Sunday, July 28, 2013

Clippers


Weather: Some rain in the nights; last rain 7/26/2013; 14:08 hours of daylight today.

The weather has been more threatening than rainy. I do get tired of turning on a hose when there’s lightening in the area, but if you water when the sun is low, that’s what you do.

The wild lands still are brown, but the cloudy, humid afternoons favor plants that get irrigated. Bermuda grass lawns are finally bright green. The brome grass still hasn’t recovered, but the alfalfa is blooming.

Late summer grasses, like barnyard grass and Nebraska sedge, are coming up in my garden. Dormant seedlings that had germinated when the weather warmed, are growing, especially the columbine. Baby hollyhocks are appearing everywhere.

Annuals are beginning to show themselves, though the usual wild ones - the native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, Tahoka daisies - are still waiting for some rain. Even, the pesky pigweeds, ragweeds, and Russian thistles are subdued.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, fading bouncing Bess, zinnias from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, sweet peas, whorled milkweed, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, silver-leaf nightshade, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, Queen Anne’s lace, goat’s beard, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat; buds on gumweed.

In my yard, looking east: Baby’s breath, coral bells, pink salvia, winecup mallow, sidalcea, reseeded morning glories.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Illinois bundle flower.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, sea lavender, ladybells, white mullein, white spurge, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, coral beardtongue, chocolate flowers, anthemis, yellow yarrow, chrysanthemum.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, white yarrow peaked, Illinois bundle flower, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf and prairie coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, impatiens, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Hummingbird, geckos, dragon flies of several types, sulphur butterfly, small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.


Weekly update: Tools have this way of hurting as much helping. Usually, fatigue is the problem. This week it was a sharp point that caught in my sleeve and pierced my hand.

It’s actually fairly difficult to find stem clippers that are sharp and stay sharp. Whether it’s the metal alloys are too cheap to hold an edge, or manufacturers are afraid of lawsuits from parents whose children get injured, most garden tools dull quickly.

The change is gradual, and I only detect it when my wrist starts to ache. It tires more quickly when more pressure is needed to cut through a stem.

The ergonomic solution is usually cushioned handles. That really is no help. Thicker handles force the hand open wider and cause pain sooner.


The real culprit for me are the springs they use to reopen the blades. They often are too vigorous. My wrist feels the kick.

 

I have two pairs of clippers. One is intended for cutting rose buds. I bought it because the ergonomic trend has made it harder to find clippers with handles that don’t hurt. I use it when I can, simply to vary the motions of my wrist.


I’m not sure why the tips are so sharp. I’m sure their advertising agency has some explanation. I suspect it's simply manufacturing efficiency. Adding a step to round the tips would increase the cost.


The only useful idea manufacturers have introduced is the use of bright colors. I really do spend more time than I should looking for tools I’ve laid on the ground. I finally added a band of yellow tape to the green handles of one’s I bought this year.  Unfortunately, the orange didn’t stop the small nippers from getting lost and hurting me when I was searching for them.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Mulch

Weather: Lying clouds left some moisture Friday night; last rain 7/20/2013; 14:08 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, bouncing Bess, zinnias from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, scarlet and sweet peas, whorled milkweed, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, silver-leaf nightshade, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, Queen Anne’s lace, goat’s beard, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat; buds on gumweed.

In my yard, looking east: Baby’s breath, coral bells, pink salvia, winecup mallow, sidalcea, reseeded morning glories.

Looking south: Rugosa roses.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, sea lavender, ladybells, white mullein, white spurge, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, coral beardtongue, chocolate flowers, anthemis, yellow yarrow, chrysanthemum.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, white yarrow peaked, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf and prairie coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, impatiens, French marigolds, gazanias

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, hummingbird, geckos, hummingbird moth on columbine, bumble and small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.


Weekly update: Mulch!

Whenever anyone says that to me in that confidential voice self-styled experts assume, I think of Mr. McGuire pinning Benjamin in The Graduate.

It’s not like I don’t know what they mean. I see the same mass media they do. When I first moved here, I put in plants and seeds, then covered them with mulch. I came back in a few days. Everything had dried and blown away.

