Margaret Cheasebro

For centuries, Italian agriculture produced an abundance of fruit. Today, Italy is still a major producer of pears, but only four varieties of them are still found.  A century ago, there were hundreds of varieties. Six centuries ago, many different kinds of fruit trees grew in the country, among them apples, plums, grapes, pears and cherries.

Isabella Dalla Ragione, who lives in rural Perugia, Italy, has made it her task to help restore the agricultural biodiversity of the abundant fruit trees for which Italy was once renounced. Though industrial agriculture has succeeded in creating a few productive varieties, they have a simple genetic pattern no longer capable of dealing with challenges such as drought and climate change.

Her father, Livio Dalla Ragione, taught art at a local university and was a pioneer of a rural farm and food movement in Italy that focused on planting local fruit tree varieties that had been abandoned. Together in 1989, she and her father founded Archeologia Arborea, which focused on researching the lost fruit tree species. Livio died in 2007, but Dalla continues their work.

In 2006, her research led her to a palazzo about 10 miles from her home that had housed the Bufalini family. They were major Umbrian landowners in the 16th century. There, she found boxes of old paper records that inventoried the Bufalini crops.

When she took a closer look at the ceiling of the palazzo that featured the 16th century fresco by Cristofano Gherardi, she found something even more revealing. The fresco showed Prometheus delivering fire to humans. Many ancient fruits she had been studying in the Bufalini archives were part of that painting.

In the November 2024 Smithsonian Magazine article The Fruit Detective by Mark Schapiro, Dalla is quoted as saying, "I put together that the art was at the same period of time as the documents. For me, it was an incredible connection." The fruit trees she and her father had spent much time growing were descendants of fruits from that centuries old time.

To help advance her work, Dalla earned a PhD in biodiversity from the University of Perugia in 2017. Her doctoral thesis involved analyzing the genomes of hundreds of pear varieties. In that process, she discovered that older pears from the 15th century and earlier had more genetic diversity than today's varieties have. Greater diversity helped the fruit adapt to shifting conditions through the centuries.

In his article, Schapiro wrote, "They might not produce as much per tree as modern varieties, but their traits helped them survive new pests and changing weather conditions, meaning they produced fruit more steadily over decades and even centuries."

Dalla continues to spot ancient fruit in centuries old paintings, and she is determined to continue her work of bringing back an abundance of the fruit that once thrived in Italy centuries ago.

Though the soil is starting to cool down as temperatures drops below freezing during parts of the day, soil may still be warm enough to plant a tree. When soil is still somewhat warm, trees feel less stress after you plant them. They have an easier time adjusting to their new environment.

During this time of year, trees in many parts of the country are in the process of going dormant. A newly planted tree this time of year will not have to share as much of its energy with budding blossoms and spurts of root growth as it would if it were planted in the spring.

If you're thinking about planting a tree this time of year, visit one or more nurseries near where you live. Ask the people who work there what kinds of trees grow best at this time of year in your locality. People who work in nurseries are very knowledgeable about plants, and they will be glad to share with you what they know about planting trees.

They can even tell you how big a hole you should dig for the tree, what kinds of soil enhancers to put in the hole, and a lot of other information that will help your tree survive well during the winter.

When you decide where you're going to plant the new tree in your yard, take time to thank the soil and your yard for welcoming the new tree. It may sound silly to express your gratitude in that way, but the essence of your gratitude will create a warm, loving energy. When people express their thanks to us, it usually lifts our spirits. The same is true for all living things, even soil and trees.

When you bring home the tree and place it in the hole you've dug for it, tell the tree how happy you are that it has become part of your yard. Express your gratitude to it. The tree will capture the essence of your emotions. It will help the tree to feel good about being in your yard.

Next spring when trees and other plants come out of dormancy, spend time near the young tree. Continue to express your thanks for it, and let it know how grateful you are to see it growing. If you do that, don't be surprised to see how well it thrives.

