COTTONWOOD CONNECTIONS

My last post talked about the beauty of a July snowstorm provided by our magnificent cottonwood grove, so I was interested when I recently read that people in the mid-western states used to cut down cottonwoods along river banks and riparian zones, leaving them to rot. They weren’t good for lumber and they didn’t make good firewood, so why cut them down?

These wetland protectors were cut down simply because the cotton released in the spring or early summer clogged up screen doors and collected in little piles on porches and corners here and there.

With no thought other than “My screen door is clogged!”, people would cut down whole groves of these trees.

Of course, that has all changed. Cottonwoods are actually being restored to wetlands. Their fundamental importance for nesting habitat, stream bank holding capabilities and wetland function are now widely recognized. Cottonwoods are a keystone tree species in many wetland ecosystems and their removal destroys the balances required to maintain these places as functional plant communities.

So, it’s all in what you do or don’t see; it’s all in the way your understanding of the world manifests itself on your mental stage.

The cottonwood connections were always there, we just weren’t aware of them. Now it’s the same with burning forests for electricity. Most people still don’t see the importance of beetle altered forests as functioning ecosystems, as carbon sinks greater than clearcuts, as part of the global warming scenario.

Now we are talking of burning these trees, the worst thing you can do for CO2 emissions, the worst thing you can do for habitat.

In a very few short years people will be wondering what we were thinking as a society. Just like the idea of cutting down a cottonwood because the cotton fluff clogged up your screen door, the idea of burning forests in these times of rapid, massive climate change will be seen as an idea so outrageous as to be barely understandable.

July snowstorms are special.  At the end of a hot, sunny day millions of cotton flakes explode into the air with a majesty and grace unmatched by their frosty winter cousins.  Big, fluffy and delicate they float through the sky, parachutes of life drifting in the warm evening currents.

Those of us who live near the wetlands and rivers of the Chilcotin ARK  are fortunate to have the Northern Black Cottonwood as one of our neighbours.  Topping out at over one hundred feet, these trees have two distinct phases.  Young trees are smooth barked, rather conical in shape, while older ones develop a  ragged look with deeply furrowed bark several inches thick.  Just like people, smooth when young, furrowed when old.

The bears love these trees.  Their sweetly perfumed buds are a favourite treat for cubs and moms alike.  There is nothing more entertaining than spending a warm July afternoon watching a black bear cub slowly creeping out on a limb, several  feet above the ground, licking the buds off the branch tips.  Sometimes this pleasant treat can end in near disaster as the limb cracks and the squealing youngster crashes to the ground.  No harm done, the  little bear stares up at the tree, shakes his pudgy head and moves on.

Lining the steam banks, these riparian soldiers love nothing better than having their roots in  water.  If a pipe is driven into the base of an old tree, water will flow from the hollow heart in copious quantities.  A real treat on a hot summer day, especially when you are not sure of the quality of the water in the creek, the water from the living tree is well filtered and good to drink.  Better than bottled water and much more organic.

The cottonwood also has a dark side.  Known as the ‘widow-maker’, it can drop its limbs unexpectedly,  huge clubs crashing from the sky.  More than one rancher or horse has been killed by this random event.

Even so, horses spend day after day huddled under the great trees, nose to tail, hoping to lessen the torment of mosquitoes, black flies, horseflies and chiggers.  The little puffs of brown dust they kick up as they stamp their feet and swish their tails are a sure sign that early summer is here.  When back lit by the rays of a slanting sun, this sparkling dust mixed with the cotton snow flakes is  swept  up hill in a late afternoon gust,  flowing over the contours, defining the form of the hillside.

Just one tree species, just one little event, just one tiny precious image, fleeting yet recurring for eons.  The July snowstorms are a treat that we look forward to each year. More than that, they remind us of the beauty, the strength, the absolute creativity that abounds in the world around us.  They remind us of the vibrancy, the variety, the sheer force of life in our forests.  They remind us again just how special life in the ARK really is.

I don’t know if anyone rates these things but if they do, then swallows must be among the top ten when it comes to flying.  Their fluid motions as they catch mosquitoes and other insects on the fly are a marvelous aerial ballet to watch.  Yet, beautiful as their flight patterns are, swallows are remarkable in other ways as well.

We have one pair of  barn swallows nesting on our house, on the south eave.  This location now has  a platform secured to the underside of the exposed rafters making a shelf for the nest, providing security of purchase and stopping the droppings from reaching the greenhouse roof.

This tidy arrangement did not happen overnight.  For the first several years the swallows tried to establish 8 to 10 nests all over the house.  I kept knocking them down, tied ribbons on the eaves, put up tin foil,  hung strings, even tin pie plates.  The house looked like the circus had come to town.  All to no avail.  The swallows would build and I would knock the nests down.  The pairs whose homes I had destroyed  would then sit on the spot and grumble away for days.  I felt so cruel.