The only tree in my yard that saves its leaves is the black locust. It sends out low branches that shoo away the wind. Cut them away to clear a path, and they’re back within a week armed with thorns.


Last spring, I boxed in a small area next to the back porch foundation to sow annual seeds that no longer grew in my perennial beds. The ground sloped just enough, nothing would grow. I thought, with a brick perimeter, I could level it and improve the soil.

Nothing germinated. The area had become too shaded when the lilacs finally started to grow. The bricks trapped too much water from the soaking hose that ran through the area on its ways to the roses.

This year, I put in shade loving, water tolerant annuals like pansies. They at least have survived the heat of June to begin blooming again.

Now is the season I clean out weeds. As I go, I add dry fertilizer and composted manure to existing beds to keep them fertile. I hope the snow will soak in what the monsoons leave undigested.

When I came to the annual bed, I added some locust leaves I had removed when I was clearing that area. I hoped the lilacs and house protected them from the winds.

All was well, for a week. Then, it finally rained. The water tumbled off the roof and ran down hill. The mulch and manure washed away.


Mulch is the product of forests where leaves decay on the ground, dissolving into the duff layer. You don’t see it between cacti in the Mojave.

When I was driving on the access road to Albuquerque last Sunday, I stopped whenever I saw signs of green.

Outside, Pojoaque it was an illusion. Fine grains of soil on the surface had blown away, like my mulch. Left behind were the heavier bits of gravel that trapped water.


There are those who recommend gravel as a mulch, usually with the added hint it suppresses weeds. Have they never had a gravel driveway?

Nature treats mine like a rock garden. I’m still getting rid of the more noxious seeds, that came last summer when I had the drive expanded. There is no room in my yard for goats’ heads and nettles.

The Tahoka daisies and purple asters are banished to the edges. In the fall, their stems get taller than the clearance of my car. Then, they dry into wood.

It’s harder to sacrifice purple mat flowers, alfilerillo or greenleaf five-eyes. They stay low, and bloom, and have no thorns.


Last summer I extended some of my walks that paralleled the upgraded drive. I laid concrete blocks side by side. Egotistical plants think I did it for them. The skunk bush and Apache plume have taken them over. The black locust tries every summer. They may be native plants, but if you look carefully, they like those soils around Pojoaque with the gravel.

I inadvertently recreated their ideal environment.


When I was leaving Santa Fé last Sunday, I passed through the Mesita de Juana Lopez land grant. That’s the area before La Bajada hill where cholla displaces juniper.

There was a tinge of green. Something may have been growing in the distance, but near the fence where I could see, only dead vegetation spread sparsely on the surface. With the rains, it had reabsorbed moisture and turned darker.

Anchored mulch.


It took me years to find a place where roses would grow. Dr. Huey root stock thrives under the black locust. The floribundas like the drip line up hill from my experimental annual bed.

Several years ago, I noticed cheat grass grew around the canes that survived the winter icings. It died in spring, but was anchored mulch in winter.

I tried planting more desirable grasses, like blue grama and buffalo. Some took, but generally the seed wasn’t any more tolerant of wind and flooding than the annuals. Then I tried Dutch clover. I knew it needed water, but thought it if sprouts in late summer, it will leave a brown cover in the winter that can be removed in the spring and replanted the next summer.


When the backhoe left me with large, barren areas last summer, I scattered the left over clover seed along the slopes of the drive. I had put in new grape vines. The ones I had rarely survived the winter. The clover grew. White flowers appeared the first week of May, just days after the first vines emerged under the densest plants. The ones where little clover grew finally broke ground around June 20.

Dutch clover didn’t survive around the roses, but it turns out it creates an ideal environment for Shirley poppies. They have always come up each year when I planted new seed, but never perpetuated themselves. Last year’s seed has been blooming since June 20 in the clover.

Now the clover is asserting its rights to a nature preserve. It’s spreading across the walk. At least its easier to walk around than the Apache plume. And, if it dies this winter, I still have seed.