May all of you who plant a tree in your yard now discover how powerful gratitude can be when you express it to others, including trees.

Susan Aguirre grew up on a 25-acre farm in the lower valley of El Paso, Texas, many years ago. There, she learned from her wise grandmother and other relatives how to tell what the weather will do by reading the language of nature.

It seems fitting that for the last eight years, she has been the owner of Lil Aztec Flower Shop at the corner of Chaco and Main in Aztec. There, she is surrounded by beautiful flowers, part of nature's bounty. The first year she opened the shop in 2016, people took notice. She received the Spirit Award from the city of Aztec that year. In 2017 she was named Business of the Year by the Aztec Chamber of Commerce.

The things she learned during her years growing up on the farm have never left her, and she often chats with customers about what nature reveals to us.

"Have you heard the crickets lately?" she asked me one day when I visited her store.

I stopped to think. I'd heard them two weeks before that, but I hadn't heard them lately.

"That's because they've gone underground," she told me. "They're hibernating. Ants do the same thing." It isn't until spring that they reemerge. When you stop hearing the crickets, nature is announcing that fall is coming. When June bugs come out, she added, hot weather is coming.

If you get stung by ants, bees, or other insects, she has a remedy for that. Make a paste of baking soda and water thick enough that the paste will stick to your skin. "Rub the paste all over you," she said. "It will neutralize the poison."

She added a caution. If a brown recluse spider bites you, don't wait to do the baking soda treatment. Go directly to the emergency room. Time is of the essence to find treatment before the spider's poison overwhelms your system.

Pay attention to the smells of nature, she added. "Fall smells like dying. Snow smells clean,

crisp, cold." The smells of nature will tell you what's about to happen.

She had a lot to say about the moon, which is a pretty good weather forecaster. "You can learn a lot from the moon," she said. "The moon will never lie to you."

She enumerated some things the moon tells us. A rainbow around the moon is especially revealing. "If the rainbow is tight, close to the moon, it means ice crystals are coming," she said. "The tighter the rings, the colder and the more precipitation. If the rainbow is farther from the moon, it means wind. The moon will look blurred when the wind is coming. If there are particles in the ring around the moon, the closer together the particles are, the more snow will fall. When the moon is shaped like a bowl so it could hold water, it means it will rain."

She learned early in life that if you want to know what kind of weather to expect, pay attention to

the moon and the bugs. They're as good as any weather forecaster, maybe even better.

Wildfire smoke tends to have harmful particles and gases in it. People are often told to stay indoors to avoid breathing in those things. Trees, which have no way of going inside or moving somewhere else, have their own way of holding their breaths to reduce smoke intake.

In an Aug. 5, 2024 article in Atlas Obscura, authors Delphine Farmer and MJ Riches explained that plants have pores on the surface of their leaves called stomata. Delphine is a professor of chemistry at Colorado State University, and Riches is a postdoctoral researcher in environmental and atmospheric science at CSU.

The authors explained, "These pores are much like our mouths, except that while we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, plants inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. … Unlike humans, however, leaves breathe in and out at the same time, constantly taking in and releasing atmospheric gases."

A scientific study of trees in heavily polluted areas in the early 1900s revealed something interesting about the tree leaves. Those that had been chronically exposed to pollution from coal burning had pores clogged with black granules.

Because there weren't instruments available to explore the chemistry of those granules back in the early 1900s, scientists weren't able to study the granules. And they weren't able to discover what affects the granules had on the plants' photosynthesis.

Then, as now, wildfire smoke sometimes travels long distances. When it does, exposure to the heat of sunlight can chemically change the smoke. In addition to the effects of sunlight, smoke becomes mixed with volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. Together, they make ground-level ozone which can cause breathing problems in humans, Farmer and Riches wrote.

The ground-level ozone "can also damage plants by degrading the leaf surface, oxidizing plant tissue, and slowing photosynthesis," according to the authors.

