Sourweed

The fields of late winter and early spring in this part of the world often grow red with the humble, tiny flowers of red sorrel. Up close,a single red sorrel plant isn’t much to look at—just some nondescript weed with a reddish hue, little clusters of seed-like, bell shaped flowers that resemble the heads of an anemic sorghum or millet seedhead, rising up out of the fields on a shin-high stalk. From a distance, a field thick with red sorrel will cause one who notices such things to stop and admire the way this little weed paints the entire field crimson, sort of a ragged, shabby version of a field of crimson clover. It shimmers and waves in the breeze and gives a little brightness to a grey winter day

Red sorrel goes by many names including sheep sorrel, horse sorrel, cow sorrel, field sorrel,  toad’s sorrel, red-weed, cuckoo bread, and the ever-creative, ranty-tanty. But my favorite name for this plant is sourweed. It’s the ambiguity of the name that I like most. For one, red sorrel has a lemony taste—sour you might say. The leaves and flowers are quite edible and can be used as herbs or in salad. They can be boiled down in a tea that tastes much like lemonade. But its sourness doesn’t end with its taste.  Red sorrel, like many of Mother Nature’s children, tells a story. It likes untended ground and often grows in fallow fields where the soil grows too acidic for other weeds to thrive. Acidic soil is often referred to by old timers as being sour. If you have a healthy population of red sorrel growing in your field, chances are, it is time to lime it.  It’s one of the signs those who can still read the land base certain decisions on regarding the care of their fields. Which brings to mind the old practice of reading the land.

               Reading the land is all but a lost art. One does not learn to read the land by reading a book, or really even through the teachings of another person, at least not totally. Hunters, if they are any good, acquire these skills early on. They learn to read tracks, gathering information on species, when the track was made, sex of the animal, weight of the animal, whether it was walking or running. They learn to read the signs the animals leave behind for their own kind or just as a by-product of a certain behavior—a deer rub on a tree or the torn up ground left behind when two bucks do battle, males chasing females, a dusting bowl left behind by a turkey, a woodcock splash on fallen leaves, the droppings of a buck rabbit left on an old log, the circular roosting site of a covey of quail full of droppings at its center.

Land readers recognize how game trails are common just below a ridgeline, or where animals prefer to cross a body of water, or gather for cover on a cold day. But, it is not only hunters and naturalists that learn to read sign. Good farmers read sign too. Knowing how to read the land comes through time spent in one place, observing in a way that stimulates the asking of questions. Once the questions arise, then one can seek out the wisdom of books or other people. The answers will stick to the curiosity.

               This reading of the land requires a noticer. A person who observes how the natural environment responds to attempts to shape it by human hands. It requires pondering, ruminating, chewing on the things one sees. Reading the land deals profoundly in local landscape. It takes into account the subtleness of the way water moves over land, how its streams behave. It’s forests, soils, fields, and orchards.

               What is different about that field? Where does the water drain? What plants grow there? Look, water seeps out of the side of that hill after a rain. Why do trees in this part of the orchard show signs of a zinc deficiency? You spend enough time on the land and your eyes and mind become trained to look for the subtle differences.

 It is one thing to read the land. It is another to respond to it. The grassing of gulleys and washes, how to manage the sloping land, the decision to not plant a low spot in the field because of the poor soil and air drainage, and even the liming of the orchard. All these things come as much, if not moreso, by experience as by books. It is deep knowledge.

Pecan orchards are sort of a fallow field you might say because the ground is untilled. We just mow it as needed. Red sorrel sprouts in the orchard first along the edges of the 10-12’ wide bare strip we keep clean along the tree row. Why is that? We keep this strip vegetation free primarily as an aid to harvest. We have to blow the nuts out of the tree rows at harvest so the harvester can gather them. The nuts can get trapped in the vegetation and can be missed at harvest time. They roll much better on bare ground. In addition, this is where we apply the fertilizer and water so that the tree can more efficiently use all of the resources with which we supply it. This concentration of fertilizer in this strip leads to a reduction in pH. Also, because there is no vegetation in the strip, the organic matter is low here and thus, the pH of the soil has nothing to buffer it, so it drops faster here than in the rest of the orchard, which is covered with grass and clover. Thus, the red sorrel seem to develop an affinity for the bare strips and their edges where the pH is low and the soil is “sour”.

But, it seems, we will one day shortly, be living in a world without noticers. No one has the attention span for such trivialities anymore. We have computers, GPS and A.I. to guide us. We don’t have to notice anymore. We can spend our time on more enjoyable pursuits—like consuming. Consuming what? It really doesn’t seem to matter, now does it. Just get more. That’s about the extent of Western philosophy today.

We will pay a large price for sacrificing ourselves to technologies that rob us of our place in the world. That place in the world is the foundation of all that makes us human. It is where the creative mind finds its spark. When we no longer notice, when we no longer think we have to notice, we no longer interact. Neither with the world around us, nor with each other. Our minds become as dull as a stripped and rounded-off bolt.

Those who view the world as purely utilitarian miss the details. They live in a world of generalities. Much as the world of A.I. does. I know A.I. has its uses, as do all technologies, but I’m not convinced of the need to apply it to every aspect of our lives. That’s not a world I want to live in. The biotic world cannot exist upon generalities. Its complexities remain too deep to fathom still today with all of our technological wonders and human wisdom. It is in these complexities, in the details, where the truth of life is found. Life is a mystery, and I like it that way.

What it comes down to, all of this noticing, this curiosity about the land and the world we live in, our place in it, how we should respond to it, is that the noticing helps us to appreciate. We remember to value the world and our place in it, appropriately.

So, I will try to keep noticing. I will watch the lay of the land and notice how it drains. I will keep my slopes grassed and try to keep from planting where the groundwater seeks the surface. I will watch for the places in the creek bottom where the turkeys like to fly up to roost. I will note the return of the spring birds along with their absence when winter arrives. I will keep an eye out for what the land is trying to tell me. I will apply lime to the orchards or portions of the orchards where the sourweed sprouts.

As Aldo Leopold once wrote, “Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear of what you will do to it, or with it. And I know many pleasant things it will do to you.”