As promised in last week’s “Poplar Trees Grow Straight and True” column, here’s the follow-up.
I’m happy to report that the poplar seedling Janet Gray brought home thirty-five years ago continues to grow and thrive in her parents’ back yard. Her dad, Jim, showed me the Boy Scout method of estimating its height by standing in a high place in the yard and pointing a fist, with thumb raised, at the tree. Using geometry or trigonometry or physics or some other academic subject I don’t understand, he came up with 80 feet. I believe him.
Several readers asked where they could purchase a pulley system to raise and lower a birdfeeder from a high branch. An internet search found numerous places that sell such systems. But Jim, being the inventive type, created his own. Using a long bamboo pole (grown in his backyard) and a fulcrum (me), he demonstrated how he carefully lifts a one-pound sandbag (attached to a rope that’s attached to the pole) into place across the desired branch. Ideally, it should hang at least ten feet away from the tree trunk, the outer limit of a squirrel’s horizontal jump.
Next, Jim maneuvers the pole so the sandbag descends to the ground, where he replaces it with the birdfeeder, which he then raises up and up and up. He stops when it’s high enough off the ground that deer and raccoons and cats can’t get to it. It must also be positioned so that he and wife Marilyn can see it from their screened porch. Then he wraps the end of the rope around a nail in the tree.
Being more ballplayer than engineer, I asked Jim if it wouldn’t be a whole lot less trouble to just throw the sandbag over the branch instead of bothering with the lever and fulcrum. He said no. But I’m not giving up on that idea until I try it at least once.
He also told me he doesn’t leave the birdfeeder up all the time because Cooper’s hawks, which feast on songbirds, frequent the yard. Jim removes the feeder both to protect his songbirds and to encourage the hawks to dine instead on mice and voles and chipmunks. He told me a gory story about a Cooper’s hawk and a squirrel but I’ll spare you the details.
The last thing I’ll say about this poplar tree is that, not long after they planted it, Jim dug up a similar-sized seedling from the far reaches of the back yard and planted it near Janet’s little tree. These “twin” poplars have become the perfect place to hang a hammock. And more birdfeeders, too.
Next topic: How did Calvin Dickinson and I know where to hunt for the rumored one-tree long cabin? We concentrated our search in Jackson, Fentress and—especially—Overton County because that’s where we’d been told the cabin probably was. Our adventures took place more than 20 years ago, when little country stores with slamming screen doors dotted the countryside. We’d saunter in, order bologna-and-cheese sandwiches on white bread and pull Cokes in glass bottles out of metal ice chests. Then we’d strike up a conversation with whoever happened to be in the store. Those conversations almost always led to directions to at least one little log cabin.
As to whether any cabin owner—or anyone else–ever actually shot at us, the answer is no. Calvin attributed that to good luck and also to the fact that he always wore a shirt that said TENNESSEE TECH DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. Why would anyone want to shoot at a history professor?
Last but not least, Barbara Greeson assured me that back in the 1980s when she sent fourth-graders home with seedlings in Styrofoam cups, we didn’t know about the evils of Styrofoam. Today, she said, she would definitely use paper cups instead.
And that’s all I have to say, at least for now, about poplar trees.
(November 30, 2024)