I’m getting up early to walk the dogs, the weather is oppressively humid. Win had his teeth cleaned yesterday and was out of it all day/night. Poor guy can’t catch a break, dog attack, pepper spray, teeth cleaned, an incisor removed. Hope he’s up for a walk this am.
Good morning from Asheville! Chile has earthquakes. Both Chile and Ecuador have government blarg and societal entropy.
Today we're going to the Cradle of Forestry, Pisgah National Forest, and the oak research site.
We visited a logging site on state game land yesterday. Logging equipment is big and cool. The timber company rep said they were removing white pine trees and leaving hardwoods, which produce nuts.
When they had the pines out, they planned to burn the debris. Natural seeding would result in a mixed herbaceous layer of tasty browsing plants for deer by next fall.
There was talk about the local economic issues with logging and timber/fiber sales. "Inflation" was mentioned as a key point, but I didn't get the connections. The program leaders told me a guy from the Forestry Association can explain more today.
We had a 100’ white pine removed that was located in the back of our house up north. The crane was in front of our house and reached over our house to remove the tree as it was being cut down in the back. It was one of the most impressive sights ever.
Morning. That sounds quite interesting. I’m guessing the big machinery included tree harvesters and bunchers. The scale and efficiency of those is impressive.
If I’m not mistaken, they leave the stumps so as to hold the soil and permit the ecology of rot and decay to work its species-diverse magic.
Any talk about converting any of it to pellet fuel for UK power plants? That seems to be a thing in some parts.
The pellet thing has been mentioned once as a possible use for unmerchantable trees. I hope to learn more today.
There are complications in regeneration of the mast-producing trees. Yellow poplar and red maple grow a lot faster but don't contribute to animal habitat as much.
White oaks are dominant locally in regrowth tracts. They produce a lot of mast. What they won’t be able to say much about, I’d imagine, is the impact of species near-extinctions like that of the American chestnut.
The pre-Columbian forest composition was the result of intentional forest management—by fire—of native American societies, at least according to some plausible theories mentioned in Mann’s “1491”. The pre-Columbian peoples managed forests for the purpose of abundant mast so as to have abundant herbivore herds and sparse undergrowth for easier bow hunting.
I read some journal pieces years ago for a historical geography class I took on fire use for clearing underbrush by native Americans. The Virginia colonists were surprised to find areas where under the canopy it was sometimes cleared enough to ride a horse at nearly full speed. Another piece talked about the intentional burns to prevent reforestation in places like today's southern Illinois to keep trees from coming back in at all, thus producing vast prairies. Fairly fascinating stuff.
Yes. Charles C. Mann’s two books—1491 and 1493–on how the Columbian enterprise fundamentally changed life on the planet are engrossing reading. In the first, when you read about archeological discoveries regarding pre-Columbian civilizations is absolutely stunning. I found Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel” to be similarly wonderful, but even that wasn’t as broadly sweeping as the Mann books.
I read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" some years ago and "The Columbian Exchange" by Alfred W. Crosby Jr. sometime before that, I think. But I still haven't done the Mann books. (Wish list!) I feel confident Mann has lots of new research to draw upon.
One presenter talked about managing forests to produce a mix of stands more like what would have existed when the forest was used by the Cherokees, as well as when it was largely unpopulated.
A natural fire regime would sometimes burn a lot of timber, producing large areas of early stage forest. Grazing animals like bison kept some areas clear of trees.
Evening, all. Great time today. I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, we'll do activities related to teaching what we've learned.
I'm in my office for office hours, and grading.
I brought in an old 30" x 24" stained glass window which I have leaned into my west facing window sill.
Next year I may bring in potted plants, and grow something. Tomatoes, corn, something...
I’m getting up early to walk the dogs, the weather is oppressively humid. Win had his teeth cleaned yesterday and was out of it all day/night. Poor guy can’t catch a break, dog attack, pepper spray, teeth cleaned, an incisor removed. Hope he’s up for a walk this am.
