Spruce Beetle

For about the past ten years, the forests of the western United States have been subject to two different bark beetle epidemics. Most recently, the talk has been of the Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae), which, as you might guess, impacts mostly pine trees. There have been large areas—millions of acres—of pine mortality in places like Colorado and Montana. The dead trees are often lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), which is not rare, but a high rate of mortality in outposts of five-needle pines, such as whitebark pine (Pinus albacaulis), have caused some to worry that rarer species may face local extirpations.

Meanwhile, in spruce-fir forests, there have been cases of nearly complete Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) mortality—see Utah's Markagunt Plateau—caused by a cousin of the MPB called the spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis). The specimen pictured is a spruce beetle plucked last Thursday from beneath the bark of a dead spruce tree at the headwaters of Wolf Creek in northern Utah. The spruce beetle lives in the cambium of the tree for two years, eating the phloem until the tree is completely girdled. Unfortunately, what is often left in place of the spruce is subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa), which is the rattiest-looking excuse for a tree a forest visitor could ever wish to see.

Uinta Wasatch Cache

This week's assignment takes us to the Uinta Mountains of northern Utah. The mountain pine beetle arrived first, and has killed most of the lodgepole on the north slope. Our local sources tell us that the spruce beetle is just getting started in the Engelmann spruce. That leaves a lot of ugly subalpine fir, which is mostly infected with broom rust. We are doing vegetation management plans for campgrounds on the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Between the forest pests and the millions of campers who simply must try out that hatchet they got for Christmas, it is tough to keep the trees alive at many of these sites.

Pulling Weeds

I've come to the conclusion, after a summer of doing it, that the true test of someone's willingness to work is see whether they will pull weeds. Weeding, especially where the ground is hard and the cheat grass thick, is not a rewarding occupation: The work is slow, tedious, and difficult. If you don't much like to work in the first place, you're not going to have a lot of enthusiasm for pulling weeds.

At the Parowan City nursery, we've had a weed problem this year, and I've spent many hours trying to get it under control. In addition to the weeds, we've had some convict labor assigned to the nursery by one of the local judges. Well, not convicts really, but kids who have spent their time misdemeanorin' and need to work off their debt to society with a little community service. What I have discovered is that the two do not mix. That is, convicts will not pull weeds; they would rather go to jail.

(The Economist recently had an article about farmers in Georgia who were running short of field hands this year. An enterprising state legislator came up with the bright idea of building a program to match the state's unemployed population with the farmers who needed help. The plan quickly ran aground when the bright eyed politician discovered that the jobless were unwilling to do that kind of work. So, the unemployed stayed home while the crops withered in the fields.)

Which is why I was dismayed to learn that the local university (Southern Utah University) would be sending a group of freshman to Parowan to do community service. I was assigned a work crew and my job would be to get them to pull weeds in the city cemetery. I figured that I would do the work while they gossiped, flirted, and talked on the phone.

When they arrived yesterday morning the sun was high, and I was already sweating on the end of a shovel. I showed them what to do and got back to work. Much to my surprise, they all pitched in. There were five of them and they each worked in the sun for more than an hour. They didn't complain (much) and managed to complete the task I had started. Hats off to my five kids from SUU, they passed the test.

Work in Progress

At Rural Ways we agreed on a small home renovation budget for this year. The need for a new roof and a new sewer connection had become dire: We had reached the point where we were achieving a good flow through the shingles but none through the pipes. So we tackled those two projects first. Afterwards, we found that we would have enough left in our budget to build a small studio by enclosing the sleeping porch.

Since both Valerie and I work out of The Homestead, we need both office and studio space under one roof. For the past couple of years we have been sharing a windowless 200 square foot room. It has worked out OK, but it could be better. For one thing, Valerie drives me crazy with her sudden loud laughter when someone sends her a funny email. She has disrupted my concentration so badly that, for two years, I still haven't been able to decide why I like brown ale so much. She, on the other hand, is probably tired of me constantly telling her how and what to paint (as though I know anything about it). As a result, we have both felt that we could each do better with our own space.

We decided that the most cost effective way to build an addition without building an addition was to enclose and winterize the existing screen porch. The work, as you can see from the picture, is in progress. When complete, the new room will have five largish windows on both the north and the west sides. This will provide WAY more light than what we currently have in the area where Valerie paints. It will also provide her with a place where laughter is allowed. As for me, I will have a quiet space where I can focus on the things that really matter: Like whether Brett Favre and Randy Moss are really retired?

