Good at Waiting? A Very Big If

Morningside Elementary 5th graders show their sprouts. April 2014

Atlanta, GA January 2020 A slow experiment is unfolding not too far from Morningside Elementary School on Rock Springs Road.   We are tantalizingly close to learning the results. And if you, like me, can barely remember what you ate for lunch yesterday, imagine a high school senior remembering a six year old science project from elementary school!

In 2014, patient science teacher Valerie Taylor invited foresters to bring advanced hybrid American chestnut seeds to her second floor classroom. These scientists told fifth graders the tragedy of the Asian chestnut blight that felled as many as 4 billion American chestnut trees. 

If these advanced hybrids grew, they promised, the students could be part of a national experiment to restore the beloved tree... and maybe even roast chestnuts from these very seeds before they finished high school. How's that for a Big If?

That fall, students and Boy Scouts from Haygood United Methodist Church transplanted seedlings into the banks of the South Fork of Peachtree Creek. When some of the scouts hunted them two years later, half the trees were missing, lost under a tangle of choking vines. But more than a dozen were growing. 

A national author included the Morningside Elementary experiment in her new book  Champion: The Comeback Tale of the American Chestnut Tree by Sally M. Walker.

Mark Stoakes and John French with The American Chestnut Foundation share pleasure in the growth. Sept. 26, 2019

Now? Fall 2019, five years after the Morningside seedlings found a home on the South Fork, the foresters returned. In the years since that first experiment hundreds of volunteers restored other native plants and trees to fragile creek bank.  Searching beside poplars, beech and redbuds, the scientists spotted one tall chestnut. Thriving, towering over them they seized the slender trunk and shook it with obvious delight.

On a higher bank, they found five more growing tall.  The scientists pinched the branches, measured their growth and predicted some are likely to flower in the spring of 2020.   That success helped foresters agree to plant more native chestnut hybrids upstream closer to Morningside Elementary School in Herbert Taylor Park, off Johnson Road at Noble Drive.  A new group of Friends of Herbert Taylor Park is finding room and volunteers to restore native trees this fall on the banks of the South Fork of Peachtree Creek.  

So what about that six year old promise in the Morningside Elementary School classroom?   If these trees flower in the spring of 2020, they could produce chestnuts in the fall 2020. Just as those fifth graders are high school seniors.  If so, it will be a promise kept. Will many of those fifth graders come back as seniors to see the results of an experiment they may have forgotten they began? Now that's an entirely different experiment in memory.

Atlanta Audubon chooses Zonolite for Sanctuary Tour headquarters

Beverly Fooks captures some bird-friendly flowers in the community garden at Zonolite.

Adam Beutel and Cora conspire with the birds.

I didn't set out to seek community that Saturday morning of errands.

I was a company of one, going alone to rescue a week full of laundered shirts from Mr. Patel at the cleaners in Emory Village.

Then I remembered Sally Bando's asking for the Patel's parking lot to set up the model railway trains display during Emory Village's Halloween Sunday Open Streets, October 27.  The Magic Touch Cleaners is the best space, she’d reminded me. So instead of a quick pickup I lingered to connect Mr. Patel and Ms. Bando for the Piedmont Model Railroad Association.

At the hardware store I couldn't find what I needed before the Boy Scouts tried to pack some popcorn pounds on me. Ha! I got off with just a donation and some good conversation.

My Lonesome Ranger act was pretty threadbare by the time I got to Zonolite Park.  I only wanted to pick some zinnias from the community garden. 

But the Atlanta Audubon Society chose Zonolite as headquarters for its annual Sanctuary Tour. Hundreds of people were discovering the trails through the open meadow, woods and creek as the day passed. Many told Audubon staffers they lived nearby, in Morningside, Lenox Park, Virginia Highland and never knew it existed. Beverly Fooks found bird-loving blossoms in the community garden and loved their intense color.

The park itself is a community and a connection. The creek curls alongside the trails built by Park Pride, DeKalb County and volunteers. A ten year triumph of community involvement.

I listened to Auduboners telling visitors the story of reclaiming these 12 acres from asbestos contamination and creating meadow, opening woods and building habitat for native birds. I wanted to remind them the habitat was reclaiming native neighboring humans, too. Somehow, I refrained.

 As I reached deep into the zinnias planted by Pete Densmore of Edmund Park off Rock Springs I spotted another sign of connection to community. Beggar's Lice, nature's own Velcro, decorating my jeans with plump green triangles.  Now I knew the universe was telling me to mind my connections.  I had to smile. Beggar’s lice, not just looking for a free ride to spread its seed, but a reminder of the web of connections which builds the community for us all.

Red in Tooth and Claw

Photo by Steven Rushing

by Sally Sears

In the rustling leaves at the edge of the creek running through Morningside, I put my foot down carefully. Very very carefully.  A chipmunk skittered away, her stripes zig- sagging in the afternoon sun.

A few steps farther I heard a faint splash.  On the far bank beyond the sandbar I could barely see a Vee of water pointing my way.  Nothing but a bright black nose  made the bank, then slipped up into the woods. Before he vanished the sleek bends of an otter shook the creek water from his chocolate pelt.

The creek’s nature corridor linking Morningside parks always rewards me with more than I expect in the middle of Atlanta’s 5 million people.

The trails and parks are brilliant in June’s early heat, before the bushes leaf out and obscure the view.  I keep my feet on the trail in the summer. Year round, really, after a close encounter with a big, coiled copperhead during Zonolite Park’s trail building.  Georgous, mottled and sitting calmly just at the edge of the trail.

Yesterday a news story caught my ear about dogs and snake bites.  Most happen when dogs are off-leash, leaping on top of a startled snake. This year’s wet spring makes our Morningside underbrush thicker, making off-leash dogs leap higher.

Veterinarians at the Briarcliff Animal Hospital are seeing their share of doggie snake bites this time of year. They reminded me it’s important to get the best look you can at the snake, to decide if it is venomous.  But the vets’ best advice? Keep your dog on a leash. It’s not just the law. It’s safety for dog and snake, too.

Two weeks ago, on a sidewalk near my house, two large dogs bounded onto a little dog on a leash, terrifying the owner and almost killing the little dog. In the wild, in the woods, where dogs are less predictable? Even more important to keep dogs leashed, veterinarians tell me.

Over years of working to conserve and restore Atlanta parks and creek side trails, I’ve seen nature red in tooth and claw when dogs meet, one on and one off-leash.

Often, a dog or walker gets scared, jumped on, bitten or worse.

In the creek at Deepdene Park, one of the Olmsted Linear Parks on Ponce de Leon, the problem worsened until regular park users began speaking up. Asking somebody to use a leash may sound rude to the Southern ear, but it is safer for people and pets than waiting for public safety officials to enforce leash laws.

I saw a  better- matched contest for nature lovers at a park cleanup on MLK Day 2019. Photographer Steven Rushing trained his lens on a magnificent red-shouldered hawk.  The bird swooped in circles across the meadow, missing scampering rodents by inches. Then, on a last pass, the hawk found dinner.

English poets remind us nature is red in tooth and claw. Find proof yourself along the creek trails through Morningside.