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| RIVER BIRCH |
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| HACKBERRY |
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| BLACK WILLOW |
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| SILVER MAPLE |
Saturday, 8;00 AM. 46 degrees, wind NE, strong and gusty at times. It rained off and on most of yesterday and everything is soggy. The sky is clear except for clouds on the eastern horizon. The barometer is trending down so it may be another unsettled day.
Now back to fall color, which is fading rapidly with the rain, buffeting winds and falling temperatures: The big old black willows and weeping willows around the city are still mostly green-leaved, but turning shades of yellow and brown. There are few of the later in the native woodlands but plenty of the former in bottom lands and on shorelines.
When investigating and photographing fall color, there is a rather natural demarcation between countryside and its native woodland associations and the horticultural trees and shrubs found in town and along city streets, But both environments are colorful and worth appreciating.
The river birch, Betula nigra, although native to wet environments much further south is not part of the natural environment here, but it is widely used as a street tree and in landscaping as a reliable substitute for the borer-prone and finicky paper birch, which is a major native species in the Northland. Its leaves are still hanging on, yellow with green overtones.
Another more southern native tree, hardy and somewhat common on northern city streets because it has many characteristics of the American elm, is hackberry, Celtis occidentalis, whose leaves are now a clear yellow-green, almost a light lime green.
Also common in the city and unfortunately often used as a street tree is the fast growing silver maple, Acer saccharinum, which still has mostly green leaves and very little fall color. It is weak wooded and even more prone to wind damage than the sugar maple.
We are hearing a lot about greed lately, which is closely allied with envy. Both are considered major or mortal sins in most religions. Wallstreet greed, the greed of bankers, the greed of the “rich,” whomever they may be, is currently being scrutinized. What the protesters and “occupiers” fail to recognize is that greed is an integral part of human nature, a failing of the human spirit. It is a thing of Greek and biblical tragedy, which without constant vigilance infests us all. Those who rail against it seldom see it in themselves; for greed is not only the desire for more wealth and possessions than one needs. Greed is having a higher opinion of oneself than is logical or warranted; claiming to be more educated or intelligent than one actually is. It is grasping for things one has not worked sufficiently for or does not in good conscience deserve. Greed is living with ones feet under somebody else's table, demanding for oneself what others have worked hard for and is theirs alone. Greed is being on the public dole when one could tough it out. Greed is refusing to do work a person feels is beneath him or her; or refusing honest work because it doesn’t “pay enough.” Greed is demanding from the system or situation more than it can sustainably give (read Detroit auto union and many governmental union benefits). Greed is desiring unwarranted fame (assassins and mass murderers are greedy for their moment of infamy). Each and every one of us has been and will again be greedy in some way and will suffer the consequeces. Many years ago I was so determined to fill my limit of pheasants that I accidentally shot a fine hunting dog. Only it was no accident, but a direct consequence of my own greed.
So I would admonish the “occupiers” to stop living in their parents’ basements, get off the dole, get the rings out of their noses, clean up, get sober and stop being a dangerous pain in the ass to everyone else.
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