Southern Utah in Slow Motion

There are many places in southern Utah where you can't get cell phone service. I love those places. They give you the feeling that you may need to take responsibility for yourself . . . you're out from under the wing of the nanny state. I do not, however, like it when the girls are in those places without me. I can't ensure their safety when I don't know where they are. (I do have to remind myself, of course, that the days of family cell phones are very new, and people managed to somehow survive without them.)

In any case, the girls were coming up from Mexican Hat yesterday and the cell coverage was bad until the top of the Moqui Dugway, and even from there it was spotty. By the time they reached Natural Bridges, the transmission on the Chev was having some problems. It was 100 degrees outside and the next town (if you can call it that) was Hanksville, 85 miles away. We were able to talk sporadically and I gave some suggestions that seemed to help, but I knew that I'd lose touch with them from Fry Canyon down to the river and up North Wash. I was pacing around the house, nervous as a cat, plucking at my face and imagining the worst. Finally, I grabbed some leftovers from the fridge along with a bottle of water; I went out to the car; drove straight to the highway; and set the cruise control on 80.

I reached Loa in a shade over two hours. (The Sable has its own transmission problems, but once it settles in at over 80 mph, it is a beast.) The cells were working and I learned that the girls had made it to Capitol Reef by that time. The Chev's transmission had stopped shifting and they were driving the shoulder of the highway in first gear with the flashers on. I met them at the turn to Teasdale. They were tired, but otherwise fine. My 150 mile flight had probably been unnecessary. On the other hand, what was I going to do, sit in the house sipping a rare Cabernet while they were at risk of being stranded on the banks of the Dirty Devil?

I gave them the car and sent them home. It was 6:30 pm. The automatic transmission on the Chev has an electronic sensor that tells it when to shift. When that stops working, the transmission stops shifting. I wondered if it might be protected by a fuse, but it wasn't. I wondered if it was too hot, so I cranked up the heater to cool the engine, but it wasn't. So, I kicked the tires a couple of times and got back on the highway.

I decided to enjoy myself. I mean, it has probably been 60 years since someone saw all of southern Utah at 30 mph. I imagined that I was Maynard Dixon, out from California in the 1930s. The roads were bad, the car had tires like a bicycle, and maybe Dorthea Lange was on the seat with me. I got on the shoulder of the road with the windows down and started looking over the country. And what country it was.

From the Thousand Lake Mountain to the north and the Awapa Plateau to the south, I started. I coasted down the hill in Bicknell with the engine detached from the transmission. I noticed a waitress from the SunGlow watching me, so I waved. At Loa I looked in at Rob Hamilton's place. He told me that his wife was going to make him buy a boat for Lake Powell, and there it was. Up the mountain towards the Fish Lake; then down, in silence, the truck coasting without the sound of engine compression. The merc was open in Koosharem, but I didn't stop. I was headed for Grass Valley and the glow of the setting sun. There were two guys standing in the road when I turned west, down Kingston Canyon. We waved, and I concentrated on the sun setting directly into my eyes. When I crossed the E. Fork of the Sevier at the bottom of the canyon, the sun was gone, and the cool air off the creek flooded the truck. Around Circleville a few vehicles passed me headed south, and then it was just me and the river and the growing dark. I turned up Bear Valley with the flashers on, but at the top I no longer needed them. Without the compression of the engine to slow my speed I coasted all the way to I-15, which is probably about 10 miles. I wasn't going to risk the freeway in the dark, so I turned down the frontage road. There, to my left, was the rest area, half the population of Vegas, and the roar of the big rigs. Then there was me, driving in the fields of the Parowan Valley at night with the windows down. When I went through Paragonah, a guy was walking his dog in the street. I went back out into the valley with the lights of Parowan in front of me. A few minutes later, I was home.

Fatal Black Bear Attacks

While we're on the topic of risks that might be encountered in the woods, I recently came across an article in the Journal of Wildlife Management entitled "Fatal Attacks by American Black Bear on People: 1900-2009." The authors (Herrero, Higgins, Cardoza, Hajduk, and Smith) dredged through all the data they could find regarding fatal black bear attacks in North American for the past 110 years and reached some interesting conclusions. Perhaps the most important thing to note is that fatal black bear attacks are extremely rare—63 people killed in all of North America over 110 years—given that there are hundreds of millions of people and hundreds of thousands of bears sharing the continent.