All those things make wildfire smoke a growing concern. A study in 2020 of ponderosa pines and other plants in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado focused on the plants' leaf-level photosynthesis. The results showed that the tree's pores were completely closed. That meant they weren't breathing in the carbon dioxide they needed to grow, and they weren't breathing out oxygen along with the chemicals that the oxygen usually released. The trees, basically, were holding their breaths to keep from breathing in the wildfire smoke.

No one is certain how frequent wildfire smoke will affect trees and other plants. Time and additional studies may help to answer those questions. Perhaps the results will help scientists discover ways of protecting trees and people from the smoke.

A famous sycamore tree that grew along the remains of the ancient Roman defensive structure called Hadrian's Wall in England was chopped down in 2023 in an act of vandalism. However, there is reason for hope, because the stump is sprouting a few new shoots.

The non-native sycamore was planted about 150 years ago in front of Hadrian's Wall in a dip in the landscape created by glacial meltwater. The ancient wall rises on either side of the tree. Hadrian's Wall was built to defend the northern border of the Roman empire. It stretches for 84 miles from Wallsend on the east coast of England to Bowness-on-Solway on the west coast. Hadrian's Wall is now part of the "Frontiers of the Roman Empire" World Heritage Site.

For many years the well-loved sycamore was the backdrop for marriage proposals and weddings. It became a place where people spread ashes of their loved ones. It is located near Crag Lough in Northumberland and is part of Northumberland National Park.

When the tree was cut down with a chainsaw on Sept. 28, 2023, it caused an outcry. Eventually two men were arrested in October 2023 for the crime. In April 2024, they were charged with criminal damage to the tree and to Hadrian's Wall. Their trial has been set for December 2024.

The tree is sometimes called Robin Hood Tree because it was featured in a prominent scene near the beginning of the 1991 film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The tree has also appeared in a music video from a song on the soundtrack of the film, (Everything I Do) I Do It for You. It has been part of the TV crime drama Vera and was in the documentary series, More Tales from Northumberland with Robson Green.

In 2016, the tree won England's Tree of the Year competition. The prize was a grant of 1,000 pounds. It was used to pay for a survey of the tree's health and to protect its roots, which were damaged by so many people walking over them.

Seeds were collected from the tree and used to help grow new saplings. After the vandalism, the felled tree was cut up and removed by crane. It is being stored on property of the National Trust, a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organization in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The tree has been loved for so long that when signs of life and regrowth appeared on its stump, it was a cause for celebration. The National Trust said that eight new, fragile shoots have been discovered.

Many thanks to Wikipedia, from which I gleaned most of the information for this blog. The August 9, 2024 issue of The Guardian Weekly, a British publication, also provided information about the tree's signs of life and regrowth.

I came across an interesting book, Black Dawn/Bright Day, in which a Native American named Sun Bear with Marlise Wabun Wind had something important to say about trees. Wabun Wind is the author of 12 non-fiction books and spent 16 years working with Sun Bear.

Black Dawn/Bright Day was published in 1990 by Bear Tribe Publishing in Spokane, Washington. Sun Bear is known as an Earth Keeper. In Black/Dawn/Bright Day, he writes about Earth changes and how to prepare for them.

He was born in 1929 on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. His given name was Vincent LaDuke. As a young boy, he began having visions, which led to his development as a shaman, medicine man and teacher. He was the founder and medicine chief of the Bear Tribe, a multi-racial educational society. He was a sacred teacher of Ojibwaa/Metis descent and was the author or coauthor of eight books. He died in 1992.

His thoughts about the importance of trees caught my attention. I think what he said is worth repeating. Sometimes we forget how important trees are to our planet and even to our survival.