Mulch is nature’s way of trapping moisture. It’s just that in this area, you have to study nature to find what works. The mass media sees gardens on Long Island and outside London. Their idea of the west is the moist Mediterranean climate of southern California where The Graduate was filmed.

The arid west is a different place, Mr. McGuire.

Photographs:
1. Shirley poppies growing in Dutch clover, 13 July 013. Seed was planted last summer.

2. Mulched yard down the road, 5 February 2012.

3. Black locust, 11 July 2013. On June 15, I pruned back the locust, so I could cut dead wood from the forsythia at the front left. The locust quickly took advantage of the opening. Those low branches are the ones I think protect the brown understory from the winds.

4. Annual bed, 15 July 2013. I spread dried manure and black locust leaves on July 2. The leaflet branches caught on the dogtooth violets and wax begonias. Those dams trapped some of the manure. Most has returned to bare ground.

5. Coming into Pojoaque from the north, 14 July 2013. Differences in color are not changes in vegetation but surface soils with differing amounts of gravel to retain water.

6. Alfilerillo blooming in gravel drive, 8 April 2013. Stickleaf is blooming in bottom left.

7. Apache plume taking over block walk, just visible in front, 20 July 2013.

8. Mesita de Juana Lopez land grant, 14 July 2013. Cholla cactus with dead, water absorbent grasses.

9. Back drip line in winter, 19 February 2010, with green cheat grass in front.

10. Flame red grape with Dutch clover, 21 May 2013.


11. Same yard as #2, four months later. The straw mulch has been thinned, I assume by the wind.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Monsoon Mirage


Weather: Humid afternoons with clouds and winds; last rain 7/13/2013; 14:19 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, daylilies, silver lace vine, Russian sage, purple garden phlox, bouncing Bess, zinnias, alfalfa, brome grass.

Beyond the walls and fences: Tree of heaven, trumpet creeper, scarlet and sweet peas, whorled milkweed, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, Queen Anne’s lace, goat’s beard, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat, Santa Fé thistles; buds on gumweed.

In my yard, looking east: Baby’s breath, coral bells, pink evening primrose, pink salvia, winecup mallow, sidalcea.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses.

Looking west: Lilies, Johnson Blue geranium, catmints, sea lavender, ladybells, white mullein, white spurge, bachelor buttons.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, coral beardtongue, chocolate flowers, anthemis, yellow yarrow.

In the open, along the drive: Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, white yarrow, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf and prairie coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, French marigolds, gazanias; sweet alyssum and impatiens coming back into bloom.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Goldfinches, chickadees, hummingbird, snake, geckos, bumble and small bees, hornets, large and small black ants; ground squirrel by near arroyo.


Weekly update: Many things are not what they seem. It’s been clouding up every day since the middle of June. The air get humid. Some days some rain falls for a few minutes.

In the flower beds that get watered every day, the seeds that need warm moisture are germinating. The plants that thrive in that environment are growing. The areas I weeded a few weeks ago are filled with columbine. The yellow cosmos are overtopping the French marigolds. The larkspur are coming up between the bachelor buttons.

Then I look out to the road. Nothing has changed.


Only the edge is green where the golden hairy asters and gumweed have been growing all summer. Russian thistles and pigweed are sprouting and dying. The water isn’t spreading more than a foot from the pavement. The winterfat is holding up with water it's leaching from the fruit trees on the other side of the fence.

I took my houseplant water meter out again. Its gauge reads from 1 (dry) to 8 (wet). The area that had about a 5 reading at 3" down on July 6 was half that two days later. The reading was 2.5 at 2.5". The probe would still go down three inches, but there was no water.

This past Friday, July 12, the meter read 1.25 at 1".

Every day, we’ve had clouds. Some days we’ve had rain. And, the ground is getting drier.

I took the meter with me when I walked out on the prairie Thursday. In the steppe area that’s closest to my driest land in vegetation, the probe just registered the presence of water at 2". Nothing has come up, and the winterfat is suffering.


A bit downhill, where water comes across from a small valley on the other side of the road, the meter read 1.5 at 2". Two of the cholla have greened a little, but there were no signs of revival yet in the needle grass.


