Forestry

I've been exploring my forest, and discovering what a wonder and a blessing God has given me in this land. This is genuine old-growth forest, with an intact ecosystem--not the barren band of trees and undergrowth you find between suburban housing developments. I've only begun to uncover its secrets and treasures, and have probably only explored one or two of the six acres I own. Things I've found so far:

Shellbark Hickory, aka Kingnut. Because it has the best nuts of all the hickories.

White Walnut, aka Butternut.

Chestnuts! In case you don't know, the chestnut used to be the predominant tree in all the eastern hardwood forests in North America, until they were all killed by Chinese Chestnut Blight in the early 20th century. These are all seedlings and saplings, and may not grow to bearing age. But there have been recent finds of naturally blight-resistant trees, so they seem to be fighting back. Most significantly, a stand of around 500 healthy ones, including mature, bearing trees, was found very near here, down near Staunton. I'm going to transplant a couple of these into my clearing, and see if I can nurse them through to maturity.

Hazelnut

Wild Black Cherry

Blueberry

Mulberry (I think)

Wild Grapes

Witch Hazel. Not edible, but you can extract an excellent astringent from it--my grandmother swore by it. She put Sea Breeze on everything.

Hornbeam, aka Ironwood. If you can manage to work it, you can fashion very hard tools of this. I'm going to make myself a new walking stick.

King of the Oaks

Lord of the Maples

Gnome Home

Things I'm still hoping to find:

Black Walnut
Beechnut
Wild Plum
Wild Strawberries
A cave with a hidden cache of Confederate gold. Or a trove of silver dollars buried in mason jars by an old mountaineer. :)