Our Big Invasive (OBI)

Since our arrival in these immediate parts we, the denizens of the Cow Barn, have labored much and intermittently to remove and replace the many non-native plants that inhabited these immediate parts prior to our arrival. That is, and bear up please, many of these aforementioned plants haled from serious foreign parts much further off than Arkansas or Tennessee, or even Ulster, maybe. Chiefly, the tree/shrub ones that we have/had here derived an ancestry from the Semi-Mysterious Orient.

Some of these non-native trees have persisted here, where many others have succumbed to the murderous attentions of Ray the Killer. Here, off to the east, is the main one that has persisted. It is a nigh onto 27" dbh Chinese tallow tree (Sapium sebiferum). This particular tallow tree has an interesting regulatory history. The previous denizens of the presumptive Cow Barn determined one day that their tallow tree had to be removed, that is, sawn to the very ground.
You may be able to discern their reasoning, if you observe the additional photograph hereabouts, meticulously. For that young Tabby Labber, in the guise of Daffy the Duck, is standing adjacent to a great crack in the sidewalk generated from a subterranean upswelling engendered from a great root of this very same tallow tree depicted in the previous photograph. This terrible crack and associated upswelling of the sidewalk, is a Potential Safety Topic - environmental hazard, fer sure, for those prone to stumpling and also to those prone to slipping when conditions are rarely icy. So the previous occupants of the Cow Barn assayed to remove, it, the tallow tree. But the previous occupants were law abiding to some extent and became aware, somehow, that a permit was required from the local government for to lumber any tree greater than six inch dbh, which even back then, in those days of yore, this particular tallow far exceeded, dbh wise. So the previous occupants, frustrated in their designs, contented themselves with not applying for a permit and instead, sawed all the limbs off, hoping as a result of their labors that the tallow would wax, sincerely dead. But, of course, it did not wax anything of the sort, but instead continued to wax, because that is what tallow trees do, wax.

So now we, the current denizens, are faced with the same dilemma. Because some of us, myself included notoriously, have made much racket about invasive species, we feel obliged, especially and even more so than the previous occupants, to murder this tree once and for all. Yet we hesitate. Why oh why, do we hesitate?

Well, for one thing we have not noticed that many of the seeds actually germinate and those that do get mowered or pulled up expeditiously. But on the other hand, the feathered little wonders may be disseminating those seeds, widely. And then the other excuse is, the dang things so big we caint figure out how to cut it down while at the same time relying only upon the resources available at RGVECB. We have a gaise for seeking outside help in matters of this sort.

Sooooooo. Tonight the local government is having a meeting on invasive species. And I the Crumby Ovate will be attendance. And probably I will be singled out for constructive criticism on account of this particular tallow tree, maybe, because almost everyone with an opinion surmises the tallow tree to be invasive.