In that case, I would choose Costa Rica.
But where will you ski?
Frequent trips to Canada, I suppose.
Good morning. Hot day in the forecast with temps in the 90s.
The FP lead story is titled simply, “White Dudes for Kamala”.
I hear the Americans are doing well in the medals count.
The mothership is covering the Kamala Harris campaign, and the Venezuelan sham election "won" by incumbent Nicholas Maduro.
Megyn Kelly has snippets of the “White Women for Kamala” meeting on her show. If you’re white woman, don’t you dare correct a black woman.
Or a white man correcting anyone other than a white man.
tbf, it is easier to correct white men than anyone else, thanks to products like "𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒆-𝒐𝒖𝒕"...
Good morning from Asheville! Chile has earthquakes. Both Chile and Ecuador have government blarg and societal entropy.
Today we're going to the Cradle of Forestry, Pisgah National Forest, and the oak research site.
We visited a logging site on state game land yesterday. Logging equipment is big and cool. The timber company rep said they were removing white pine trees and leaving hardwoods, which produce nuts.
When they had the pines out, they planned to burn the debris. Natural seeding would result in a mixed herbaceous layer of tasty browsing plants for deer by next fall.
There was talk about the local economic issues with logging and timber/fiber sales. "Inflation" was mentioned as a key point, but I didn't get the connections. The program leaders told me a guy from the Forestry Association can explain more today.
We had a 100’ white pine removed that was located in the back of our house up north. The crane was in front of our house and reached over our house to remove the tree as it was being cut down in the back. It was one of the most impressive sights ever.
Morning. That sounds quite interesting. I’m guessing the big machinery included tree harvesters and bunchers. The scale and efficiency of those is impressive.
If I’m not mistaken, they leave the stumps so as to hold the soil and permit the ecology of rot and decay to work its species-diverse magic.
Any talk about converting any of it to pellet fuel for UK power plants? That seems to be a thing in some parts.
The pellet thing has been mentioned once as a possible use for unmerchantable trees. I hope to learn more today.
There are complications in regeneration of the mast-producing trees. Yellow poplar and red maple grow a lot faster but don't contribute to animal habitat as much.
White oaks are dominant locally in regrowth tracts. They produce a lot of mast. What they won’t be able to say much about, I’d imagine, is the impact of species near-extinctions like that of the American chestnut.
The pre-Columbian forest composition was the result of intentional forest management—by fire—of native American societies, at least according to some plausible theories mentioned in Mann’s “1491”. The pre-Columbian peoples managed forests for the purpose of abundant mast so as to have abundant herbivore herds and sparse undergrowth for easier bow hunting.
I read some journal pieces years ago for a historical geography class I took on fire use for clearing underbrush by native Americans. The Virginia colonists were surprised to find areas where under the canopy it was sometimes cleared enough to ride a horse at nearly full speed. Another piece talked about the intentional burns to prevent reforestation in places like today's southern Illinois to keep trees from coming back in at all, thus producing vast prairies. Fairly fascinating stuff.
Yes. Charles C. Mann’s two books—1491 and 1493–on how the Columbian enterprise fundamentally changed life on the planet are engrossing reading. In the first, when you read about archeological discoveries regarding pre-Columbian civilizations is absolutely stunning. I found Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel” to be similarly wonderful, but even that wasn’t as broadly sweeping as the Mann books.
I read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" some years ago and "The Columbian Exchange" by Alfred W. Crosby Jr. sometime before that, I think. But I still haven't done the Mann books. (Wish list!) I feel confident Mann has lots of new research to draw upon.
One presenter talked about managing forests to produce a mix of stands more like what would have existed when the forest was used by the Cherokees, as well as when it was largely unpopulated.
A natural fire regime would sometimes burn a lot of timber, producing large areas of early stage forest. Grazing animals like bison kept some areas clear of trees.