Mite, and might not

This looks like Walnut Leaf Gall Mite. It isn’t grubs on the leaf, but raised parts of the leaf indicating that a tiny mite has been living underneath. Apparently, although unsightly, it isn’t harmful, which is just as well as I’m told it is almost impossible to eliminate. The leaf is on the young walnut tree near the entrance to St Nicolas’ churchyard, and I’ve spotted some similar leaves on the one slightly older and the two really ancient walnut trees along the southern boundary. The trees have appeared in this Blog before; I am very fond of them, enjoy introducing them to others, and am sad that a number of their leaves are beginning to look like this.

My attention is also on the isolated plot of land on to which the three older trees look. This has just been put on the market this week for the first time in many years. I simply can’t make up my mind whether, if we were able to buy it, our successors would praise us for our foresight (since it is the only place where things from a church car park to a churchyard extension could go in due course, and since it would prevent anyone else from doing something unwelcome on the land) or curse us for having landing them with even greater maintenance problems.

It probably matters not at all because, if St Nicolas' or a benefactor had the money available, we’d probably want to put it into the project to renew the church's heating system rather than buy land, especially land which, if it was to be really useful to us, would require some sort of pedestrian bridge across the ancient moat which separates it from the churchyard. But none the less, I thrashed round it again (it is very overgrown) with a planning official this morning , and hatched an unrealistic scheme to develop something like a natural burial site there. The pictures I posted on 27th March were all taken on the land in question.