Farther down the slope, the prickly pear were greener, and some bits of grass were up. The probe measured 5 at 3.5".


On the other side of the road, on the upside of the hill, the needle grass was greening at the base. Some new sprouts were breaking through. The meter read 2 at 2.25".

 

I’m thoroughly puzzled. I look at the weather bureau’s satellite images of the country. The ones enhanced to emphasize water vapor usually show this part of the state a deep chocolate brown. Sometimes it’s in a trough between two banks of white moisture, sometimes it’s a bowl.

That doesn’t change when the clouds form in the afternoon. I look at the weather service’s radar images that indicate water moving in the vaporless atmosphere.

The only thing I can figure is most of our rain is our previous rain recycled. We got some real water in early June and again around the Fourth. Since, the sun has been sucking the water it dropped into the ground and taking it with the winds. When conditions change in the afternoon, it’s forced to drop some. But like a weary peasant, the next day, it picks it up again, and moves more away, leaving us a little poorer.

We have all the unpleasantness of a humid climate and none of the benefits.

The plants that are doing well nearer the arroyo are ones that have taken hold in places where water happens to run, especially the slopes that carry water downward.

Santa Fé thistles are one of the few plants that are blooming. They live between some eroded gullies on the slope to the arroyo. The water probe registered 2 at 3.5". It went down 5.5" through gravel above the plants.


Farther down the same gully, a grass has begun to revive at the base. The meter reading just registers water at 4". The thistles are growing in the moister area. This grass only grows here and a few other places upstream near the base of the slope.


The slim-leaved lima beans growing on the other side of the arroyo in the shade of a tamarix have found an even better place. The probe penetrates 5", with the water concentrated around 2".


For the plants that have found niches and for the pampered ones in gardens, the daily clouds and humidity are a boon. Enough rain as fallen in the mountains to reopen the fire-threatened forests. Here in the valley wild lands, there’s still a drought.

Notes: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. National Weather Service. 
Water vapor image is at http://www.weather.gov/satellite#wv 
Local radar image is at http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/southrockies_loop.php

Photographs:
1. The far arroyo taken about 7:45 pm on 5 July 2012 from inside my car. The rain had started around 6:15 pm with thunder and stopped sometime after 7:15 pm.

2. Larkspur seedlings coming up between bachelor buttons which have been up for a month, 13 July 2013.

3. Road outside my neighbor’s fence, 13 July 2012. Gumweed is growing along the road on his side of the road. Golden hair asters are the green on the near side.

4. Winterfat growing on the downhill side of the ranch road at the upland end, 11 July 2013.

5. Cholla cactus growing amid unrevived needle grass downhill from the winterfat of #4, 11 July 2013.

6. Prickly pear cactus in unrevived needle grass flat land, downhill from the cholla of #5, 11 July 2013. The shrub is a four-winged saltbush. The brown are Russian thistles that have blown in.

7. Needle grass reviving on hill on other side of road from cholla in #5, 11 July 2013.

8. Santa Fé thistles growing in an eroded gully dropping to the arroyo, 11 July 2013. The right bank is generally on the east side of the north running arroyo.

9. Grasses reviving downhill from the Santa Fé thistles in #8, 11 July 2013.

10. Slim-leafed lima beans growing on the slop on the left bank, 11 July 2013. The area stays shadowed and retains its snow longer than any other area in or near the arroyo.


11. Close up of slim-leaf lima bean leaves, 11 July 2013.

Sunday, July 07, 2013

Wood Burns


Weather: After several short rains, finally got the real thing Friday; 14:29 hours of daylight today.

In the dry areas of my yard yesterday, water had seeped down about three inches. It was gone from the top inch, the day after we had some real rain.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, daylilies, silver lace vine, bouncing Bess, blue flax, alfalfa, brome grass.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, tamarix, scurf, scarlet and sweet peas, showy milkweed, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, Queen Anne’s lace, goat’s beard, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, strap-leaf and golden hairy asters, horsetail, rice grass.

In my yard, looking east: Baby’s breath, coral bells, pink evening primrose, winecup mallow.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses.

