The name of the tree is Yalızardıç (The Lonely Juniper). It was given this name because there is no other juniper in its location. In other words, this word, which is said as lonely (loonely with the letter “o” extended a bit), means one, only, orphan, without a partner. This tree, which could be seen even from Kahramanmaraş for years, was alone on the slope, was lonely, had no friends, but heaven knows why it was known by everyone. Upon the invitation of Mehmet Ağa, who had a vineyard in that area before 1952, many of his friends from the military (ranks such as captain, major, etc.) came and Yalızardıç was photographed a lot. Who knows, these pictures may have been its first and last. Among the people, this burning big juniper was called Yalızardıç (Lonely Juniper), one of the small juniper under it was called Rooster Juniper and the other Chicken Juniper. While saying it was said, these were names that were said by everyone, local and foreign, familiar and unfamiliar. The Rooster Juniper, which is said to have grown from root shoots 900 m ahead of Yalızardıç, has reached a height of around 6 m.

Indeed, the southwestern façade is completely rooster-like. The Chicken Juniper is 400 m lower than the Rooster Juniper. This also looks like a chicken. People said, "it has been replaced a new one" and its deep affection for Chicken Juniper is expressed. The juniper is the fragrant juniper that carpenters try to smell by putting a litter behind their ears. Although it is not remembered by the young people, it is the fragrant juniper that the old people call red juniper. The tree must have been quite old. Anyone who knows its age has not been seen or heard. At the moment, only those over the age of forty know the tree. According to an unforgettable expression, Juniper burned in the year of the 12 March Memorandum, in a summer season when the houses immigrated into the vineyards. The fire started in the afternoon of a heavy rainy day and continued uninterrupted for two days and two nights. Yalızardıç was a great tree that gave its name to the place where it is located, such a tree that it did not have a partner in its location, that suffered from loneliness, that relieved its longing by looking at the lights of Maraş at night; old, but massive; tall but majestic; hollow, but still upright, determined to grow, and willing. It gave its name to the place in a such a way that it is not erased from the minds as if it were engraved on marble and iron. What a great luck that it was on the route to Yedikuyu, its awkwardness had been alleviated; people saw, the longing was quenched. Yedikuyu's noon herd dwelt in its shadow. Being useful to others is a chance, a pleasure that is not given to everyone. Its branches were a harbour for people, and its shadow was a cover and shelter for goats...

Its height was around forty meters. Those who see it say so and add, “We used to get tired when we were climbing on it with friends. We went up quite a bit, the tree was really tall, wide. Those below also shouted; Do you know how much space there is higher up?" A heard could easily be shaded underneath it. Because the shepherds used to come here in the heat of noon instead of Yedikuyu, where there was no shadow of a litter as a herd bed. It had a branch width of more than twenty meters from south to north. The branches were like a bower, thick and straight; you could walk comfortably, without hesitation, on the branches below. Of course, by the way, there were those that had been cut from a few rows of branches below. For years, shepherds cut them into pieces and sometimes took them to their homes and sometimes burned them on the spot. The circumference of the juniper was quite wide. Its part, a meter close to the ground, was quite large. Above one and a half and two meters, around the tree, seven or eight people would not have been able to unite if they had been holding hands.

If we had been to calculate the length of each person's arm from a minimum of one and a half meters, then the circumference would have been at least eleven meters. One of them, while describing the size of the juniper, also informs about its bad fate; “Four people could sit comfortably in it. We would burn milkvetch and warm up, prepare bulgur salad and eat. In other words, we would set a table for four, and there would be plenty of room behind each of us.” According to the above calculation, the diameter of the juniper should be at least three and a half meters. Then, below one meter or more, it needs to get bigger and bigger in diameter. This is naturally due to the enlargement of its circumference as you descend.

