American Chestnut II

A couple of posts ago I wrote about how the American Chestnut tree was the dominant tree in the eastern forest until it was all but wiped out by chestnut blight at the turn of the 20th Century. I also talked about the efforts of The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) to restore the tree by cross-breeding it with the blight resistant Chinese Chestnut. Finally, I said that it was my goal to obtain some blight resistant trees, grow them, plant their seeds, and donate the new trees to individuals and organizations to promote American Chestnut reforestation efforts.

Looks like I got a little ahead of myself. TACF is very close to its goal of developing a blight resistant hybrid tree that is 94 percent American Chestnut, but not quite there.

After further research I learned that TACF’s founder, Dr. Charles Burnham, proposed a methodology of breeding to incorporate blight resistance into the American Chestnut. The technique is called backcross breeding.

I’m not sure if I ever took a biology course in high school or college. At least I don’t recall doing so. I know enough about genetics and breeding to have fathered two children, and I attribute that to a lot of practice. 

Fortunately, there is a convenient diagram on the TACF website that explains backcross breeding. The first step is to cross an American Chestnut with a blight-resistant Chinese Chestnut. This produces an F1 hybrid which is 50 percent American Chestnut. An F1 hybrid is then crossed with an American Chestnut to produce a BC1 hybrid that is 75 percent American Chestnut. I can only guess that BC1 stands for first generation back bred Chestnut.

Now remember that the goal is (a) to produce a disease resistant tree and (b) to have enough disease resistant trees with different lineage to promote the necessary genetic diversity to sustain a robust population. This means that it’s not enough to produce one F1 hybrid. Many F1 hybrids have to be produced, all with different parents. The same is true with the BC1 hybrids, as well as for all succeeding generations.

Moreover, each generation of trees must be tested to see if they have acquired any blight resistance. Trees that do not show any degree of blight resistance are removed from the program, and only resistant trees are used to breed the next generation. Trees are tested for blight resistance by inoculating them with a weak strain and a strong strain of the blight fungus. This can only be done when the tree is 5 to 8 years old. After inoculation it takes 11 months to determine whether the tree has acquired some resistance to the blight. TACF’s website says that with excellent care, TACF is able to complete a generation in six years for less.

BC1 trees that show blight resistance are bred with American Chestnuts to produce a BC2 generation. Resistant BC2 trees are bred with American Chestnuts to produce a BC3 generation. Resistant BC3 trees are then bred with other resistant BC3 trees (this is called an intercross) to produce a BC3F2 generation. Resistant BC3F2 trees are bred with other resistant BC3F2 trees, to produce a BC3F3 generation that is 15/16 or 94 percent American Chestnut. TACF calls the BC3F3 hybrids Legacy Trees. TACF states that the Legacy Trees are “expected to show a high level of blight resistance in initial forest test-plantings.”

The project started in earnest in 1989. Since 2005 TACF has harvested increasing numbers of seeds from the Legacy Trees. These seeds are called Restoration Chestnuts 1.0. In 2009 the first of these Restoration Chestnuts were planted in real forest environments. It is expected that some of these trees will succumb to the blight, but others will prove resistant. Further breeding, both artificial and natural, of the progeny of these trees will, it is hoped, produce trees that can reproduce, thrive, and spread on their own.

As you can see, bringing back the American Chestnut is a massive project requiring numerous planting sites throughout the tree's natural range from Maine to Georgia, and from the Piedmont plateau in the Carolinas west to the Ohio Valley.

Back to me. A Management Forester for the Georgia Forestry Commission gave me the name of Dr. Martin Cipollini of Berry College in Rome, Georgia, and said that he is the leading expert on the American Chestnut tree in the southern Appalachians. He is also intimately involved in TACF’s Chestnut breeding program. I emailed Cipollini about my interest, and he sent me forms to complete that will allow my property to serve as a test orchard where a few BC3F3 trees will be planted to test whether it’s a good place to grow Chestnut trees. If it is, then my property will be considered for one of several types of orchards/plantings.

Some of these plantings are beyond my resources. For example, a restoration planting involves approximately 1400 trees, three or more acres, and a 30 year commitment. I have acres, but it’s questionable whether I have the time. Besides, I want to grow something other than trees on my property. A few rows of corn, beans and peppers might be nice.

