WHEN WE FIRST CAME TO PINE POINT and the old cabin, the forest was choked with buckthorn. Had to literally fight and chop my way through it. Bought a machete! Along with chain saws, brush cutters, weed wrenches, etc. Even the main lot under the century white pines was bad, and the red pine lots nearly impenetrable.

Better now. These scenes are from the red pine woods, the trees about 70 years old. You can walk through and keep your hat on now, and don’t have to wear eye protection for a stroll. Buckthorn is tough! It never gives up, the berries on the ground are viable for 7 years, grows also by runners, spread by birds, chokes out all other trees and shrubs. If you cut it without serious herbicide application, it grows back stronger. So you never ‘win.’ You just keep at it. Progress, not perfection. That’s my motto.