We do not know about the previous accidents that happened to the tree. What we know is that the juniper is hollowed out from time to time. The shepherds, hunters or passers-by feeling cold got into it and made a fire and warmed up. Is there a second ungrateful being other than man in the realm of living things? I honestly don't know. If he had not been given this gift of perfect intellect, perhaps he would not have been so destructive. Man, but intrusive; man, but both cruel and oppressed; man, but hypocritical. And forgot Allah. Our Prophet (saas) said, “The servant has not gained anything that guides its owner and keeps him away from the wrong path, like the mind!” As a natural consequence of this, Allah SWT has placed the responsibility on the minded person.

Hazrat Omar'ul-Faruk says, "The origin of the servant is the mind! His nobility is religion! His manliness is humanity and morality! The wise man pleases his friends with his mind, he does not respond to his enemies with cruelty. He holds the hands of his enemies with his justice! The fools, on the other hand, are not only in error but also lead others astray!” So human, but mindless! Human, but mindless! Mindless!.. All of them? Never!.. So let's still be on the pluses. Let's at least be on the side of the pluses in order not to fall on the same side and level, let's just look, let's just see. Even Allah, who is the Lord of the world, has made his forgiveness overcome his wrath. This is divine justice!

This area, which is now afforested, looks like a little above the vineyard and garden area called Mekân, on the west of Elbistan, at the foot of Şar Mountain, with a very interesting resemblance. The place called the Mekân has a very nice water that is filled in bottles and sold to drink in Elbistan. Here, too, I saw the water I drank from a garden as an easy and light water to drink, if it wasn't the taste of tiredness. In fact, after sitting comfortably and cooling my sweat, I remembered the Mekân while drinking the water. As for the resembling plant variety, milvetch is present here as well as on all sides of Ahır Mountain. But I saw a bit of liveliness like that of the Mekân. Maybe it's because it’s not a frequently visited place. But the ferula I have seen on Ahır Mountain from Yalızardıç to Yedikuyu and beyond, that is, towards Milcan, is not found elsewhere on Ahır Mountain. In fact, it exists neither in Yavşan Mountain nor Başkonuş nor Dıvık. I haven't seen it around here. Here is the similarity; ferula grows above the Mekân. I know from childhood. Because in order to make tandoor bread for the winter, we used to collect ferula from here and load them to the donkeys. Like Yalızardıç, which was left alone because its peers were cut off and took this loneliness as a name, thick juniper trunks, that is, trunk residues, are found on the top of the Mekân, namely on Şar Mountain. Only, these were the sights I saw years ago. I don't know if the residues are still there. Just as the cedar and juniper rafters in the old houses in Elbistan, some of which are still standing, came from Şar Mountain, the juniper, cedar rafters and beams in the old Maraş houses came from Ahır Mountain. Perhaps, when this resemblance, rafters and slats were in place, neither the location was called Yalızardıç nor our juniper was alone.

If we do not take into account Milcan, the last snow melts on the top of Akdere and Yalızardıç, where the Yedikuyu and Kılalan road passes. As someone tells a deceased person said that, “It was a rainy summer day, a time when everyone was moving to the vineyards. It started to burn one afternoon, it burned for two nights, two days without being extinguished. The flame was easily visible from Maraş. The people of Göllü took the remaining part after the fire and used as wood. What remained was like a piece of poker; according to what I learned, sixty-four loads of wood came out of this burnt poker piece.” There are very few people who do not know Yalızardıç and its region, starting with the villagers of Göllü and Sarıkaya (Homburlu), especially the vineyard owners in that region. Except for children and young people, everyone has either seen or heard of this tree firsthand. Therefore, they feel pity that it was burned, and they say it is a pity. There are even those who leave the punishment to Allah for the ones who burned or caused the fire. Once, a teacher friend of mine from Ağrı gave me a beehive as a gift. I put the hive on the roof with the half honeycomb bee he brought from Ağrı, it was standing there. My beekeeping, which I could not stand against his insistence and which I continued by not being able to get close to the beehive out of fear, ended with a very interesting end, but what caught my attention was this. The bees always went to the east, and they came from the east again. A relative of mine who knows these regions very well said, “These bees come from Yalızardıç, you will see that their honey will be very good.” He was indeed right. The honey was exceptionally fragrant. The hive, which was placed on the roof in the spring, was filled with bees and honey in the middle of summer. Those who tasted it said, “This must be the sweetest and most beautiful honey I have ever eaten.” Aside from our beekeeping, when I came to Kahramanmaraş, I heard the name "Yalızardıç" for the first time. There was a gray soil in some parts of its location and a red soil in others. In places with red soil, mostly gardens were grown and there were vineyards around it. The place is liked because the weather is cool.

