds elsewhere. And thus the moths that entirely depend on this tree to survive have spread to places where the Osage orange never grew since the Ice Age, such as Cincinnati.
The term for this fascinating phenomenon is evolutionary anachronism, when the only way to explain an adaptation is by taking into account species that have gone extinct. The Osage orange is not even the only tree in our area with such unusual traits. Honey locusts, black locusts, and Kentucky coffeetrees all share adaptation thorns and are not effectively dispersed by modern animals. And there are even more species both in America and around the world that exist with adaptations for ghosts of the distant past.
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Linda Ford writes:
When I was a kid growing up in northwest Hamilton County, I had a favorite tree that sat on a little knoll. It was a sour cherry that was loaded with fruit during June. School was out, and the neighborhood kids played freely and fed liberally from that tree. I have fallen in love with many different trees since then—the giant green ash in our first back yard, the large burr oak in Bowdle Park across from our present home, and the yellowwood that I planted on the campus of Seven Hills School with my first environmental science class in 2004. Unfortunately, the ash, a victim of the borer, is now gone, and the oak, which contracted a blight, was taken down in 2018 by the Park Board.
Can you mourn the loss of a tree? I think so, but you can also celebrate when a new one enters your life. Today I would like to share one of those celebrations. Call it the American Custard Apple or the West Virginia Banana, but it’s neither an apple nor a banana; it’s the pawpaw (Asimina trilob), the largest native fruit tree of North America, and it grows throughout southern Ohio. No one quite knows why it was named the pawpaw, but I choose to believe it’s because, when you cut the fruit open, the black seeds inside resemble a bear’s paw.
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The science teacher in me also needs to share some current research. Pawpaw fruits contain minerals such as magnesium, copper, zinc, iron, manganese, potassium, and phosphorus as well as Vitamin C, proteins, and essential amino acids. A food scientist at Ohio University, Rob Brannan, also found them high in antioxidants. The Peterson Field Guide mentions that the seeds, have emetic and narcotic properties, so please do not let your grandchildren chew them! Nevertheless, the Miami Indians ground the seeds to a powder to deter head lice. So save those seeds for a day when the grandchild is wildly scratching his head. The tree is sensitive to ultraviolet light, which helps explain why it grows in the understory. Pawpaw seedlings may not thrive after forests have been clear cut due to exposure to intense sunshine.
Pawpaw trees tend to be small (less than 30 feet high) and often grow in patches. They are tropical in appearance, with long, dark green, drooping leaves. When grown in the open, they often assume a pyramid-like shape. The pawpaw’s tiny, inconspicuous flowers have three dark brownish maroon lobes that appear prior to leaf-out. Although quite beautiful, the flowers are overlooked by many native pollinators. They depend on flies and beetles rather than bees!
Because of its wide range, the pawpaw found its way into many Native American diets. The Iroquois dried the fruit whole or mashed into small cakes that were sometimes soaked in water to make a sauce or mixed with cornbread. The fruit was also central to Algonquian, Siouan, and Osage diets. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both planted pawpaws, and the fruit sustained the Lewis and Clark expedition for a few weeks when rations were lean. During the Great Depression, the pawpaw was also frequently consumed as a substitute for other fruits and was thus called the “poor man’s banana.”
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But it’s not quite accurate to compare the pawpaw to the banana, papaya, or mango. The pulp is very sweet, very tropical, and quite unique. It may be eaten raw, made into ice cream, baked, or used as a pie filling. Some Appalachian cooks make a custard by adding milk, eggs, and allspice. Pour this batter into custard cups set in a shallow baking pan with some water in the bottom and bake at a medium heat until a broom straw or toothpick comes out clean. You can also make a pawpaw cake, as Doug did for my 70th birthday.
Due to its extremely short shelf life, pawpaw has not been commercially farmed. But you can still attend the annual Pawpaw Festival at Lake Snowden near Albany OH, which is located about six miles west of Athens on US 50/SR 32. (Of course, it has been cancelled this year due to COVID-19.) Ready to go on a pawpaw hunt yourself? Stay in touch, and I will let you know when the fruit starts to ripen on my backyard tree. Perhaps we can meet in a future ZOOM room and eat pawpaw together. Want a pawpaw sapling? I might be able to dig one up for you.
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Way Down Yonder in the Pawpaw Patch |
Linda Ford writes:
There are pawpaw patches all over Southern Ohio. Our county and state parks are rich in this wonderfully tropical understory tree. I am lucky because I have one right in my backyard. This photo was taken in mid-August, and the green clusters you see in the tree crown will ripen by mid-September. I encourage everyone to go on a pawpaw hunt and sing the song we all learned in school: Pickin’ up pawpaws, puttin’ ’em in your pockets.