So there you have the current state of efforts to restore the American Chestnut to its former glory. Keep your fingers crossed that my property is good for growing Chestnut trees and that the BC3F3 hybrids I receive turn out to be blight resistant. I know this probably makes me a dweeb, but I’m excited. They make jokes about people sitting around and watching the grass grow. I’ll be sitting around watching trees grow.

Finally, here’s my funny chestnut story. Many years ago when I was dating Meredith I wanted to roast some chestnuts for her. I did not have a roaring fire, but my small apartment had an oven. I couldn’t remember whether you were supposed to put a slit in the chestnuts before you roasted them. I didn’t want to ruin all of them so I only slit half of them. I popped them in the oven and turned on the heat. A few minutes later loud explosions began coming from the kitchen. It sounded like grenades were going off. We hit the floor, and I low crawled into the kitchen. The chestnuts that had not been slit were exploding in the oven like giant kernels of popcorn. When I opened the oven door, I was met with a barrage of chestnut shrapnel. I’m lucky I didn’t lose an eye.

Moral of the story: Slit your chestnuts before you roast them. Second moral of the story: Forget the chestnuts if you’re trying to score with a woman; a nice meal at a decent restaurant is so much more effective and safe.

Quiet Days

Things have been quiet here in the land of grits, gravy, cornmeal and moonshine. I know where to get the first three but, unfortunately, I haven’t discovered a source for the last.

I think we are in the quiet season in north Georgia where not much is done. It’s a combination of the holidays being over and the weather. It’s too early to plant a garden, and the weather is too variable and cold to start a significant outdoor project. I think I read somewhere that the Cherokees referred to this time of year as the Moon of Sitting on Your Ass.

Meredith and I managed to get our health insurance issues worked out, and we just returned from seeing our new family doctor. What is amazing is that Meredith was able to schedule the appointments within 10 days of when she called the doctor’s office.

Our new doctor’s name is Dr. Jabaley. He is an internal medicine specialist. He stands 6’ 4”, probably weighs in at 250, and wears blue jeans and well worn cowboy boots. It’s like having Matt Dillon as your doctor. When he says bend over and spread your cheeks, there’s no question about complying. I almost asked him whether his nurse is named Kitty.

He wanted me to get some blood work. I had visions of having to make an appointment to travel a long way to sit in a crowded waiting room at some blood work lab. “Nah,” he told me, “Just drive up the road to the Copperhill Basin Medical Center (CBMC) and hand them this script.” So Meredith and I drove there, and I was in and out in 30 minutes. When I was filling out the required forms and I came to the part that asked me to fill out information about my doctor, the receptionist said just write Dr. Jab and forget the rest of the information. It was the medical equivalent of a fast food restaurant.

As you may know from a past post, I’m due for a colonoscopy. In Florida that involved making an appointment with a gastroenterologist, having a preliminary examination, and then being scheduled for the procedure. It would take four weeks to get in to see the doctor, and another four weeks to have the procedure done. Not here. I handed the colonoscopy script to the receptionist at CBMC, and she told me that I would receive a call in the next day or two to schedule the procedure to be done in the next two or three weeks. That’s about as fast as getting service from Roto Rooter. I just hope the similarity ends there.

Much like our experience getting our driver’s licenses, registering our vehicles, and getting our Georgia homestead exemption, we encountered no delay in seeing the doctor and setting up the necessary tests and procedures. I can't tell you whether that is the way things are in small towns generally or whether this area is unique. Regardless, I'm one happy camper.

I am now sporting new decals on my truck that say “Sassafras Farm” and depict Sassafras leaves. Jake gave them to me as a Christmas gift. I don’t know whether that makes me feel more country or just a little light in the jeans if you know what I mean. Sassafras Farm seems closer to Pansy Farm than to Stud Bull Testicles Farm. I just can’t picture John Wayne saying, “This here is Sassafras Farm property, pilgrim.”

