MMM...Locust....

Well, the wife has taken up a new hobby...Geocaching. For anyone that hasn't yet experienced it, basically people hide boxes of crap around in the city, woods, countryside, etc and give you the GPS coordinates. You then get to drive, bike, hike to those coordinates and search for the crap they've hidden. Basically a giant easter egg hunt - I suppose it shouldn't be too harsh, it is kind of fun and definitely gives the opportunity to scout firewood at the same time.

We were out this past weekend, hiking through the woods and I came across a locust tree...a little small for harvesting right now, but give it a few years. Oh, did I mention that they sometimes have thorns??

That is one tree that ain't going nowhere for a while...Damn nice pic!

Why on earth would a tree need thorns like that?

I live out in the woods and have never seen anything like that. Amazing!

Cozy . . . cool tree.

By the way I also geocache . . . although I haven't been out lately since I've been so busy with firewood . . . too many things to do so the hobbies get pushed to the side.

When your wife logs on to do a search for caches have her plug in Firefighterjake in Maine . . . you'll see I actually have several caches that I've put out around my hometown . . . including one entitled "Before Lizzie Borden" which includes the true story about a multiple homicide with an ax wielding brother who was one of the last folks in Maine to be hanged for murder.

Ive Harvested locust before and ive never seen thorns Like that on any of the trees. Is that a briar growing up and around the tree ? Thats nasty !
Probably a honey locust ! Most here in Md are black locust. You might as well cut that down now, if memeory serves me its a slow
growing tree.

We have a lot of locust here, it burns great. It takes a little longer to season than my other wood though. There's a big almost dead one at the edge of my woods that's coming down in the spring. The weird thing about the thorns is, all of the young locust I have in my yard have a small amount of thorns on the trunk, but up on the ridge, behind the house there is a grove of them just like in the pic you posted. One thing I've observed on all of them, is that they lose the trunk thorns when they get older. I've also noticed that the older trees get hard, woody, fungus things that grow on the trunk. I haven't seen them on any other type of tree.

My son Geocaches too. He told me that one day he was at a park, in the woods, after finding one and he busts out of the bushes. There happens to be a woman walking right there and she gasps and runs. He yells "hey lady, I'm just geocaching", but she just keeps running.
We live on a hill, overlooking a big hayfield and we're going to put a geocache down by the edge of the woods, just so we can watch people hunt for it.

Here's some of my Locust:

Almost dead Locust

Fungus

Trunk without thorns

Woodford,

That's the locust that I know from around here as well. I've always known it as Yellow Locust. Burns great.

I have never seen locust like the ones in the OP though. I don't know that I would even mess with ones like that. They look dangerous.

Never seen wild Honey Locust with thorns around here, just Black Locust and they are pretty rare.

Yeah, I don't know why they would need thorns like that - maybe to stop grazing animals...like an elephant or something. Definitely makes you keep a lookout while hiking....backing into one of those is not a fun ordeal and saguaro cactus have nothing on these trees! I've seen those thorns spear skin, boot soles, truck tires, even a few tractor tires. They always seem to be sharp as a pin and usually have a weak spot about 3/16 to 1/4" behind the point. They poke right into your skin, then break off and leave the tip to start a nice infection!

jake- I'll pass along the word to check out your cache's. Thanks for the tip.

Holy Sh**. Maybe that's what I should plant between us and our lovely neighbors.

Peace,
- Sequoia

Yeah we have those thorny locust here in Pennsylvania, they like the bottom land, near creeks and such. They ain't the same tree as the black locust that's also pictured here. I think the real thorny one is honey locust.

I'm guessing it was in good shade and when a canopy tree went down, it sprung out those thorns/branches in response. I find that honey locust is thornier than black locust. bad @$$ tree there.

I'm in Southern WI and haven't seen any of those either. That thing needs a haircut........

I showed the pictures to Hubby and he laughed at me when I told him that I posted how I had never seen anything like that....then he told me to hop on his quad with him and we rode to the back of our property and low and behold.......there was one that looked just like the ones in the pictures posted here. lol
I guess I'm not too observant at times. Anyhow I looked them up and here is some interesting info on them:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_locust

Woodford, the bottom locust you had the photo of may not have any thorns, but it looks to have a hellacious big Poison Ivy vine running up the side of it...

Gooserider

Good obsrvation there Gooserider. It is definitely a poison ivy vine and a big one at that. It's also very dead. It's severed at the bottom. I enjoy killing Poison Ivy almost as much as I enjoy killing Multiflora Rose.

Good to hear, I do the same w/ the poison ivy around our house, either that or give it a good shot of roundup - from a distance... Trouble is the vines stay irritating for years, even after they are dead...

Not sure what the MultiFlora rose is, but I know I also see a lot of some sort of climbing vine that is a real nusiance as it gets into all sorts of stuff and makes it hard to trim or do other work around.

Gooserider

FYI.....don't ever burn Poison Ivy. I know someone who did that and was walking through the smoke. Bad results!!

I absolutely agree This was hammered into me since I've been a little kid - my father was clearing land and had Poison Ivy in the slash pile he was burning, put him in the hospital for a while...

Gooserider