Trees as protectors
Our lawn is pretty large, about two hours by push mower. I don’t like large lawns, and I have plans, oaths even, to reduce its size, year after year, until it’s just big enough to play cornhole or catch on. Until then, I walk it, and I observe the microclimates it stretches across, its various plant communities and contours.
The back lawn is run through with clover, and thrives because of it. I found a patch of yarrow, a juniper practically made into bonsai by mowing, and a rose bush, the lone survivor of a past hedge. The tree-of heaven colonizes by root in the hardest, most competitive soil.
Among the most striking of these small fascinations is the effect of the grass on the trees. For most of their wingspan under which they cast their shade, the grass is greenest. April and May here brought us to early drought conditions, and the lawn slowly browned. But not under the trees. The front corner of the yard is graced by three picture-perfect old sugar maples that cast thick shade over much of the ground. The grass plants there stayed protected, perhaps wanting for sunshine but basking in soil that drained only as much as they wanted for water. It was then where the birds flocked and the non-grasses continued to bloom.
That grass under the maples will be among the only lawn that will remain as I continue to chip away.
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When I first met Katie Funk, I was angry. Not at her, of course, but I was angry all the same. I had driven what should have been a one-hour drive in two hours, navigating a dying snowstorm through Illinois country roads that were adrift with powder. It was a very dangerous pre-dawn trip, as I braked and skidded my way through the beginning of what was still to be a 10-hour road trip.
It was frustrating enough just to slide my way through the mess, but what got stuck in my craw is where the roads were not bad. Every time I passed a structure along the roadside, the drifts abated and my driving was made safer. And most of those structures were trees. And most of those trees were survivors that rooted in negligence: hackberries and ashes and spindly cedars, occasionally an oak. Particular blessings were the rare evergreen windbreaks that certain thoughtful landowners had established, where the road was clear and my jaw unclenched.
I was still fuming about the destruction of trees and the gross ineptitude of Earl Butz when Katie loaded her luggage into my car at dawn. Luckily she fell in love with me anyway.
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We are in the first stages of the establishment of our farm, we being Katie and me and her brother Jonny. We are growing on land owned by their parents, a nine-acre piece bordered on all sides by trees, most closely by a beautiful grove of mixed hardwood that the Funks tap for maple sap. Parcels like this are rare, and usually small as compared to the unending open acreage of the nearby cornfields.
The trees buffer us from pesticide and herbicide applications on those other fields, allowing us to grow grapes and tree fruit and, maybe someday, become certified organic. Established trees around our “building” (it’s undergoing a lot of work) keep it shaded and cut the wind. The scrubby growth along the maple grove, capturing half-sun and safe from the hay rakes, teems with elderberries, black raspberries, and incredible birdsong. Our newly-established orchard is beginning to cast shade and promote small mushrooms, and Katie spotted a toad settling in a few days ago.
Our wild contrivances to yield more and clear roads and maintain our green courtyards and fight our environment are an economic engine that churns with muddled purpose. And they’re nigh on embarrassing when we look to trees as protectors, who will do so in exchange for just being left to grow.