Finally, I knocked down all nests except the one on the south eave and then I put a platform under it..  This routine continued for three years: knock down all nests except the one on the south eave and put a platform under it.   Then, three years ago,  an amazing thing happened.  One pair built on the on the south eave and no other attempts were made.

The flock is as large as ever,  but only one pair  now builds on the house.  They don’t usually select the platform from last year, but go to the rafter next to it, but they always stay on the same eave.  I just wait until the nest is built, then move the platform under it and we are set for another season.

Even if this is the pair that built  there last year , and remembered, what of the new pairs and the rest of the flock?  How have they decided that there is just one spot available on the house, no others are allowed?

Flock memory?  Flock mind?   Whatever the so called  “explanation”,  I take pure and simple pleasure in watching them swoop and dive in front of our breakfast window all the while bemused by the way they  have accommodated my wishes and their housing needs.

The little guys are the worst.  Fresh from some puddle somewhere, they are hungry, fast and nasty.  Not content with one bite, they will often take two or three if they’re not yet full.  They especially like the early dawn light, say about 4:30 am these days.  The first sound you hear is the high pitched whine, like an overevved chainsaw about to explode.

Then silence and you know, in your half drowsy state, that the beast has landed.  But where?

Zing, a sharp little pain on your exposed shoulder tells the story. Slap, roll, sigh, check the bedside clock, (this time it is just 4:05), and try to head back to dreamland.  But singles are rare,  these little monsters come in threes at least.  By 4:30, sheet pulled over your head, concentrating on sleep so hard you are wide awake, it is time to get up, take a roll of toilet paper and go on the offensive.

When these little buggers settle they can be very difficult to hit, but a roll of toilet paper gives better coverage and seems to make the squashing process easier.  It also soaks up the blood when you squish one of those full ones.  Probably it was your own blood anyway, but you never know, it could have been the dog or some errant wild creature like a bear or a moose.  Best not to get too involved with some one (or something) else’s blood.

Thump, bump, swinging wildy, toe stubbed on the bedpost, air blue with purple prose, the naked human wielding the flying roll, this attack eventually wins the first skirmish of the day.  Finally, at 5 am, bloody roll sitting on the night table, wall splattered with blood to be  cleaned at a more reasonable hour, finally, back to dreamland.

The next squadron arrives about 7.  At least this is a more reasonable hour, so instead of taking the roll and going on a full search and splat mission, you just sigh, get up and put on the kettle.

This little routine lasts for two to three weeks every June.  Some years are worse than others, but you can always count on a few mornings of toilet paper warfare just before the solstice.

Maybe that’s it, the solstice, the ritual, the turning of the orb on its axis, soon to start the inevitable slide into winter, during the full throated blast of spring morphing into summer.

These squadrons of mosquitoes, zipping about so energetically, are trying to get it all done as fast as they can, before the puddles dry up and they can no longer lay their eggs.  Eggs which will lie in wait for up to several years, before they hatch into vicious little vampires, harbingers of the coming death in the height of life.

Sometimes taxes are a good thing.  They remind us that we live in a society, that we have collective responsibilities, that we need to pool our thoughts and energies to make progress on certain issues.

Highways, hospitals, schools, police protection–none of these things would exist for the general benefit if it were not for taxes.

Sure, we all moan and complain,  but in the end a society without a collective conscience is not a society at all.

So it is with the current wailing over the carbon tax.

Climate  change is real.  We are putting too much CO2 up into the air and we need to change our habits.  The carbon tax is putting the issue on the table and that is a good thing.   Yes, it needs to be massaged, worked on; but the fundamental idea of a carbon tax is a good one and the government needs to be complimented for bringing it in.

At $1.40 or more per litre a 2 cent tax is minuscule.  It is just political grandstanding to talk about economic hardship brought on by this tax.  Instead of dragging along in denial, it is time to get with the program.

Carbon taxes are a good thing.  Let’s work together to improve the way they are administered and the proceeds distributed.  We are in a new era, and new times demand new ideas and new approaches like carbon taxation.

Have you had a WWOOFer lately? They are great. They have a good attitude, require very little maintenance, usually have great stories to tell and often come in pairs, which is really useful in those situations that need that little bit extra.

We’ve been hosting WWOOFers for several years now. At the moment we have one from Australia and one from Scotland, and although they had not met before coming to the Chilcotin they get along well, working as quite a team.

Originally called Willing Workers On Organic Farms, the organization is now renaming itself to World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms , but the principle remains unchanged. WOOFERs, as they are affectionately called, travel the world, exchanging work for room and board, experiencing the area around them. They work part days or several days a week and the host’s responsibility is to show them around the area during the other times, help them with learning English if they wish, and let them experience the local culture. We have a lot of backcountry opportunities here, fishing, hiking, exploring the mountains, wildlife viewing and so on.