It was Meredith who started calling the property Sassafras Farm several years ago. At first I thought it was pretentious to call our small piece of property a farm, especially since we haven't grown anything yet. I was concerned that we were flouting some unwritten rule about that sort of thing. I’m okay with it now because it seems like a lot of people with a piece of property around here hang a moniker on their property, and all the names are in the same vein as Sassafras Farm.

Frankly, I find the names to be rather bland and uncreative. Most of them involve an animal, plant or terrain feature and are calculated to evoke pleasant thoughts of the country like Smokey Hollow Farm or Laughing Pony Farm. You won’t find anything like Slaughtered Hog Farm, Poison Ivy Farm, or Too Many Rocks Farm.

More than anything, I think the names are a reflection of the people who named them. You don’t find people who were born and raised here naming their property. It appears that it is the newcomers to Fannin County who feel the compulsion to name their property. That makes me conclude that the names are a way for new arrivals to emphasize that they are now living the country life.

I have a lot of profound insights like this now that I’m retired. I attribute this to the fact that I am not using up my daily dose of brain power on the demands of work. I can remember too many days when I came home from work with my brain used up. I was unable to make one more decision, form a complex thought, or engage in meaningful conversation. Honest, Meredith, I was not trying to be an asshole; I was just mentally fried.

Things are different now. I have time to think. For example, I am rebuilding the stone wall in front of the cabin. Building a stone wall requires a certain amount of attention and concentration in finding just the right stone to fit on top of other stones to make a strong wall, but it is slow and patient work that allows me time to think about other things. It's not like preparing for a trial, researching a complicated issue of law, or writing a memorandum of law.

I anticipated having more time for deep thinking when I retired so I decided to start a daily journal when I moved. In it I intended to record all the penetrating observations and profound truths that occurred to me. I suppose I was trying to emulate Thomas Jefferson and John Adams who kept lengthy diaries and journals throughout their lives. They not only recorded their daily activities, but they wrote at length and in depth about their thoughts and impressions and philosophies. It’s as if they knew that they were destined to be great men and that their words would live on after them. I actually envisioned myself sitting at a desk at night in front of a candle scratching out profound thoughts with a quill pen.

I started my daily journal the minute I retired, but it has not turned out to be the gratifying, intellectual experience that I anticipated. It’s a bitch to write with a quill pen. The page ends up looking like a Rorschach ink blot. You can’t see a damn thing when you write by candle light. You need several of them to be able to make out the words on the page, and then you’re worried about setting off the smoke alarms.

But the real truth is that I feel silly writing down my innermost thoughts in a journal. I feel like I’m talking to myself and that is never a good sign. Ted Kaczynski, the Unibomber, kept a daily journal and look where he ended up. I would write something deep or introspective and then think: Who gives a shit? Who’s going read this? So over time the lengthy journal entries that I started making have degenerated into a short list of what I did that day. My journal has become little more than a time card. So much for preserving my thoughts for posterity.

I do want to share one profound thought that occurred to me while toiling on the stone wall, and it’s this: If there is a God, She must be a woman and have a perverse sense of humor.

What other explanation is there for the location and lack of protection of the male genetalia? A competent safety engineer would not designed a man’s body so that the most sensitive part of it is just dangling there unprotected at the level of fire hydrants, small shrubs and bushes, and young children with sticks and baseball bats.

Admittedly, I have not figured out a good alternate location for Willy and the Twins. The middle of the forehead is out. It would make wearing a hat difficult. If you got excited you'd look a Unicorn. The top of the shoulder is no good. You'd look like a pirate with a dead parrot on his shoulder. The back of the wrist would get in the way of a wristwatch. Besides, who would want to shake your hand?

I think the obvious solution is that men's crotches should have armor plating like an armadillo’s scales. If it had been me making the decision, I’d have designed it so that it would take a bunker buster bomb to cause any damage to the package. The fact that men are not designed that way tells me that God is a woman and that She designed man so She would have a little comic relief at the end of a hard day.

I’m sure I’ll have other brilliant thoughts and penetrating insights in this time of enforced idleness until spring gets here. I’ll be sure to share them with you. I bet you can’t wait.

