Chev Turns 200

Thousand miles, that is. On Thursday, during my evening commute from Beaver, the Chev hit the 200,000 mile mark. I was on I-15 at Exit 100 in the northern end of the Parowan Valley. I pulled over to celebrate. Later, when I mentioned it to one of my colleagues, he said, "Well, I guess it doesn't owe you anything." I guess not.

View from the Office

We've continued to harvest limber pine cones this week. On Thursday, however, we moved around to a different area, working in the middle of the Tushar Mountains, just below Mount Belknap (12,119 feet). The view, above, was from my drive home yesterday.

Cone Cutters

There are four or five species of white or 5-needle pine in western North America. The most famous, because it is currently imperiled, is the whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) of Idaho and Montana. The mountain pine beetle (MPB), a native pest, working together with white pine blister rust (WPBR), a non-native disease, has significantly reduced the population of whitebark pine across the northern Rockies. In southern Utah, we have two different, but closely related white pine species, the Great Basin bristlecone (Pinus longaeva) and the limber pine (Pinus flexilis). These species are also at risk from the double-whammy of MPB and WPBR, though WPBR has not yet arrived in our area.

In any case, I noticed earlier this summer, that our local 5-needle pines were having a good cone year—a real bumper crop. Because this only happens periodically, I called the regional plant geneticist to ask what we should do. She said, "Pick 'em." Collecting and storing seed allows us to grow seedlings to replant after natural disturbances and also allows us to isolate the seeds that are genetically resistant to WPBR. Because most of my favorite bristlecone grows outside my jurisdiction, so to speak, I decided to try harvesting limber pine cones.

You might think that collecting pine cones would be easy, but it isn't. First, there is a lot of competition out there. The squirrels will clean you out if you don't pick early, and the birds, while leaving the cones on the tree, will break the cone scales and steal the seeds. Second, the limber pine does not grow cones close to the ground, but prefers to put them at the top of the tree. Unless you intend to cut down the tree—which is a possibility in some cases—you have to find a way to harvest cones that are 20 to 40 feet in the air. The method we devised requires three people, the hooker, the cutter, and the bag man. The hooker finds a loaded branch, catches it, and bends it as far as possible; the cutter uses a pole pruner to snip the branch just inside the cluster of cones; and the bag man twists the cones from the cut branch. Voila.

Sink's Done

As I noted last week, we've been in the middle of project to replace the kitchen sink. Actually, with the exception of some painting, the project is finished and the kitchen is fully operational. The whole deal—from disconnecting the old sink to opening the tap on the new sink—took 10 days and cost just a little more than $4,000. We're really happy with it. It is a serious upgrade from the grungy old situation that we had. In addition to the new sink, we added a disposal and a dishwasher to the set-up. In one week, we jumped from the 19th century to the 21st. (I won't name names in this post, but the little local contractor that we hired to run the job does very nice work. Call me if you're looking for somebody.)

The Kitchen Sink

Like many parts of The Homestead, the kitchen sink and counter area have always been a little grungy, ramshackle, leaky, inconvenient, and run-down. On Tuesday, we had it all removed. Once it was gone, we found that the original floor—now covered by tile—was actually hardwood—nice hardwood, like maple or something. We also found that the chronically leaky, do-it-yourself plumbing of the sink had nearly rotted the floor away. Fortunately, by Friday, we no longer had to look at it. The guy we hired to manage the project had the new cabinets completely installed by 3p. We're ready for the counter top.