Take a pocket knife and reusable spoon so you can cut open the fruit and scoop out the fragrant, yellow-orange pulp with its tropical flavor native to our region. Gather up as many as your pockets (or basket) can hold. Take them home and make a smoothie with this delicious pulp:
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1. Cut open the pawpaw along the dark line from one end to the other. Twist and open as you would with an avocado. Use a spoon to remove the pits and scoop out the pulp. It may take 2 or 3 pawpaws to get enough for a smoothie.
2. Blend the same ingredients that you use to make a banana smoothie but substitute the pawpaw pulp. You can add some lemon or lime juice to cut the sweetness. Serve cold. If you’re feeling fancy, garnish with curled tangerine rind.
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While you enjoy your smoothie, read the article on the pawpaw found in this newsletter. You are enjoying the same remarkable flavor enjoyed by the Miami Indians, George Washington, Lewis and Clark, and the many early settlers of the Ohio Territory. |
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Yana Keck writes:
Of all the trees and shrubs in my small yard, I am most proud of my Japanese Red Maple tree. It sits on the side of my house between the deck and the driveway. In spring and early summer its red leaves brighten my kitchen window. I sometimes worry that its roots might damage the pipes or drains by my kitchen, but fortunately this has never happened. The tree perseveres year after year and survives in spite of every urban challenge.
A quick Google search revealed that the Japanese Red Maple signifies not only patience and endurance, but also peace and blessing. One article stated that “In mythology and ancient religious imagery, the tree was believed to have an abundance of divine creative energy.” I have no doubt that is still true today. When I sit or stand on my deck beneath the Japanese Red Maple, I feel protected and loved. It is almost as if an old friend were giving me a hug.
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Trees are living, breathing beings with an aura of power. They have their own personality and I understand that a healthy tree can help others that are not as healthy. Trees are a union of earth, water and heaven. They not only help our environment, they offer sanctuary from the heat and provide both paper and lumber; some even sustain us with food. There are so many ways that trees make our lives easier both spiritually and physically. It is almost impossible to imagine our world without them.
The leaf of the Japanese Red Maple has five points, just like fingers on a hand. As I look at my tree, I see many little hands reaching towards heaven to bring me peace and creativity.
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Richard Powers, The Overstory
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Bill Bogdan writes:
The Open Stacks Book Group recently read The Overstory by Richard Powers, an American novelist whose works explore the effects of science and technology on modern society. Powers has won many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a Macarthur fellowship. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, and The Overstory is his twelfth novel.
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The plot revolves about nine Americans whose unique life experiences with trees bring them together to address the destruction of forests, which they come to see them as living, organic conduits to the longevity, health, and sustainability of the planet. The cast includes a scientist whose research into how trees communicate and think leads her colleagues to ostracize her and disparage her results; a drug addled college student who receives telepathic messages from trees after she is struck by lightning; a group of young ecoterrorists determined to defend trees by direct action; a hermit sculptor whose family nurtured the last remaining American chesnut, and a South Asian genius hacker who, paralyzed by a fall from a tree, invents a world-transforming video game.
The grave danger of the over cutting of trees serves as the main catalyst for the action, which proves deadly for some of the characters. The story abounds in suspense, intrigue, visionary breakthroughs, and narrow escapes, all while engaging the latest science and the most pressing environmental issues. Powers has written a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that offers a stunning portrait of the natural world, from the roots to the crown and back to the seeds. This is the story of a handful of people who discover a radical new way to see that world even as they are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
“I’ll never look at trees the same way.”
-Nan Costello’s sister Joan
“The trees teach us so much about ourselves. They adapt in dramatic ways to changing circumstances, demonstrating resilience and teamwork.”
-Judy Cunningham
So find a favorite tree, open The Overstory, and enjoy time spent among trees for it is never time wasted. As Wendell Berry reminds us, "The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility."
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Ancient Forests of Cincinnati
John Tallmadge writes:
When Pam and I moved to Cincinnati thirty-three years ago, we never expected much in the way of trees. This was the Rust Belt, after all. As wilderness guy, I had explored and defended old growth from the Maine Woods to the Boundary Waters and the High Sierras. Walking amid big white pines or gigantic redwoods felt prayerful and mysterious. I wanted to slow down, listen, and breathe. I felt rooted and alive.
St. Thomas Aquinas defined beauty as a combination of wholeness, harmony, and radiance, the same qualities I had experienced in these ancient forests. Who ever would have thought they could be found in Cincinnati? When I heard there were several tracts of original, uncut woods right here, I had to see for myself.