Georgia Residency and Cheese Class II

Someone notable, whose name I cannot remember, once said that every story should have a beginning, middle, and an end. I strive to do that in these posts by having a central theme for each one. But every now and then I come up with a post that’s like a drunk wandering away from a lamp post—only by the grace of God does it ever get back to the point it started at. This may be one of those posts.

The weather here can turn on a dime. Today it was sunny and in the mid-50’s. Tomorrow they are predicting snow flurries. Forty years in Florida did not prepare me for this.

Meredith and I are now official Georgia residents. In a day long orgy of dealing with government bureaucracy, we obtained our Georgia driver’s licenses, registered our vehicles, obtained our Georgia homestead exemption, and placed our land in a ten year conservation agreement, all on a walk-in basis without having made one appointment. I also successfully obtained a new social security card during the course of the day. The fact we were able to accomplish all that in one day may tell you something about that difference between bureaucracy in a small town versus a large urban area.

Like Florida, you can obtain specialty license plates in Georgia. Interestingly, you can obtain a specialty plate that identifies you as a University of Tennessee or Alabama alumnus, but not as an alumnus of the University of Florida. State governments will do just about anything these days to generate additional revenue, but I guess for Georgians, some of those past Gator Bowl defeats really stung.

As an aside, when you walk into the county clerk’s office in Fannin County, there is a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed between the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution in the waiting room. I find that interesting.

As you might expect, there were fees involved in obtaining our driver’s licenses, tags, and homestead exemption. In Georgia these are euphemistically referred to as courtesy fees. The government official who came up with that one should serve time for criminal distortion of the mother tongue. Try as I might, I cannot see how a fee paid to government represents a courtesy to me.

I had to obtain a new social security card to get my Georgia driver’s license. If you want to get depressed about the state of our country, just sit in a Social Security Office waiting room for an hour or so. It seems to be the place to go if you are lame, sick, feeble, elderly, confused, grotesquely overweight, or trying to scam the government for benefits. I am not trying to be harsh or unsympathetic, merely observational. I pray to God that my eventual decline is swift and decisive so I do not have to spend any more time in a Social Security Office waiting room.

In this particular Social Security Office, when you first walk in you have to enter information using a touch screen so that you can receive a stand in line number. The first screen asked in English whether you speak English. I guess if you don’t speak English you’re screwed from the start. Why does that not bother me?

The conservation agreement is pretty neat. If your land is agricultural or wooded and greater than ten acres, you can sign an agreement with the government not to sell or develop it for ten years and receive a substantial property tax break. Since I have no plans to develop the United States of Yacavone, I jumped on that.

Switching gears, I attended my intermediate cheese-making class last Sunday afternoon. In this class we graduated from liquid milk cultures like yogurt and kefir to solid cheeses like ricotta and mozzarella. I intend to continue my education and take the advanced class. Cheddar, here I come.

The instructor was the same large, earthy, disorganized woman who taught the first class. It’s hard to capture her character in words. At first, I thought she may have been the type who once lived in a commune, but having listened to her through two cheese classes, I realize that she would not have put up with all that esoteric hippy bullshit. More than anything I see her as a strong, solid, practical pioneer woman. I don’t believe she’s someone who has adopted an alternative lifestyle in search of inner kharma. There are a lot of those types around here. I think she lives the way she lives because that’s the way she has always lived and she prefers it that way. She is comfortable growing her own vegetables, raising animals for food, and making cheese. Her way of life satisfies her. She is not tempted by the modern urban lifestyle.

During a break in the class when we were waiting for our curds and whey to separate (never thought I’d get to say that), she started talking about how she bred her goats this spring and had an over abundance of young goats, so she slaughtered some of the kids when they reached an appropriate age. She talked about how much meat a baby goat yields and how many meals she could get out of one carcass. She said that a baby goat slaughtered at so many weeks (I forget the number) dresses out at 20 pounds. She kept a couple of the butchered baby goats whole so she can roast them on a spit over an open fire at family gatherings.

I found the whole discussion fascinating. This is part of the reason I moved to rural Georgia—to learn about the old ways of doing things. As she was talking, my mind swirled with thoughts. I realized that for all my interest in and reading about early American life and ways, my knowledge is that of a dilettante or academic. I have no practical knowledge or experience in how to raise, slaughter or butcher a goat or cook one over an open fire. It seems so complicated to me, yet here was this woman casually explaining what she had done like a suburban housewife might explain how she picked up ribs at the supermarket.