In Chapter 5 on page 92 of Black Dawn/Bright Day, he wrote, "The dominant society's approach to the Earth is that of a 'Death Culture.' For instance, people cut down all the trees around a pond in the mountains. Then the pond dries up and there is no water for animals. The watershed is gone because, without the trees, the snows don't stay. So the mountain becomes barren. And for every large tree which is cut down it takes approximately 2,500 seedlings to replace its oxygen output. So we lose the oxygen. If we keep it up, humans will be a dead culture. If we would only realize that it takes twelve trees to provide enough oxygen for each one of us, we might look differently at them, and at the magnitude of the other things we are doing to the planet and all our relations upon it."

Sometimes we don't realize that when trees around a pond in the mountains are cut down, their absence creates so much damage. In our own small way we can nurture trees by taking care of the ones in our own yards. Every tree we give life-giving water to can do a better job of carrying out its purpose, which is to help keep us and our planet healthy.

We recently had quite a bit of rain where I live in Farmington, New Mexico. In our area, which receives eight inches or less of rain each year, half an inch on one day is quite a lot. As a result, we have been seeing more rainbows than usual. They are quite beautiful.

One of my neighbors saw me pulling weeds in my yard and walked over to tell me about a rainbow in our neighborhood. I looked up, and there it was arched over his house. His wife stood near their driveway, a smile on her face as she looked at the rainbow. Only minutes after they pointed it out to me, it faded away. I felt fortunate to have seen it, something I would have missed if they hadn't told me about it. My eyes were focused on the ground to spot weeds, so what was going on in the sky had not been in my field of vision.

Another day, there was a brilliant rainbow in a different part of town. I was able to capture it with my camera as it seemed to shoot out of a group of trees on a tree-lined street.

Several years ago, a friend of mine, Marion Blaney, now deceased, wrote a self-published book called Across the Rainbow Bridge: A Travel Guide for Our Spiritual Journey. On the title page, she hand wrote the message, "May you always walk among rainbows!"

There is something so beautiful and colorful about rainbows that when I see them, they lift my spirits. I often see them near trees. Occasionally I spot a double rainbow, which is doubly beautiful. One of the rainbows is usually a little fainter in color than the other, but together they form twin arcs that make me stop everything I'm doing to take in their beauty.

In that state of focusing on the rainbow's beauty, I forget everything else. I am so absorbed in enjoying the rainbow that nothing else enters my mind. Letting go, even for a few seconds, of all the worries, concerns and frustrations helps to bring peace of mind.

May you find rainbows in your life just when you need them.

My neighbors have an oriental arborvitae tree, that looks to me like a tall bushy pine, which grows over my fence. It has become a nursery for different kinds of doves.

The first doves I noticed were two small blue and gray birds that kept flying in and out of a small entrance way among the branches with sticks in their beaks. They were building a nest I could not see, protected well by the tree. Later, I spotted tiny white broken eggshells that had blown 10-15 feet away from the tree. They were lying near a metal gate that led into a dog run and then into my back yard.

A few days later, I spotted a young mourning dove sitting under the juniper tree in my front yard. It didn't look like the blue and gray doves I had seen building a nest, but I wondered if it might be one of their babies. It stayed under the tree for several days. Had the bird not learned to fly or couldn't fly because of an injury or defect? It stayed under the tree for several days. I left it some water. Then one day it was gone.

A couple of days ago, I looked out my office window onto the side yard and saw a sight that made me happy. Strutting along the ground were two small blue and gray doves, a mother and father, followed by four baby doves, quite tiny, but moving very well. There was too much shadow for me to get a picture. Something startled the little ones, and they flew high into a nearby spruce tree. I keep watching for them but haven't seen them since.

Yesterday, I noticed a larger dove, gray and white with darker tail feathers, fly into the nursery tree, a large twig in its mouth. I believe it was a mourning dove. It was building a nest! In a few weeks, I might spot some baby mourning doves taking a stroll on my lawn as they stretch their legs and try their wings. Who would have guessed my yard would become a dove nursery?