Caldwell Preserve was the closest to College Hill, where I live. After logging most of their original 348 acre purchase, the family had donated the rest to the city, leaving 60 acres uncut. From North Bend Road entrance I took a narrow path to the interior, crossing two ridges overgrown with oaks, honeysuckle, ivy, and garlic mustard before reaching a third ridge where the invasives had disappeared and the understory was dominated by ferns, wildflowers, and paw-paws. Here mature beech trees formed a closed canopy sixty feet high, dampening the sounds of traffic and industry. In the vast open spaces beneath, the air felt cool and still, as if protected by thick stone walls.
I found myself taking slow steps, looking down, up and around. A great horned owl took off, glided away, and disappeared without stirring so much as a leaf. Huge rotting logs lay strewn about; one sported a bright yellow fungus crumpled like a bath towel. A pileated woodpecker whacked at a dead maple, knocking off chips as big as triscuits. He was busy but not in a hurry; the sense of embodied time was very strong. I felt composed, relaxed, and alert, the way I had after many days on the trail.
As I drove home, passing the scraped ground of construction sites, the shorn lawns of suburbs, and the lush, weedy borders of parks, freeways, and vacant lots, I realized that Cincinnati has landscapes in every stage of ecological succession from artificial deserts to old growth forests. The arrow of biological time always points toward increasing wildness, that is, toward wholeness, harmony, and radiance.
You can find old growth forest in these Cincinnati Parks:
Caldwell Preserve. Entrance located off North Bend Road just west of Mill Creek in Carthage. A paved handicapped-accessible trail runs along the first ridge east from the visitor center with overlook platforms and abundant spring wild flowers. A gravel path begins from the opposite end of the parking lot and takes you to the third ridge, the oldest section, with mature beeches, pawpaws, and numerous trilliums in May.
Ault Park. Entrance at the end of Observatory Avenue in Hyde Park. Take one of three trails that head east and downhill from the road that circles the pavilion. Mature oaks, abundant spring wild flowers, ferns and fungi reward the attentive eye.
California Woods. Another large tract of old growth with showy spring wild flowers including wild ginger, bloodroot, and celandine poppies. Take Kellogg Rd. (Rt. 52) west from the I-275 bridge; entrance is on the right just after the Greater Cincinnati Water Works.
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Trees and the Climate Crisis |
John Hancock writes:
We hear almost daily about the global catastrophes of climate change: monster storms, rising seas, disappearing ice, scorching temperatures, mass migrations, and so on. And we know it’s all caused by our way of life – dependent on the fossil fuel economy. We feel trapped, hurtling toward the dire predictions of what the world will be like for our grandchildren – a world without glaciers or our present coastlines.
Sorry for the downer, folks. So what can we do?
Trees are part of the answer. That coal we’re burning actually contains the carbonized remains of ancient trees, and when we use coal-fired electricity, that carbon returns to the atmosphere and heats the planet. Trees growing around the world today can absorb carbon back out of the air, but they can’t do it fast enough and there aren’t enough of them to take up all of the carbon we emit.
Becoming Carbon Neutral is the answer – as individual households, and as a planet.
Our average American lifestyle produces 14 metric tons of carbon (CO2) per person per year. That’s a lot – five times the average citizen of France! So we should all reduce our “Carbon Footprint” as much as possible, but inevitably there will be some left over.
That’s where the trees come in: we can help increase the capacity of the world’s forests to re-absorb our carbon emissions – by planting new trees or preserving existing forests. Both are examples of what’s called a “Carbon Offset.”
Being Carbon Neutral is making sure that all the carbon you’re producing gets absorbed or offset someplace else.
One acre of established (50-year) hardwood forest will absorb 14 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere per year. That’s our American per person average! A newly planted acre of forest will capture about one fifth of that amount. A single hardwood tree will absorb about 1 metric ton of carbon over its first 40 years of life. One study (published in Science) calculates that a global plan to plant 1 trillion new trees could actually go a long way toward solving the Climate Crisis! For more information, see theguardian.com
Trees as an “offset” can help you become Carbon Neutral. So here are some things to consider: the trees you plant or preserve need to be “additional” (they’ll only exist because of your action) and “perpetual” (they’re preserved and managed for the long run). I do mine through the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System out in Highland County; the Nature Conservancy is another reliable way to make sure you’re supporting long-term solutions. For more information about offset opportunities, see cooleffect.org
Our church’s recent “Becoming Carbon Neutral” class, sponsored by your EarthCare Team, hopes soon to publish a booklet covering all of this in more detail! Stay tuned for that.
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October: Election Issues: Local, National, and Global
November: Food
December: Energy
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Special thanks to Rich Bitting, Daniel Stiver, Yana Keck, and Doug Ford for photos of Caldwell Preserve, the Osage orange moth, the Japanese maple, and the Pawpaw Lady.
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