Beyond that, two other facts caught my attention. First, in more than half the fatal cases, the bear's behavior was predatory. That is, the bear was initiating contact with people as though they were prey. I always thought that bear attacks were largely defensive—and they can be—but, the majority of the time, they are not. Second, predatory bears are almost always male (92%—which shoots down my thinking that grouchy bears are generally female bears. So, there you have it, more people have been killed by predatory male black bears in North America in the last century than by females defending their cubs.

When I was a kid, a female bear (with cubs) came into my family's remote camp one night looking for food. We were unable to drive her off until she got what she wanted, which involved climbing above our bear bag and pulling it up into the tree with a hand over hand (paw over paw?) motion. We'd been demonstrably out-smarted and out-maneuvered. Through it all, her behavior was relatively aggressive—snarling at as we tried to pelt her with firewood. I took that to mean that she was dangerous. She may have been dangerous, but far less dangerous than a predatory (silent stalking) male. The authors of this study conclude: "[I]f an aggressive female with young is encountered, a predatory attack is extremely unlikely since most predatory attacks by black bear were by single male bear."

Lightning Risk

When you spend a lot of time outdoors during the summer, you often encounter thunderstorms. They are usually beautiful, not to mention cool and wet, and I generally welcome them. My supervisor, however, recently sent me a paper about the risk of lightning strikes. It took away some of my enjoyment.

Lightning generally strikes high terrain, like ridges and hilltops. These are places that I often work. Lightning can also strike areas that are not under the visible storm cloud, which means that I'm taking a risk when I continue working until the rain is on top of me. Lightning usually strikes the tallest objects on the ridge-tops, such as the big trees that I might be measuring.

Fortunately, my supervisor's report noted that there is safety indoors, and that motor vehicles are relatively safe, too. The thing to do is to head for the truck when you start to hear the thunder. Unfortunately, it is hard to finish your work when you're sitting in the truck. I guess somebody needs to invent internet forestry, so we can do it from the coffee shop.

Working Weight

At Rural Ways, we've been having trouble keeping the weight on. It would be difficult to find any fat at The Homestead—not including the bacon in the fridge. For Ellen we finally diagnosed a stomach acid problem that was causing her to eat like a mouse and lose weight that she doesn't really have. For me, I've been a lot closer to 160—too light—than 180—preferred—this summer and I can't seem to do anything about it. Valerie, of course, looks good, and is the envy of most women half her age.

The real story, at least for the adults, is work. Yesterday morning, I was digging tree planting holes for the City of Parowan—just a few of the hundreds of trees we've planted this year. Yesterday afternoon, I was removing 12 inches of sod from a 200 square foot patio I'm building at The Homestead. Valerie spent the whole day picking, processing, and canning food from the garden that we will be eating all winter. I guess, when we haven't been walking in the woods of Colorado or paddling the canoe, we've been on the sweaty end of a hand tool for most of the summer. There is something about driving a shovel that makes it hard to gain weight. I'm going to call it the True Temper Diet.

Recently, a friend of mine who likes to enter triathalons looked at the combined BMI of Rural Ways and said, "You guys must work out." I thought about it for a minute, and then replied, "No, we don't work out, we just work."

Ruby Lake, Nevada

Tiger says that Nevada is the driest state in America. Indeed, Nevada is hot and dry, especially during July. Nevertheless, Rural Ways spent three July days paddling there with Tiger and Melissa and Sara. Actually, we paddled Ruby Lake, which might be the wettest place in the state.

Ruby Lake is a 17,000 acre marsh managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a National Wildlife Refuge. There is very little open water, but many channels and small ponds surrounded by reeds. It would be relatively easy to get lost while boating, but the FWS has maintained at least one channel through the South Marsh with marked poles. Gas motors are not allowed on the lake during July, though fisherman can use electric outboards.

We camped at the South Ruby Campground on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. It was somewhat hot, busy, and buggy, but Ellen made a couple of friends. On Saturday evening we got a pretty nice thunderstorm. Uncharacteristically, however, the clouds didn't go away and it rained most of the night. In the morning it was still coming down and I made coffee under the canoe. So much for the driest state in the union.