It occurred to me that in the 1800’s most Americans would have known and experienced the process of raising, slaughtering and butchering their own meat. Today, at least in an urban areas, I think you’d have to search for someone who can do something like that.

Why is it that I would rather learn how to slaughter, dress and butcher a goat or a hog or a beef than learn how to use the latest clever app on my smart phone? What makes me believe that such knowledge enriches my life and is more valuable than being proficient in the latest technology, knowing who won the Golden Globe awards, and listening to the Doctor Phil Show to understand why little Johnny hates his parents? I’m going to have to work on figuring that out.

With the exception of the irritating Ms. GMO, the cheese class consisted of a whole new cast of characters. Ms. GMO, if you will recall, is the older woman who is takes every opportunity to tell you about how bad processed and genetically modified food is for you.

The instructor asked us to say a little about ourselves at the beginning of the class. Ms. GMO proceeded to tell us—proudly, I might add—that she has spent the last seventeen years living holistically. Maybe it’s me, but I thought that was a little over the top. When it came my turn, I was tempted to say that I had spent my entire life living decadently, but I controlled myself. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be less critical of others. As you can probably tell, that’s going to be a tough one for me to keep. The fact of the matter is that I stayed as far away of Ms. GMO as I could. Whenever she started to talk about her holistic lifestyle, I retreated to the kitchen, stuck my fingers in my ears, and chanted, “Nah, nah, nah, nah. I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.” I think a few members of the class thought I was into some eastern religion.

Ms. GMO spent a lot of time talking with another middle aged woman who, I gather, was of a similar mind set, but I’m not sure of that. If living holistically means rejecting deodorant, then this other woman was definitely holistic.

The rest of the class was about as close to normal as you could expect for a group of people who want to learn to make cheese. You can read into that statement anything you want.

For what it’s worth, I learned to make mozzarella, ricotta, and ricotta salata. Ricotta salata is aged ricotta cheese. It tastes like a sharp cheddar or an aged parmesan, and is pretty easy to make. I’ve ordered a cheese press and intend to start pounding out wheels of ricotta salata on a weekly basis. If you happen to visit me in six months or so, be prepared to have some.

Mozzarella is more complicated than I thought. It’s a little tricky kneading the hot balls of mozzarella so they get the proper smoothness and elasticity. The instructor was disappointed in the batch that we made. Referring to our mozzarella balls, she said she was sad that we couldn’t go home with perfect balls. I promptly informed her that I couldn’t speak for the others, but I was going home with perfect balls.

So there you have it: a busy and productive few days in north Georgia by retirement standards.

The Great Freeze

Well, I survived the great freeze-out of 2014. No busted pipes. No frostbite. Of course, it’s difficult to get frostbite when you’ve spent a total of 30 minutes outdoors in the last three days.

The lowest temperature here was -2. I have no idea what the wind chill factor was, but I bet it was brutal. For the last three days the temperature has been in the teens and the single digits during the day. I know that the cold here was nothing like people experienced in the north so I probably shouldn’t complain. Still, for a Florida boy, it’s been a bit frosty to say the least.

It has been too cold to work outside or in the workshop, so I’ve been stuck in the cabin. My activities have consisted of sleeping, watching TV, reading, playing old computer games, becoming one with the cat and the dog, and stoking the wood stove. If this continues for another two days, I will become certifiably bat shit.

My longest foray outside was to walk up to get the mail. Now that may not sound like much, but our mailbox is four-tenths of a mile from the cabin. I prepared for it like an astronaut preparing for extra-vehicular activity: double socks, long johns, four layers of clothing, scarf, mittens, and a big furry hat. I had more clothing on than Sir Edmund Hillary when he conquered Everest. As I waddled up the hill to the mailbox, I was genuinely concerned that I would not be able to get up if I fell down. I had this vision of me flailing around like a turtle on its back.

