A sleety snow this morning, 36 degrees. Will turn back into rain as the day heats up.
Gertie goes in today to get her e-collar off and her drain removed. She’s already back to her energetic self and is eager to run free. Hopefully, not into more slash. We moved all the slash that was close to the house yesterday and the day before, so hopefully she’ll remain unpunctured until we get done.
Have spent no time catching up on the Indy 500 this year. I think it was Kurt Vonnegut, born in Indianapolis, who said Indiana living involved basketball season and waiting for the Indy 500. Not far off.
Heard from Joe. He and Seoah are legally married now, having filed their papers with the Korean court system. That means they can now go to the US embassy and begin the visa process. It’s different for a married couple and they had to wait until the legal completion of their marriage. They go June 8.
Two topper limbed. Today I cut this one into fireplace size logs.
Kate got outside today and moved slash, stacked wood. After completing the cutting up of all the trees felled by Always Chipper, I moved back into tree felling. Since this was the first I’d done since last fall, I started further away from the house. Still know how to do it.
Always Chipper’s Kevin and Tom taught me a new trick. When they felled the trees that were too tricky for me, they let them fall on top of each other like pick-up sticks. At first, I thought, what? That seems lazy. But, when I started limbing and cutting them up, I discovered that the jumble of logs lifted most of them off the ground. Easier to limb and easier to cut up. No Peavey necessary.
Guess what I did? Yep, dropped three trees one top of the other. Much simpler and faster. It’s always good to learn from people who know more than you do.
Rained later in the morning so the work will have to wait until tomorrow, but I’m making progress.
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.
Ever since the great iconoclasm, my voice has been muted. Not sure why. Topics don’t seem to occur to me. I’ve never had a theme, a particular ax, though felling and limbing the occasional political issue shows up once in awhile. Philosophical, quasi-theological pondering. That, too. Lots of did this, did that. The online continuation of a journal keeping way I’ve had for decades. Art. Yes, but not as much as I want.
Maybe there was a more intimate link between the images and the vitality of this blog than I realized. Apres le mitigation the whole copyright issue, the fate of images in an age of digital reproduction, will occupy some of my time.
Work on both Superior Wolf and Jennie’s Dead have been ongoing, though not yet much writing. Reimagining Faith occupies a lot of my free thinking time, wondering about mountains, about urbanization, about clouds that curve and mound above Mt. Evan’s, our weather maker. No Latin yet. Not until I can have regular time up here in the loft. Not yet.
Could be that underneath all this lies a reshuffling of priorities or a confirmation of old ones. It’s not yet a year since my prostate surgery and a friend of mine said it took her a year to feel right again. This year has felt in some ways like my first year here, a year when I can take in the mountain spring, the running creeks, the willows and their blaze of yellow green that lights up the creek beds, the mule deer and elk following the greening of the mountain meadows.
My 40 year fondness for Minnesota has also begun to reemerge, not in a nostalgic, wish I was still there way, but as a place I know well, a place to which I did become native, a place which shaped me with its lakes, the Mississippi, Lake Superior, wolves and moose and ravens and loons. Where Kate and I became as close as we could with the land we held temporarily as our own. Friends. Art. Theatre. Music. Family. Perhaps a bit like the old country, an emigre’s memories which help shape life in the new land. An anchor, a source of known stability amidst a whirl of difference. The West. Mountains. Family life.
So. There was something in there anyhow. Now, back to fire mitigation.
Dogs. Gertie chased a critter yesterday afternoon. Fast. Paying apparently quite close attention to the critter, but not to the downed tree in the way. She ripped open her right side, a good tear. She’s at the vets right now getting sewn up. Again. Wounds are her trademark. Since we’ve had her, she’s been into the vet many times for torn flesh. Part of it is her go for it mentality, part of it’s her bite first, bark later attitude. We’re good customers at Sano.
Spent some time this morning cutting up downed trunks into logs for Seth. Lugging the peavey and the chain saw around wears me out. I’m not as strong as I was last fall. Restarted my resistance work with modified P90X workouts on Monday. Between the logging and the P90X, my strength will improve. Better than what I was doing last summer this time, fussing about prostate cancer.
Told Holly, our across the street neighbor, the snow tires were coming off today. “Oh, It’s an El Nino year,” she said, “we got two feet of snow on Memorial Day once.” Even so. Off they come. This is the second season on the Blizzaks so they’ll be evaluated, see if we can get a third out of them. Two aging drivers can use the extra traction in the winter. Better to get new ones if there’s any iffyness about them.
