West of Portland, Oregon, near Banks, hundreds of productive walnut trees crowded the south slope of the hills for decades. They provided food for the critters and income for the farmers. You can see part of this grove on the hillside just beyond the smoky-looking smudge on the camera lens.
As the properties subdivided, a few walnut trees ended up on my golf course's side of the road. Every year I gathered a sackful of nuts for some winter roasting.
But those farmers grew old as we all will, and sold the property. The north end of the Willamette River valley, west of Portland, is some of the richest farmland in earth and fetches a dear price; the farm went for millions. What happened next was not natural, but it was unusual.
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There's what happened there this week.
The new owners uprooted hundreds of the trees with heavy equipment, pushed them into piles and torched them. I don't know why. The trees were older, perhaps their production fell.
Maybe disease had swept through that grove. A couple of plagues; Twig beetles, and Thousand Canker Disease, are currently inflicting Walnut trees in Oregon and the West.
Maybe the new owners want to grow grapes, like many of their neighbors. County zoning won't allow condos.
In the meantime, the hill full of walnut trees I've admired for almost twenty years is gone. I thought about asking the owners if I could salvage a few logs for the beautifully grained lumber, but logging in the field is a young man's game. Those days for me have long past.
Now It's Your Turn What's interesting to you? Please post your own observations and your general location in the comments.
Thank you for reading. I'll work this morning so I'll respond to comments before lunchtime.
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