Over the years we have made some good friends that we keep in touch with. Some have come back for a second stint because they like the Precipice and the surrounding country so much.

The exchange program works well for all concerned. Strictly speaking you don’t have to be a “farm”, but gardening, field work, and country setting is the norm. You can get more info at www.wwoof.ca

Happy WWOOFing

WOOFERS at Work………….

and at play……………

Wild spring rains sharpen the air, filling it with ozone, a glassy mist and the bite of zest borne on tiny droplets, stinging the nose and cheeks as they float by.

It is at times like these, standing in the rain on the ridge, watching the roar of the swollen river explode over the valley, that I am fully aware of the distance we are putting between ourselves and the physical world which spawned us.

We walk around with Ipods jammed into our ears, blocking out the surroundings, going from place to place oblivious to the symphony that surrounds us.  Of course, walking in a city, with nothing but traffic noise made  by the scrape of machinery, the squeak of tires, and the roar of exhaling buses, complete with the hissing of air brakes and the  rat a tat of jackhammers keeping time, walking in the city requires an Ipod, just to drown out the din.

Once in the office, where bullet proof glass blocks out the helter skelter noise, the computer takes over.  The Ipod still securely in place, the mind now becomes the prisoner of the hard drive.  The little spinning disk sets the confines, determines the pathways, this little piece of electronic gadgetry becomes the vehicle for our imagination.  Whether on the net as some avatar in virtual reality or simply doing the rote of most computer applications, the electronic world becomes the world of existence.

It fools us. We are able to change realities, change worlds at the click of a mouse, at the stroke of a key.  We are interstellar voyagers in an electronic spaceship far, far from home.  Lost in space, we are disconnected from the real spaceship, severed from planet Earth.

That is why it is important to find a wild place and stand in a spring rain, to have the full suite of senses aroused by the primal contact with wind and  spray, to have the ears and eyes fully engaged with the rest of the body, to have the emotions and the energy connected, rising, touching the core of being.  This experience is a miracle available to fewer and fewer of us as we tunnel deeper and deeper into the hard drive reality, like moles seeking the centre of-of- of what?  Blindly, hypnotized, zombie like, we start to believe we can control all realities, not just the one on the LCD screen before us.  We get confused.

Wild spring rains remove the confusion. They expose the electronic reality for the sham it really is: a third rate, dangerous imposter.

Wild spring rains reconnect us to the cycle of life, birth following death, they validate the timeless truth of our being; wild spring rains present us with the true reality that we cannot control the vast forces in which we are enmeshed.

I just read the other day that new climate models show short term cooling trends buried within the general upwards climb of global temperatures.

It has to do with shifting ocean currents and their effect on rain and circulation patterns.

This spring here in the ARK certainly confirms that analysis. We have been recording the arrival of the first hummingbird for 22 years. He ( it is always a male) usually shows up between April 18th and 23rd. I remember one year, down at the “Glad Cab”, (where we lived while building our present home), being strafed several times one spring afternoon until the feeder was hung on the old hame we used for such purposes. After that we always made sure we have the feeder up and hanging by the 18th—it’s safer that way!

The first hummer is joined a couple of days later by another male, which then begins the usual aerial battles, then another male appears in the next day or two and finally, a few females come to check the summer accommodation. This sequence never varies; the process is the same each year.

But the arrival times do change. One year the first hummer arrived on April 9th, so we had to scramble to find the feeder, make the solution and put out the food. On the other end we have had arrivals as late as April 26

This year things were quote cold, with minus 7 or 8 each night and the snow and ice taking forever to disappear. We put out the feeder on the usual date and as the days went by we started to become concerned. By the 30th of April we really began to worry. Maybe the whole flock of hummingbirds that know our feeding station—the only one for many kilometers—had been wiped out.

Rosemary sent out a few emails, and yes, others had noticed late arrivals, but at least theirs were there. Each night we would bring the feeder in to stop it from freezing, and put it out early in the morning, hoping to catch the first arrival.

I was in the office on the phone about 10 in the morning on May 1st, when the first hummer flew into the window, trying to get at my red sweatshirt. What a relief to see that little guy! I alerted Rosemary, and a few minutes later she reported that he’d arrived at the feeder, drinking and drinking and drinking.

So, a late cold spring, as part of global warming, caused our hummers to be 8 days late. I wonder where they hung out for that extra week. Did they sit on the coast checking the forecast on the web? Did they sniff the oncoming winds? What did they do?

Because the very day it warmed up, was the very day the first one arrived, a little bird with a big mystery.