This recent forced inactivity made me to wonder what the early pioneers of the southern Appalachians did when the weather got really bad in the winter. They lived in rough hewn log cabins with mud chinked in the cracks to keep out the wind. You know those cabins were drafty as hell. The only heat was a fire at one end of the cabin. I’m pretty sure they did not have an excess of warm clothing. I picture them sitting in front of the fire wrapped in blankets, shawls and quilts, occasionally turning like birds on a spit to warm their backsides.

What did they do for entertainment? They were lucky if they owned one book, and that was probably a family Bible. Those early cabins had one or two windows at most, and they were most likely closed in cold weather. Reading by firelight is cumbersome at best. I’m sure Mom and Dad tried to keep the kids entertained with games and stories, but I imagine there were long periods of silence when the family just stared into the fire waiting for the weather to break.

I have a lot of admiration for those early pioneers. They were tough, resilient, and independent. They had to be.

The American Chestnut Tree. On another note, I think I have found a greater purpose for my retirement. I intend to propagate the great American Chestnut Tree.

I have always loved the eastern woodlands. The hardwoods and ancient terrain of the Appalachians speak to me more than the spruce and fir and majestic grandeur of the Rockies.

When the first settlers crossed the Atlantic, the Eastern United States, from Canada to Florida and from the coast to the Mississippi, was one vast forest. At one time the American Chestnut was the dominant tree throughout much of this region, particularly in the Appalachian and Alleghany Mountains. It is estimated that Chestnut trees once comprised one-quarter of the trees in this area.

Growing over 100 feet tall and four feet in width and spreading its stout branches widely, the American Chestnut was highly valued by the pioneers and early settlers. Its wood was strong, straight grained and rot resistant. Its chestnuts were a valuable food source for man and animals. In Appalachia the settlers would turn their hogs out in large groves of chestnut trees to fatten them for slaughter.

The American Chestnut reigned supreme until the early 1900’s when it succumbed to chestnut blight, perhaps the first of many dangerous imports from China. The billions of chestnut trees died. Today there are no great groves of the American Chestnut. A few mature trees survive in isolated places, their locations secret or protected.

Even now, almost 100 years after they were decimated by the blight, you can find old chestnut stumps clinging to life. Young chestnut shoots grow from their roots, but they wither and die from the blight when they reach a few years of age. Many years ago Meredith and I hiked into the Great Smokey Mountains for eight days to find one of these old patriarchs. In a remote corner of the park we came across a large stump from which sprouted several young trees, perhaps seven or eight feet tall. We could tell it was an American Chestnut from its characteristic large saw-toothed leaves. I know this may sound cheesy and melodramatic, but I was thrilled as if I had met one of my childhood heroes.

Now there is hope for this once great tree. For years scientists have been trying to beat the fungus that causes the blight. They have been attacking it on several fronts. One way is by interbreeding the American Chestnut with the Chinese Chestnut to create a tree resistant to the blight. They have now achieved a tree that is 94 percent American Chestnut.

Another way is to attack the fungus itself. Scientists have developed a vaccine that has had some success. Young trees are inoculated with the vaccine, and many of them have grown past the stage when they should have succumbed to the blight. The hope is that these trees will pass their resistance on.

Other scientists are decoding the American Chestnut tree genome in hopes of finding clues on how to defeat the blight.

There are a number of organizations supporting these efforts, the most prominent of which is the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF). The ACF, in league with the United States Department of Agriculture, has long range plans to repopulate the American Chestnut by planting them on the hundred thousands of acres of strip mined land that exists in southern Appalachia. As it turns out, the American Chestnut is particularly suited to growing on the marginal soil left by old strip mining operations.

You can now purchase young disease resistant trees. The great thing about the American Chestnut is that it is grows quickly and starts to develop its seeds, the proverbial chestnut, at four or five years of age. These seeds can be used to grow more trees.

I have taken it as a mission of my life to assist in these efforts to bring back the American Chestnut. I intend to purchase a handful of trees and plant them on my property. When they start to bear seeds, I will grow them in pots and donate them to local citizens and organizations interested in growing one of these proud denizens of the old eastern forest.

Two thousand years ago, the Roman, Caecilius Statius, said, "He plants trees to benefit another generation." I plan to do my part.