Thanks for tuning into my posts.  I hope you will bear with me — I’m trying to absorb some shocking revelations. 

Its been 20 years since the events we all know as the Rwandan Genocide occurred and I’d never doubted or questioned the story that the Hutus massacred the Tutsis.  So I was stunned to learn that the truth is the exact opposite.  Here is James Corbett‘s introduction to his interview with Christopher Black.

Christopher Black is a Toronto-based international criminal lawyer who has spent the last 14 years successfully defending former Rwandan Gendarmerie General Augustin Ndindiliyimana at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In that 14 years, Black has uncovered copious evidence about what really happened in the so-called “100 Days” of 1994 and the four year civil war that led up to it. Today on the program, Black shares that information with us and deconstructs the lies that continue to be propagated about the Rwandan genocide.

Jame’s interview with Keith Harmon provides more historical context…

Keith Harmon Snow has extensive experience in Africa as a journalist, photographer and genocide investigator who attended the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. He joins us today to discuss the 20th anniversary of the “100 days” and how the true story of the genocide (and who was really behind it) has been completely inverted by politicians, the press, Hollywood and everyone else with a vested interest in what happened there.

…as does this article by Keith Harmon Snow.

How could I have been so wrong about something that I thought I knew and firmly believed?  It’s humbling, and disconcerting, to say the least.

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”  — George Orwell

The Buckthorn Man is attempting to control the present at The Springs — one buckthorn at a time.  The last few times out I’ve been splitting the day between cutting buckthorn near the trailhead parking lot in the morning and cutting garlic mustard in the afternoons.  The weather was spectacular and the mosquitoes haven’t arrived yet.   It was blissful!

This was the scene Sunday morning, May 25th, on the edge of a patch of buckthorn between the trail and Hwy ZZ, just east of the parking lot.

It was slow going but I made some progress.

Then I headed over to the area north of the hotel and cut garlic mustard.  The jury is out as to whether or not this approach will work.  I’m on my third lap around cutting the areas of major garlic mustard infestation that adjoin the trail.  The north and south perimeters of the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve are thick with garlic mustard and I plan to work on these areas in the coming years.

Late afternoon at the marl pit bridge.

I love this patch of columbine near the hotel bridge.

Sunset out on the marl pit.

It threatened rain Wednesday morning but it turned into a beautiful, warm, sunny day.  I took up right where I left off on Sunday, working on the strip of buckthorn between the trail and Hwy ZZ.  There are going to be amazing sunsets over Ottawa Lake that will now be visible from the trail.

I think there is just one more day of work to finish this thicket of buckthorn!

The next series of shots were taken while walking west to east on the cut-off trail.  I’ll never forget how my good friend Lindsay Knudsvig ripped a path through the buckthorn back in the fall of 2012.  This trail is sweet as can be so check it out if you haven’t done so yet.

The valley of the Scuppernong River headwaters.

The lupine on the west slope of the sand prairie are peeking!

Another marl pit sunset.

See you at The Springs!