Category Archives: Mountains

Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West

More Adventures With Chainsaw Bob

June 6, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Moon of the Summer Solstice

More Chainsaw Bob. Took my saw into Chainsaw Bob for sharpening and an overhaul. “Let’s look inside and see if we have enough saw to overhaul.” Chainsaw Bob, with a monk’s tonsure and a long, flowing white beard, quickly removed the air filter, took out a flashlight and looked inside, shaking his head.

“Not good. See those striations?” I did. “See how we have them over here, too?” I did. “Not good. I’m afraid this saw is not worth an overhaul.” Oh. “With that it’ll have trouble idling.” In fact, that’s frustrated me the last week or so. I have to reach the throttle fast to keep the saw moving. Otherwise, it chugs, sputters and dies.

I’ve had this saw eight or nine years and it’s served me well. Wish I’d attended to whatever was causing this problem. It will work for a while anyhow, then I’ll have to consider whether to buy another one. Fire mitigation is mostly done and is the most chainsaw intensive task we’ll ever have here.

Back to Bob. I noticed a tin dancing bear sitting in a window of his crowded shop. “You a Deadhead, Bob?” “Music died on August 9, 1995. Since Jerry died, nothing good.” So, the old guy who cares for two-cycle engines like they’re babies is, in fact, about my age. However, he probably listened to the Dead while riding in a Huey gunship over the rice paddies of Vietnam.

Last time I saw him Bob had just returned from hip surgery and wasn’t sure he’d ever walk again. He did. And is.

He rents chippers, asked me if I wanted to rent one. No thanks, I have someone coming. “Malevolent, evil machines,” he said, shaking his head, stubbing out the ever present Camel in a melamine ashtray. “If I rent’em, I go out and check on’em. Checked on a guy last week and he had 12, 13 year olds without gloves or goggles feeding the machine. I took it back. He wasn’t happy.”

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

Clouds Will Form and Rain Will Fall, Even on That Day

June 4, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Running Creeks Moon

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. ”
– John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, (1938), page 313.

Though nothing in our immediate vicinity would count as wilderness, Mt. Evans, the fourteener that lies directly west of us and is our weathermaker, has a designated wilderness area all around it. I can access the Mt. Evans’ Wilderness Area on the Cub Creek Trail, about two miles from home.

The mountains are our everyday, rising, rising, rising yet still. Steady. Tall. We have our life on and among them, enjoying the air cooled by Shadow Mountain, a mile and a half above sea level. The lodgepole pines, interspersed with the occasional aspen grove, are the mountains’ hair, growing longer and longer. Sometimes the odd bald spot appears, usually with craggy rock visible.

Black and red fox, mule deer and elk, black bears and mountain lions, squirrels and chipmunks are our neighbors. We’re just two legged mammals in our dens up here. With the millions of years of age the mountains represent, in very physical form, our few thousand years as a species is unnoticeable. When we’ve run our course and the homes here on Shadow Mountain are fit only for archaeology, Shadow Mountain will still exist. It will not wonder where we’ve gone, nor feel a pang of loss.

I like the feeling of our impermanence set in contrast to the mountains. They too will erode away, yes, their immovability moved by water following the demands of gravity, but it will take so long. Cannot be imagined, how long it will take. Our visit to the heights will be long over when Shadow Mountain is of Appalachian size. And even on that day the sky will be blue, clouds will form and rain will fall.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Seasonal Changes

June 3, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Running Creeks Moon

As the Running Creeks Moon fades from the sky Deer Creek, Shadow Mountain Brook, Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, the mountain streams I see frequently, have all subsided. Running full, yes, but not tumbling and roaring and foaming as they did a couple of weeks ago.

The aspen leaves are still coming, now a bright chartreuse against the gray/white bark. They soften the always green needlescape of the lodgepole pines. Solar production is up, the blue ribbon trees are down and tourists have begun to clog up Upper and Lower Maxwell Falls trail heads. We’re shifting from the more inward days of cold and snow to the more outward time of warm, clear days and cool nights.

A seasonal change. Not really the spring to summer transition of Minnesota, more like a late winter to summer shift.

A Native Plant Master class focused on the montane ecosystem (6,000 to 9,500 feet) starts in July at Reynolds Park here in Conifer. This time prostate cancer will not interfere. I want to bump up my knowledge of the ecosystem.

After several weeks of image expunging and fire mitigation, a less harried time is near. More creative work, much less destructive work. Looking forward to it.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Close

June 2, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Running Creek Moon

Tyler has moved 4/5ths of the slash, maybe more. He’ll be back Sunday to finish up. I’ve cut up all but two trunks. One tree remains standing with a blue ribbon. There is a way to take it down. Before Tyler returns on Sunday I’ll finish that work plus limbing logs with newly exposed branches. Then, the only work that will remain is stacking the firewood and limbing the standing trees up to 10 feet off the ground. Since May 20th this round of mitigation has occupied some of every day, two to three hours, sometimes more. That’s almost two weeks.

Cheaper than having someone else do it. And satisfying, too.

Soon I’ll be back to writing on Reimagining, Jennie’s Dead and Superior Wolf. Translating Latin. Hiking in the woods.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Slash

June 2, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Running Creeks Moon

Tyler, who lives down Black Mountain Drive toward Evergreen, came over yesterday morning. He’s a junior at Conifer High School this fall. A three sport athlete football, basketball and baseball, he’s still growing, but on the thin side right now, and tall. He worked hard. Here’s the material he moved from the back.

While he did this, I cut up the downed and limbed trunks. Most of them I cut into Seth and Hannah size logs though I have made some fireplace size logs for us. More of those today. I’m hopeful Tyler will finish moving all the slash by the end of the morning. Our regular afternoon rains make working then difficult. The water adds a lot of weight to the slash. Better to let it dry out overnight.