Looking west: Lilies, Johnson Blue geranium, catmints, sea lavender, ladybells, white mullein, white spurge.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, coral beardtongue, Hartweig primrose, butterfly weed, chocolate flowers, anthemis, yellow yarrow.

In the open, along the drive: Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, white yarrow, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, plains and lance-leaf coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, snake, hummingbird, chickadees, goldfinches, bumble and small bees, hornets, flying grasshoppers, large and smaller black ants.


Weekly update: Sometimes, someone says something so absurd, your mind freezes.

In his History of the English Countryside, Oliver Rackham wrote:

"Our only native tree which can be burnt standing is pine, whose early disappearance from England has been ascribed to prehistoric men setting fire to it."

He adds, most British species "will not burn."

I read that again, and again, with eyes gummed by smoke from the local fires.

I think he means, Britain does not produce conditions that burn trees. But, he implied they are singularly virtuous, as "compared with the world’s trees as a whole," and that all the island’s deciduous species underwent the same genetic mutation in Mesolithic times.

It’s not the thought, but the wording that makes you wonder, where was he the day they were teaching elementary science in school?


After years of sitting through fire extinguisher training in Los Alamos, I know fire requires three things: fuel, oxygen and heat. If you have enough heat, you’ll have a fire.

Fire fighting involves removing one of the components. They contain forest fires by creating areas where there is so little fuel, it would take a great deal more heat to ignite it. Dozers and back fires often are used, the one to clear an area, the other to destroy fuel at a manageable temperature.

They lower temperatures by dropping water. Suppressants may lower the temperature or may smother an area by decreasing the oxygen. Still, it takes monsoon rains to lower temperatures enough for smoldering embers to finally stop igniting. A good winter snow cover helps.

The Cerro Grande fire near Los Alamos officially was contained on June 6 of 2000 and declared controlled on July 20. The word extinguished was not used.


Bureaucrats and scientists are careful with their words. They prefer the term "combustion" to "fire." They use it to refer to a chemical reaction that occurs when a carbon molecule is heated in an oxygen environment until the two recombine to create carbon dioxide and water. The point of conversion is the explosion we call fire.

Not all carbon molecules burn easily. Some have internal structures that make combustion difficult. British trees are not one of those. All wood cells contain cellulose fibers suspended in lignin. Both are organic compounds, both contain carbon.

Some tars and resins may alter fire behavior slightly by species.  Moisture in the sapwood can slow the process. Relative amounts of lignin and cellulose may differ by tree. But, the chemistry is absolute. When the temperature of wood reaches the boiling point of water, 212 degrees (100 Celsius), chemical bonds begin breaking.

By the time temperatures reach 392 (200C), wood begins losing moisture and releases water vapor.


Between 392 and 572 degrees (300C), lignin loses its liquid chemicals and turns to char. Cellulose does not. Technically it has entered the pyrolysis phase. Charcoal is made by this kind of controlled heating.

Cellulose begins to disintegrate around 660 degrees (350C). Carbon bonds begin breaking around 700 to 750 degrees (370 to 400C).

The ignition point is reached around 750 degrees F (400C). After that, a fire is self-sustaining. The heat from the explosion of molecules warms the air so others can ignite. The more explosions, the greater the generated heat and the greater the number of subsequent explosions.

Before that magic temperature, you can only keep something burning by maintaining contact with something hotter. You use kindling to start a camp fire. When people use flame throwers to burn weeds, they provide a constant heat source to organic matter too widely dispersed to spread heat. One company advertises the propane-fueled temperature of its thrower is 2050 degrees F.

At 842 degrees (450C) wood cells no longer emit the volatile chemicals that color the smoke and poison the air. What remains is char that is converted to carbon dioxide and water, until only ashes remain.

High intensity fires spread when they burn in tree canopies or crowns where heat transfers easily from dried leaf to instantly dried leaf.


Low intensity ones spread along the ground through plants and organic debris. It’s difficult for them to jump from trunk to trunk, because there’s too much oxygen between the two poles of carbon for temperatures to sustain them. Instead, they creep up the trunks, charring as they rise.