Brakes, too, probably. Not primarily because of the mountain driving, we use all the gears for braking, but 70,000 + miles. We bought this Rav4 in July of 2011 when our Tundra had complete organ failure, spewed vital fluids all over 153rd Ave NW and never moved again. The Rav4 was, in retrospect, a mistake. It’s not a bad vehicle, but it’s not a good one either. It was affordable, does what we need, but I’ve never developed any affection for it.
When I get back, more fire mitigation. Mostly cutting up trunks into pieces Seth can manage. He’ll get rid of most of them. That will leave the tops and branches to move to the front. And, of course, the other trees to cut down. When I finished yesterday morning, I realized Memorial Day was too ambitious a deadline. I’ll work at it until I get it done.
Topped all the felled trees, finished the limbing on them, too. Began the hauling to the front. Wore myself out. Tomorrow I’ll start cutting them up.
Rain today. Cloudy. Our solar production is far behind what was predicted, due in large part to the heavy snowfall, but also to cloud cover. Payout may take more time than we have here, but the intimate connection between the sun and our electrical use is worth it anyhow; as is severing, to the maximum extent we can, the link between our electrical use and coal generated power.
Chain saws whir all over the neighborhood here on Shadow Mountain. Fire mitigation is the mountain spring equivalent of planting a garden. Weeding, really, on a large scale. A weed is a plant out of place. Of course, you could argue that those of us who live up here are the weeds. Perhaps the trees should be plucking us out. Which is, of course, exactly what a wildfire does. Complex, man.
“…I am at home in the West. The hills of the coastal ranges look “right” to me, the particular flat expanse of the Central Valley comforts my eye. The place names have the ring of real places to me. I can pronounce the names of the rivers, and recognize the common trees and snakes. I am easy here in a way that I am not easy in other places.” Joan Didion, California Notes, NYRB, 5/26/2016
Front, May 6th
Becoming native to a place implies the opposite of what Joan Didion recalls in this fine article taken from notes she made in 1976 while attending the Patty Hearst trial for Rolling Stone. The becoming process implies not being easy where you are, not knowing the place names as real, not knowing the common trees and snakes.
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is not a real place to me. Neither is Four Corners nor Durango nor the summit of Mt. Evans, only 14 miles away. The owls that hoot at night, the small mammals that live here on Shadow Mountain. No. The oak savannah and the Great Anoka Sand Plain. Familiar. Easy. The Big Woods. Yes. Lake Superior. Yes. The sycamores of the Wabash. Yes. Fields defined by mile square gravel roads. Pork tenderloin sandwiches. Long, flat stretches of land. Lots of small towns and the memories of speed traps. Yes.
A local photographed yesterday near here. from pinecam.com by serendipity888
With the fire mitigation this property here on Shadow Mountain is becoming known. It has three, maybe four very fine lodgepole pines, tall and thick. A slight downward slope toward the north. Snow, lots of snow.* Rocky ground, ground cover and scrubby grass.
Denver. Slowly coming into focus. The front range, at least its portion pierced by Highway 285, too. The west is still blurry, its aridity, mountains, deep scars in the earth, sparse population. The midwest clear, will always be clear.
Becoming native to a place is the ur spiritual work of a reimagined faith. First, we must be here. Where we are.
*”Snowfall for the season on Conifer Mountain now stands at 224 inches (132% of average).” weathergeek, pinecam.com
As the precipitation has backed off over the last week, the creeks are less vigorous, though still full. Properties with a driveway running over a creek have to build strong bridges and use solid culverts, a considerable expense I imagine. And sometimes, like last year, the creek washes them out.
The Gransfors limbing ax got a workout this morning, finishing the limbing in the back. Tomorrow the chainsaw. First task, cut the felled trunks into either fireplace size logs or larger logs that Seth can come pick up. Second, move the limbs and tree tops to the front so they can be chipped or hauled away. Third, cut down the remaining trees marked by Splintered Forest last fall, limb them and cut them up, moving the limbs and tree tops to the front. Last, cut down a few more trees I’ve identified, dead ones or small ones blocking the growth of larger trees. Limb, cut up, move.
The blue ribbons are a little faint, but they’re about a fifth of the way up the trunk. This is how Splintered Forest marked the trees to cut. A two topper is a lodgepole with a branched trunk at the top. These are prone to splitting under stress and are almost always marked to come down. This one was near the house so I had Always Chipper cut it down. The limbing goes up to the narrower tip of the branch which I’ll cut off with a chainsaw. It will be chipped or hauled away. The rest will get cut up.
The felling ax may come out for some of the smaller trees just because it’s fun to act fully like a lumber jack. Gotta keep the Minnesota forest cred somehow.
Have spent no time catching up on the Indy 500 this year. I think it was Kurt Vonnegut, born in Indianapolis, who said Indiana living involved basketball season and waiting for the Indy 500. Not far off.