As a society, we probably need to change our perspective on trees, especially on elite and rare trees, in other words, we need to find a way and review it. In fact, our homeland is a land full of great trees. Homeland is probably not just a piece of land. Homeland is a piece of land on which all kinds of living things meet, mix and mingle, the price of which is the blood our martyrs and the scent of which is the musk. This land, which some people cannot comprehend, is sacred and blessed. That's why, "Love of the land is from faith." The location is still called with the name of the juniper. When the name of the location is mentioned, the great juniper is always remembered and it is a source of sadness for some. While some of the vineyardists living in Durnalı and Güzlek vineyards were offering a hatize (hapsa) with walnuts, pistachios or almonds in the pan to their precious neighbors or their esteemed guests who came to the vineyard in Maraş, a small branch as small as a hand was placed on it, brought from Yalızardıç. In other words, hatize was decorated with a juniper branch along with the nuts. The juniper branch smelling fragrantly would give a different satisfaction to those who ate the hatize. Some would say, “This is the branch of the Yalızardıç,” and take it to their nose, sniff it for a long time and inhale its musk-like scent. Like those who knew it closely, even Cuma and Bekir Büyükkurt from the village of Kurtlar said, “Even we saw it burn from here, then we were burned out too. Because it was a tree whose name we heard a lot” and he sighed once again. There are no historical building remains in the place where the juniper was located. However, a name was written on the tree in old Turkish, and as the tree got thicker, the writing expanded and became unreadable. As stated above, the tree was burned and the rest was taken to Göllü with animals. Its place is widely carved like a lime quarry pit. Of course, this pit will disappear in time, but Yalızardıç will never be forgotten. Again, according to the statements, as we mentioned above, there are also extinct juniper trees in this part of Ahır Mountain, which houses a wide variety of trees in its bosom. Once upon a time, it is said that, “The timber and other supplies of the ships built in Basra and Birecik were procured from the regions of Maraş, Besni, Antep, Kâhta, Güvercinlik, Andırın, Kars-ı Zülkadriye (Kadirli), Hısn-ı Mansur.” “For the frigates to be built in Basra in 1730, 20100 (twenty thousand hundred) timber was cut from the Maraş mountains and stored in Birecik. From here, when the water of the Euphrates increased, it was transported to Rıdvaniye Pier by ships.” I think that among these mountains are Engizek Mountain and Ahır Mountain and its extension, Öksüz Mountain. Of course, it was pleasing to see the afforestation works in place. The day will come when it will get rid of the barrenness and the region will wear his old green underwear. Two junipers, which are accepted as its descendants after Yalızardıç and named as Rooster Juniper because it resembles a rooster and Chicken Juniper because it resembles a chicken, were unknowingly uprooted by a bulldozer during the construction of Yedikuyu's road. The uprooted, the last example of the location and the last memory and hope of Yalızardıç, the two juniper dry up despite the conversation of the local people. If it were human, we would start by saying "May its soul rest in peace" and herald the next generation to grow up in its place. We hope that the mindset and thought that burned Yalızardıç will die, and each of our trees that have just been planted will fill our eyes and hearts as "brave juniper" instead of Yalızardıç (lonely juniper). A forest sea on Ahır Mountain against the blueness of the dam lakes of Menzelet, Kilavuzlu on one side, Sır on one side and Kartalkaya on the other. If you can get enough, watch, the sky is blue, the ground is blue, Ahır Mountain is green! I say that our mountains as well as our people are longing for green, they deserve green! Is not it?