The end of this work is in sight.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Mitigation Nears Completion

June 1, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Running Creeks Moon

All the blue ribbon trees are down, save one. The remaining tree presents a difficulty in terms of felling and I haven’t sorted out what to do with it. I spent yesterday finishing the felling, topping most of the downed trees, those already limbed, and completing the limbing of a few others. Kate moved slash.

Today Tyler comes over and will help move the slash into the front where it will get chipped. I’ll finish limbing while he does that, then begin cutting the trunks into logs. This project is nearing completion.

After Seth moves the logs that he wants and the fireplace size logs get stacked away from the house, there will remain two tasks. We need to prune the branches of the trees near the house. They need to be clear up to ten feet above the ground. This prevents laddering of a fire burning on the ground. The second task involves cutting down a few more trees further back in the yard. There are dead trees back there and a few situations where felling smaller trees will help the larger ones grow.

Feels good to have reached this point. This is the first major work I’ve done here. Glad there was a task that needed a skill set I possess. As the trees grow over the years, the virtue of this kind of forest management will become apparent. Mitigation will improve the overall health of our trees, another bulwark against fire. Healthy trees can withstand more fire.

Bees, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Summer Begins

May 31, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Running Creek Moon

So. A rookie takes the Indy 500. The Warriors outlast the Thunder to make the NBA finals a second year in a row. School has begun to wind down. The rhythm of our national life slips into summer, a season forever shaped by the farm, the growing season, even though the number of family farms has continued to sink since the middle of the last century. The kids get out of school to work on the farm, at least they used to. Now most school kids have probably never been on a farm, perhaps find them as foreign as they find the North Woods or the Rocky Mountains.

Here, so far, we’ve had a wet May and forecasters think that may extend into mid-to-late summer. The deeper into the fire season the moisture remains the better off we are. With one exception. All that rain encourages the grasses, shrubs and smaller plants. They in turn can become the fuel that advances a fire.

The fire mitigation process has the flavor of seasonal work in that it needs to finish before the mountains dry out. Hard physical labor in the early summer fits the mood. Here in the mountains the mornings remain cool, pleasant for working outside.

A couple of days ago I noticed an odd newcomer in the mountain meadow the cattle company uses to grass feed some of its stock. A beehive. A single beehive surrounded by metal posts with both barbed wire (I think. From the road it’s hard to tell.) and electric fencing. It intrigued me, looked like a simple set up. Sort of rejiggered the beekeeper in me. Hey, maybe I can do that. I’m going into the meadow someday this week and check out the setup.

Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Still Felling

May 30, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Running Creeks Moon

Yesterday I felled trees and slept. Wearing myself out. I’ll have all the blue ribbon trees down by tomorrow and limbed completed by Wednesday I hope. Tyler, a Conifer High School junior looking for work, comes by on Wednesday to start moving slash to the front. While he’s doing that, I’ll finish my limbing and cutting off tree tops.

When that job is done, the next work is cutting the limbed tree trunks into either Seth and Hannah sized logs or into fireplace size logs. I’ll probably finish that by the weekend. Tyler will return and help me stack logs. More chipping of the slash is also part of this work.

This morning I felled a few trees and limbed four. This afternoon Jon and Jen and the grandkids are coming out for Memorial Day steak. If the weather co-operates, I may take Ruth on the cliff trail, a part of the Upper Maxwell trail we’ve not seen yet.

When this work finishes up, the next big task will be sorting out and rearranging the garage. Finally. Moving in takes time.

Part of the point of fireplace mitigation is to create defensible and strengthen the health of the remaining trees. There are several strong lodgepoles that will now have better sun, more nourishment, enough of them that I want to name them. Two after the grandkids, then I don’t know what. The sinuous lodgepole in front of the shed is one of the strong ones.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West

Fire

May 26, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Running Creeks Moon

Both stamina and strength improving. Worked most of the morning yesterday, then an hour plus in the afternoon. This is work that needs to get done and has a meteorological timetable. When the forest dries out, it might be too late. The risk of fire here is real. According to the Elk Creek Fire Department Deputy Chief who came out last fall, there’s not been a big burn in this area for a hundred years. That’s a lot of fuel.

Confession. I always wondered how people could choose to live on a floodplain, in an earthquake prone area, on or near a volcano. I was scornful of their choices. What were they thinking? As I cut down trees on our property so a probable forest fire might not burn down our home, I know. They wanted to live there. For some reason. Whether motivated by poverty, beauty, family or something else.

In our case we wanted to live in the mountains and enjoy the cooling effect produced by 8,800 feet in altitude. Find such a place close enough to the Denver metro-to make seeing the grandkids feasible-meant buying in the front range. Most of the front range near Denver is in the red zone for fire risk. As the climate changes, forest fire danger increases. “…fires up to this point have been five times worse than last year, and last year’s season as a whole set a fire record.” Agriculture department 2016 fire season forecast.

It has taken me years, decades really, to learn that the best antidote to anxiety is action. And, of course, a good dose of Zoloft. So we’re following the firewise policies of defensible space, fuel free zones. This means we will have done what we can, what makes sense. After that, we drive away with the dogs, taking our emergency kit with us, find a hotel or motel and wait.

If a fire comes and destroys the house and garage, we’ll rebuild. The fire risk will be much lower, at least for a while. In the interim we keep the fire mitigation up to date. That same Deputy Chief told me our house was well-positioned for survival. We live off the main road which makes access by the fire department easy. We have a flat, short driveway with the same virtue. Our roof is class a. Soon we will have completed a fire mitigation plan. After that? Taking our chances.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain