I like trees, dead or alive

For as long as I can remember, I have been near trees or wood products.  If trees were not on the block I lived, there were some just a minute or two away.  Probably every building I lived in was wood framed, and each had wood door and window frames.  And of course I’ve had access to books, magazines, and newspapers everywhere.

When we lived in Plymouth outside Minneapolis, we planted a small variety of trees in addition to those left on the lot when our house was built.  Over the twenty-two years we lived there, we cut some of them down and planted new ones.  We cut trees down because they became diseased or otherwise threatened to fall down.  We cut trees down because we wanted to plant something else there.

Two of the saddest removals were of a very large box elder and a clump of small box elders. 

We had the large box elder taken down because it threatened to drop large limbs on our roof.  Besides our visual loss, it might have been the loss of a home to a three-legged squirrel whom we saw raise several families.

I forgot why I cut down the smaller clump.  When I cut down the first, a pair of crows were trying to land where the tree had been.  “Where’s our nest?  It used to be here.”

When we bought our property in Brimson, we also bought thousands of trees; mostly aspen and balsam fir and way too much alder.  We also have a section of black spruce swamp, a small stand of red pine planted by a former neighbor, and tamarack.  The first year we saw many large dead or dying birch; we thought that was the end of birch.

A few years before we bought the property, local loggers had clear-cut a large swath of aspen on the Federal land behind us and a section of the property.  The aspen coming up were about ten-feet tall and an inch or two in diameter.

The DNR forester who gave us a stewardship plan told us that if we want moose, we should clear-cut.  Moose like to browse on young aspen.  We did see some moose tracks the first few years but haven’t seen anymore for a long time.  Much of the aspen is five inches or more in diameter.  Moose may still be in the area; a neighbor is a shed hunter and a few years ago found three interlocked horns.

Did you know that aspen is one of the largest organisms in the world?  Aspen grows from an interlocking root system.  I didn't find a reference to the largest in Minnesota, but Pando in Utah is considered the largest.  It covers over 100 acres, weighs over thirteen million pounds, has over 40,000 stems, and is considered to be over 80,000 years old.  If a single stem (trunk) dies, another will replace it from the root system.

Clear-cutting aspen is like giving it a bad cold.  If you treat the cold, it will take seven “days” to heal; otherwise it will take a “week”.

Most of our firewood is aspen, but we don’t even have to cut it down.  Enough aspen three-inch in diameter and larger breaks from wind that we only need to cut it up before it rots.  Even then, I can’t keep up with clearing it.

Our preferred firewood is birch, but we have to wait a few years for cut birch to dry out.  My rule of “thumbs” is that if I can’t touch my thumbs together as I wrap my hands around the trunk then it is a firewood candidate.  Ah, yes!  I didn’t tell you that birch is another “weed”.  Some is growing surrounded by other trees, but most is growing along the edge of paths.  Some is also growing from old stumps.  And some I have transplanted from the utility right-of-way before the periodic brush cutting.

Another welcome “volunteer” is red maple.  We planted some sugar maple in our cabin yard and elsewhere.  Some sugar maple did well; some never grew over a foot.  However, in the same area we planted sugar maple, red maple has come up without any help from us.  We also have a stand of red maple along the back line that is doing well.  It would do even better if I cut all the alder that is growing among the maples.

Alder, ah! There is a “noxious” weed if there ever was one.  Alder grows in clumps that go every which way.  Some will go just above the ground for six feet or more and then shoot right across a path at eye level.  We cut down what we can, but we don’t work hard enough to keep paths open.  We did find a tip that household bleach can kill the stump.  We have only tried it on a few stumps.  All I can say is that the stumps went from orange to white.

At our Duluth house we went from six or more trees to one, and that one is a replacement for one that was getting damaged by heavy snows.  Most of the trees we took down were where we wanted to build a new garage or in the way of power or telephone lines.  The best tree to take out was an American elm right next to the house.  Squirrels used it to get to a vent.  No elm, no squirrels in the wall.

Mel would have rather written this looking at hundreds of trees than a garage and other houses.

This was published in the Reader Weekly, 2014-11-20 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/11/20/4403_i_like_trees_dead_or_alive.

Export cones, not drones

Once upon a time, Yemen had rich areas for growing grapes, pomegranates, oranges, and the famed Yemeni coffee.  Then came oil in Saudi Arabia and Yemeni men flocked there for work.  The women cut trees for firewood and the terraces eroded for lack of maintenance.  Water which once could be found at 60 meters is not found until 850 meters or more.  Now Yemenis fight over water.  See "Postcard from Yemen", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2013-05-08.

"Trees have the deepest system of root in soil. They evaporate water from sometimes 50 meters deep level of soil. It increase humidity in air and probabilities of rains, dew-sources of water."  Comment by mioffe2000 in response to "Postcard from Yemen".

This comment got me thinking about "The Man Who Planted Trees" about a shepherd who planted acorns over a wide area that had been deforested by charcoal burners.  The land was dry and suitable only for grazing sheep.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees, the story is a work of fiction.  However, people all over the world have planted millions of trees in many countries to stop desertification and alleviate global warming.  This article mentions a few of these projects.

What would the effect be on world peace if the U.S. exported cones instead of drones to some of the trouble spots of the world.  Well, not exactly cones because evergreens are not suitable for many areas.  Actually, for a small fraction of the military budget, the U.S. could send teams to plant trees of any size, from seeds to semi-mature trees a few meters tall.   It would take a few years to bring better rainfall back to areas where water is scarce.  More available water would reduce tensions among various groups and go a long way to reducing the hold terrorists have on some areas.

I'm a winner in a photo contest!

But it's not a big deal.  There were only four entries submitted to the South St. Louis Soil and Water Conservation District, and so everybody was a winner.

You can see a poster of the winning entries at http://www.southstlouisswcd.org/treeshrub.html?set=a.420835254625427.89854.136260856416203 and from there you can order the poster or a set of note cards.

A strange orange light in the woods

Shortly before seven Monday evening I was looking out the west window of our cabin and I saw a bright orange light through the trees. That can't be the sunset; the trees are too thick for the setting sun to penetrate.

I went out to our parking area for a better view. Was the light still or flickering? My imagination wanted to see the latter, but there really wasn't any flickering. I took a couple of pictures, and then the light started to dwindle as the sun set. (The best picture was too blurry to post.)

With the Pagami fire still going and the high fire danger, it is better to check phenomena like this out rather than ignore them.

Prepared for the unprepared

I've been waiting and waiting for a humongous chipper to take care of all the brush I've cut on our cabin property. The twenty-year-old plus 5 hp chipper just doesn't "cut" it anymore. I was spending more time unjamming it than actually chipping anything.

I've forgotten how long ago I ordered the chipper, but many of the accessory parts arrived over a week ago at Denny's Lawn and Garden. It supposedly was shipped from Vermont almost two weeks ago and I was hoping it would arrive last week, especially as the weather is getting more rainy and snowy. I called Denny's every couple of days are so to check on the progress. I wondered if the driver had gone to Duluth GA instead of Duluth MN.

I called yesterday afternoon and it still hadn't arrived. Today I was going to our cabin with a plan to do several other things. On my way I stopped at Bixby's to meet with our little gang for coffee. About 10:30 I left and thought I'd pay a courtesy call at Denny's.

As I parked my SUV I noticed a familiar-looking machine outside. It was a chipper like I had ordered! It was on trailer base like I had ordered. I went inside with my mouth agape and surprised. Tom, the manager, said that he had called this morning and left a message. I had already left by then. The chipper had finally arrived about four yesterday afternoon. Tom had assembled it this morning and it was ready to go.

I had promised to pay by check rather than credit card, and normally, I don't carry my checkbook. However, I had made some debit card purchases yesterday but hadn't entered them in my check register. I just happened to decide to bring the checkbook along to do so when I was at our cabin.

I wrote the check for the amount Tom told me, but as he was entering it into the register he noticed that he had given me a higher price than he should have. He asked me if I would write another and I did. As I tore it off, I saw that it was the last check in my book!!

After a long, slow drive, never more than 45 mph, sometime less than 30 on really bumpy sections, I arrived at our cabin. I let it sit while I started a fire and ate lunch.

I won't bore you with the details of setting it up by a huge pile of brush, branches, and small trees. But I was finally ready to go. Set all the levers, push the start button, and a big cloud of exhaust. Everything eventually settled down and I started stuffing things in. Chomp, chomp, spit, spit. Beautiful! The stuff was drawn in and out came chips into a cart. Down went the pile of brush, up went the pile of chips. When the cart seemed to be heavy enough, I moved it a few feet and dumped the chips along the path I was on. In about five cartloads, I had the essentially three pile all chipped. The only things I left behind were lots of leaves, some really small branches, and branches that had too many smaller branches at the wrong angle to go into the chipper. In two hours I did what would have taken me five days with the old chipper.

Better yet, I had no skin problems. Earlier this summer if I was even at the cabin for a day, the balsam would produce a skin reaction. I guess the zinc tablets have helped.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I prepare some piles of really crooked stuff and stuff the result into the chipper. If it doesn't snow or rain much.

Next year I should make some real progress on keeping our trails open and "paved".