The journal Nature, April 24, 2008 issue, published an article on the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic and carbon feedback to climate change.  This paper has received a great deal of media attention and is  an excellent source of statistics.  It concludes that nearly a billion tonnes of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere over the 21 year period of the attack, death and partial decay of beetle-killed trees. This is a lot of CO2, as much as all of Canada emitted in 2005.

The question though is, as always, what is an appropriate response to this new information?  How should we assess it in terms of our carbon emissions?

The report finds that with wildfires and non-beetle harvest included, the unattacked healthy forest modeled as the control in the analysis is a net carbon sink overall, even with the huge fires of 2004. So this research clearly demonstrates that logging to control wildfires is an unnecessary and inappropriate response which will only increase CO2 emissions.

The analysis also shows that clearcut logging to address the MPB increases CO2 emissions beyond the release in the natural processes of decay.

On the forest products side, the assumption is made that “Harvesting results in a loss of carbon from the ecosystem, but only some of that carbon is emitted into the atmosphere; the remainder is stored in wood products and landfills.”

Let’s take a look at that. Typical breakdown of the wood that is taken to the mills for processing is 45% forest products, 35% chips, and 20% hog fuel. This means that 55% of the wood that goes to town has its carbon released as CO2 in the short term, obviously more than “some”.

Secondly, when the forest that is logged is burned for electricity, over 95 % of the wood that goes to town has its carbon converted to CO2.  This is a two-fold increase in CO2 emissions over the current mix of product and chips/hog fuel. These relationships  hold whether you are considering Beetle harvest or pre uplift harvest.  The beetle uplift harvest of course puts more CO2 into the atmosphere in proportion to the increased amount logged.

Yes the numbers are significant.  My point is that logging makes them more significant and logging to burn for electricity is the most damaging of all.

We can’t do anything about the beetle-killed trees.  But we can decide to reduce emissions to the lowest possible level by adopting a selection-only logging system, and by refusing to burn trees for electricity.

When it comes to Biofuels, by all means replace beehive burners and use the processing waste to generate electricity.

However, to log and bring trees to town to produce electricity cannot be justified under any mitigation/adaptation scenario whatsoever, especially when it is understood that a beetle-altered forest is not a dead forest.

The picture below shows a > 50% attacked stand just behind our home on the ridge.  The attack is over, taking three years to run its course. You can see there is last year’s red attack, and the previous year’s grey along with numerous green, healthy trees.

This forest is not dead.

The Redwing Blackbirds are back. This year we have more than ever, a small flock of about ten to twelve birds. Now I know that for many of you this is tiny. I have friends in Anahim Lake who boast ( or is that curse?) groups of up to 100 or more.

Some feel they are noisy, territorial birds that disrupt others including those who want to lie abed on these spring mornings when the dawn arrives about 5:30 am.

I grew up with Redwings. We lived by a marsh on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Each spring the Redwings would arrive in droves and I would listen for hours to their liquid silver songs, enchanted with them and the new life they seemed to be serenading.

Now I know that the calls are just about territory, mating and all that practical stuff, but I still get a tingle at the base of my skull and a rush of pleasure when I hear these sopranos sing their hearts out, and I don’t believe it is just about practicality. If you have ever seen a male sitting on top of a small fir, overlooking the valley and giving full throat, then I think you would agree there is more going on than sheer mechanics.

When we first moved here there were no Redwings. Since the valley bottom didn’t have the marshy habitat they like, we were out if luck.

Until the beavers moved in that is. For years the previous owner had dynamited beaver dams, trapped the animals and burned their lodges. He felt that the dams would destroy meadows, cause flooding and otherwise interfere with his small scale ranching operation.

I must admit, for the first few years I dynamited the dams, but I never trapped or burned lodges. Why? Good question, it was just how you managed the place. Beavers were up to no good and they had to go.

One year I decided that the beavers were just as much a part of the valley as I was, so I stopped blowing up dams, the result being that after about three years, there were two big dams in place and the ponds behind them began to develop marshy edges and swamp habitat.

Well, you guessed it, about five years ago a solitary Redwing showed up. You can’t image the pleasure it gave me to listen to its call which peeled away half a century of life and took me straight back to my childhood.

He stayed around for a few days , feasted on black oil sunflower seeds and went on his way.

The next year he came back with a couple of buddies and the rest is history. Now, this year, there is an established flock. As I say, it is small, but they have been here for about ten days and the pleasure I get out of listening to them, seeing the scarlet slash on wing shoulder as they fly, watching the young males and the females joust on the feeder, the flock making this place their home, is immense.

All thanks to the beavers, who are still here, who still repair their dams and who still provide a home for the Redwings.

And I’m in the middle of it all. And what did I do? I just left things alone, left them to interconnect the way wild things do. To get the miracle of Redwings to serenade my Precipice spring, all I had to do was…nothing.