Bad Apples

We picked the pears on Friday.  It was a week early, but everything seems to be early this year.  Soon it will be time to bring in the apples.  We are already using the drops for apple sauce and pie:  They are very nearly ripe.  They are also very wormy.  Now, if you are one of those organic fruit eaters, you probably don't mind a few worms.  That is the price you pay, right?  But, at The Homestead, we want our fruit worm free, and have sprayed a lot of malthion to get it.  What are we doing wrong?  I sprayed every two weeks for the whole fruiting season, and most of these are as wormy as ever.  Valerie has been using the apples in the kitchen, but it is a lot more work to clean the fruit when it is in this condition.  She says that only about 2/3 of each apple can be used.  At the professional orchards, I know they press the drops to make cider.  And, I know they don't clean the apples before they go in the press, so the cider must contain worm guts.  Maybe worms aren't so bad after all.  We could save ourselves a lot of time by eating them with the apples.

View from the Office

This week we are working on the Uinta National Forest, doing some planning for a power line permit.  I was curious about the forest vegetation we would find.  There is lots of Douglas fir, lots of aspen, and plenty of true fir, of course (it is everywhere).  But, what about the pine?  I was expecting some color or combination of pinyon, pondo, or lodgepole, but what I found instead was limber.  There is limber pine everywhere.  What a nice surprise.  I found this one on the shores of Strawberry Reservoir.

Harvest Update

Over the past few days, the tomato plants in the garden have hit their stride:  We brought in almost 30 pounds of tomatoes on Wednesday and Thursday.  Total food weight (all produce) so far is more than 85 pounds.  We've had a pretty good haul of cukes, zuccs, and beans so far, as well as almost 15 pounds of plums.  So, what is it all worth?  We're up to $178.22.  ("Chapeau," as they say, to big ag.)

Bored Campers

Camping can be boring.  I mean, after you've hacked down a bunch of trees, built a big fire, spent all your ammunition, carved your name in a few more trees, consumed all your beer, and dumped all your trash in the woods, what are you gonna do?  Well, I've got a couple of new ideas for you.  First, if you've got a pair of chainsaws, you can cut down a tree and play tic-tac-toe on the stump.  It can be hard to win, though.  Second, if you've got a ball of twine, you can make a comfortable chair.  Then you can sit in it and dream of cell coverage, television, and hip-hop music.

Other Wildlife

Stinging insects are not the only creatures in the forest.  If you walk around enough, you will see just about everything there is.  Since beginning our work on the Routt, we've seen bobcats, bears, and foxes; we've seen badgers, snowshoe hares, and squirrels; we've seen eagles, grouse, and flickers; we've seen yaks, gnus, and wildebeests.  Well, OK, not the last three, but I did get a quick picture of the ever elusive pine marten on Thursday.  Unfortunately, my camera is clunky and the shutter is slow, so I was lucky to get what I got.  The marten was almost quicker than the camera.

Bald-faced Hornet

While working on the Routt National Forest this week, I saw more bald-faced hornets (Dolichovespula maculata) than ever before.  Has there been a population boom?  Like most stinging insects, these won't bother you as long as you leave them alone.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to leave them alone.  When you're walking cross-country through the forest, especially where the brush is thick or there are downed logs, it is not inconceivable that you will brush, crush, or step-on one of their nests.  On Wednesday, I stepped over a log and onto a large rolled piece of bark that was housing a colony.  Fortunately, there was about 100 meter clear area in front of me, so I sprinted away (Usain Bolt wouldn't have believed his eyes).  I wasn't stung, but it scared me.  The two nests pictured (above and below) were near each other in a little clump of aspen.  I noticed them without mishap, but they would have been easy to brush or bump as I walked between the trees.

A Reader Writes

An alert camper from the Payette National Forest sent the editors at Rural Ways the above picture.  How did the snag, at left, the reader asked, get on top of the rock, at left, without leaving a hole in the ground where the root wad was?  The only answer we can think of is that the Payette has thin soils, big fires, and plenty of wind.  But we've never worked there, so we don't know.  The camper's second picture, below, does not tend to disprove our theory.  It is beautiful, though.

Wet, Not Dry

Earlier this year, I produced several posts about our mini-drought.  At The Homestead we received no rain from the middle of May to the middle of July (56 days).  In the three weeks since the dry spell ended, however, we have had rain nearly every day.  In fact, after a particularly thorough drenching last week, Valerie told me that southern Utah was beginning to feel like Costa Rica.

Well, so much for the anecdotes, today I have solid data.  Thanks to a Precipitation Analysis at the National Weather Service, I've got some numbers for you.  The normal May rainfall for the Parowan Valley is 1 inch; the May 2012 rainfall for the Parowan Valley was 1/10 inch.  The normal June rainfall for the Parowan Valley is 1/2 inch; the June 2012 rainfall for the Parowan Valley was 1/10 inch.  The normal July rainfall for the Parowan Valley is 1 and 1/2 inch; the July 2012 rainfall for the Parowan Valley was 3 inches (all of it coming after the 13th).

To summarize:  We should expect approximately 3 inches of rain to fall in the Parowan Valley during May, June, and July.  This year we got approximately 3 inches of rain in the Parowan Valley during May, June, and July . . . and all of it came in the last two weeks.

View from the Office

We're working in dead lodgepole (and live fir) near Yampa, Colorado again this week.  We've seen some wildlife, including a fox this morning with a dead muskrat for breakfast.  But, perhaps the most colorful critter I've noticed is this moth.  It has at least two different sets of markings.