THE HACKBERRY TREE, AND BACK WHEN THE MUSIC WAS BETTER

QUIET, FOGGY MORNING

HACKBERRY TREE, WASHINGTON AVE. BETWEEN 3RD AND 4TH STREETS

...HACKBERRY LEAVES...

...RIDGED, CORKY BARK

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  65 degrees F, wind SSE, light.  It was eerily foggy earlier, and it is just now beginning to lift, revealing a partly cloudy upper atmosphere.  Th humidity is 99% and the barometer is steady at 29.94". It's hard to say what today's weather will be.  If it doesn't rain we will cut firewood or pick blackberries in the afternoon.

   The hackberry tree, Celtis occidentals, is in the elm family, the Ulmaceae.   It is a native tree of eastern and Midwestern North America.  Its grows  in deep, rich soils.  It is not a major component of the deciduous forest, but neither is it  rare.  It became a rather popular street tree after the devastation caused by Dutch elm disease, because it is a close relatieve of  the elm, and its leaves and general appearance are somewhat similar. It has an interesting, closely ridged, corky gray bark.  It is hardy and makes a suitable street and park tree.  Its leaves turn yellow in the fall, but not the vivid yellow-bronze of the American elm.  It is immune to Dutch elm disease.

   The hackberry flowers are insignificant but the fruit is a noticeable small berry that encloses a hard stone, and turns blue-black when ripe.  The fruit had already dropped when these photos were taken.  We have a few hackberry street trees in Bayfield, this one is on Washington Ave., between 3rd and 4th streets.  They are doing well, and we will plant more.

   Epilogue to yesterday's battery failure: now the radio doesn't work.  If the battery is removed without maintaining power to the radio, it becomes inoperative, the only way to revive it being to key in security code numbers, using the radio's station buttons, that are on a card provided the original owner.  Lots of luck finding that.   Without it one must disconnect the car battery for one minute, reconnect it, turn the ignition switch on twice, hold down radio buttons one and six, and write down the radio's serial number which flashes momentarily on the radio screen.  That number along with the vehicles vin number must be given to the dealer, who then contacts Honda to get the radio's security code, which then must be keyed into the radio.  Lots of luck doing all that, as well.  

   I long for the good old days when a radio had one knob to turn it on and off, and another knob to dial the stations.  the music was a lot better back then, too.