I have some concerns about that because doves are related to pigeons, which have an unsavory reputation for perching on rooftops and leaving a gray sea of messy droppings. I hope doves don't do that.

Even as I worry about how I could ever clean up such a mess, I also look forward to witnessing the next family of doves stroll through my yard. It would be fun to watch little ones following their parents as they explore the new world into which they have hatched.

Ever since a pair of doves built a nest in the branches of my neighbor's evergreen tree, I have been following their progress. The neighbor's evergreen hangs over the fence in my side yard. It is in this hanging section that the doves built their nest.

A few weeks ago I began to see small pieces of tiny egg shells on the ground, quite a distance from the nest. The wind may have blown them along. I never saw any baby doves – until over a week ago I accidentally found one.

I was using a garden hose to water the juniper tree in my front yard when all of sudden something hopped up and disappeared. I walked around the tree and found a baby mourning dove huddled next to the base of the juniper. Its coloring was so much like the tree that it was hard to spot.

The bird pushed itself as far into the base of the tree as possible. I knew I was scaring it, so I went inside and hurried to my kitchen window that looks out onto the juniper. I spotted two doves fly into the tree. They began to send trilling sounds through the air. They must be the parents, I thought, letting their baby know they were close by. Those doves must be the ones that built a nest in my neighbor's evergreen tree!

Why was the baby dove at the base of my juniper tree? Did it have trouble learning to fly? I found a tiny bowl, filled it with water, and took it to the base of the tree. The baby dove was there, but it hopped to the other side of the tree when it saw me. I put the bowl close to the spot where I hoped the bird would return. It was in a shaded, somewhat protected space. Sure enough, the bird eventually did return there. I stayed as far away as I could to keep from scaring it.

I hoped the baby dove would be safe there until it learned to fly. I don't see cats wondering around my area of the neighborhood, and I hoped no larger predator birds would try to make a meal out of the little one.

This went on for several days until one day when I went to check on the bird, it was gone. There were no feathers to indicate an attack, nothing but the slight indentation the baby had made in the soil at the base of the tree. The bowl of water was empty. I kept checking every day, but the dove never returned. I stopped hearing its parents trill support to their little one.

I hope the baby mourning dove learned to fly and that it will live a long, productive life. I will never know, but I choose to believe the story of the baby mourning dove had a happy ending.

A pair of doves has built a nest somewhere among the plentiful branches of an evergreen tree that grows in my neighbor's yard. Part of it hangs over my fence and creates a shady ceiling for some of my flowers. The tree is called an oriental arborvitae, according to my trusty Picture This app.

The doves have created a bird-size doorway among the branches of the tree. Sometimes I see one of the birds fly in and out of that hole. Then the branches start to shake as the bird is either settling down on its eggs or feeding its nest full of hungry babies. There are actually several similar holes in various places on the tree. Doves may have created a neighborhood of nests in this tree. I've only seen doves fly in and out of one spot on the tree this spring, so I suspect this is the entrance to the active dove home this season.

The nest is about eight feet off the ground, away from the reach of neighborhood cats. One of those cats used to come into my yard quite regularly, and I would pick it up and pet it. But as soon as I adopted my dog, who loves to chase cats, the cat learned to stay away.

At first, I was sad that I couldn't enjoy both my dog and the neighbor's cat. Now I'm glad it doesn't come around, because it might worry the doves. I have taken great pleasure in watching them fly in and out of the tree.

I can't see through the branches well enough to spot the nest, but I know it's there. I wonder if I will soon see little doves take flight in and out of the tree as they learn to use their wings.

I have seen quite a few doves near other homes around the neighborhood, so I suspect the nest in my yard is only one of several in a dove community that has created its own little neighborhood within our human one.

The doves are gray with a hint of light blue coloring. They are fairly small and quite graceful in flight. I hope the babies grow up healthy and strong and learn to fly without mishap. Maybe I will someday see a few of them sitting on the fence, singing a song to their human neighbor.