At moderate temperatures, ground fires may occasionally flare high enough to torch lower leaves. Usually, the trees are too widely spaced for one canopy to ignite another.


After the Cerro Grande fire, people who surveyed the grounds saw areas of ash, iron oxides, and clays where once there had been trees. The reddened soils were ones where the water-containing iron compounds (iron hydroxides) had become so hot they lost their water and some form of hematite emerged. To produce those results, soil temperatures were at least 482 degrees (250C). The severely burned surface may be sterile for some time.

More common were areas where ground litter burned and only charred logs remain. Here soil temperatures were above the boiling point of water and could have been lethal down 2". Even if only ash were present, there were nutrients left to support seeds that blew in from adjoining areas.

Surrounding them were the scorched trees that hadn’t ignited. Over the nearly 6,000 acres reviewed by Raymond Kokaly’s team, nearly half were ash, char or bare ground. More than 15% were dried conifer. Almost 4% were grasses dried into straw. The rest, 28.9%, were still green.


Randy Balice’s group found, outside the lands managed by LANL, 48.6% of the acres burned at high intensity and 42.6% at moderate temperatures. The remaining 8.8% suffered low intensity heat. Fire intensity and fire severity refer to two different phenomena, the one to chemistry and air temperatures, the other to biological consequences and soil temperatures.

The reality of forest fires for most of us in the valley isn’t heat and flames. It’s the formation of clouds every morning that fill the sky by late afternoon. We don’t know if they are simple water vapor or smoke or if there’s a difference. The mechanics of combustion are too abstract.


It’s easy to abandon scientific thinking for the mythic. To think, the smoke people are frightened by fire, and run south along the Rio Grande to escape. When they reach the Caribbean, the refuges confront the water people jealous of their lands. The angry nativists chase the invaders back up the river, and we get rain that dowses the fire.

Or, maybe one believes burning bushes that flare but do not burn are sacred.

Or, perhaps one believes British trees represent the survival of the fittest, the ones that survived Mesolithic man and won’t burn.


Addendum: A friend reminded me that during the worst of the Cerro Grande fire he made deliveries to the firefighters in Los Alamos. As he drove up the truck route, he saw isolated trees take off like bottle rockets, then burst into flame.

Notes:
Balice, Randy G., Kathryn D. Bennett, and Marjorie A. Wright. Burn Severities, Fire Intensities, and Impacts to Major Vegetation Types from the Cerro Grande Fire, 2004; good maps and pictures

Kokaly, Raymond F., Barnaby W. Rockwell, Sandra L. Haire, and Trude V.V. King. "Characterization of Post-fire Surface Cover, Soils, and Burn Severity at the Cerro Grande Fire, New Mexico, Using Hyperspectral and Multispectral Remote Sensing," Remote Sensing of Environment 106:305-325:2007

Rackham, Oliver. The History of the English Countryside (1986); quotations from pages 71-72 of the 1987 paperback reprinted in 1993 by J. M. Dent, London. In Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape (1990 edition), he more correctly said, "Except for the pine, no British wood can be destroyed by fire" [p33]. Woodland would have been clearer to an American.

White, Robert H. and Mark A. Dietenberger. "Fire Safety of Wood Construction" in USDA, Forest Products Laboratory, Wood Handbook, 2010; defines the stages of wood burning


Photographs: Unless noted, all were taken 4 July 2013 along Route 4 from the entrance to Bandelier National Monument to the base of Cerro Grande. The altitudes are from the camera’s GPS interface.

1. Ponderosa pine on flat land, unburned, with grasses and litter on the ground. Altitude: 7529'.

2. Ponderosa pine on steep hill, burned so severely, little has come back in 13 years. Altitude: 8049'.

3. Cottonwood near village, 3 May 2008. After it blew down, the owners tried to start a fire in the trunk’s interior. It would be difficult to create a high enough temperature inside and provide it with enough oxygen to get it to smolder, let alone burn. Forrest fires work from the outside in, and first have to dry the sapwood. The log is still there.

4. Junipers often grow in gullies or areas where buried rocks collect water. Trees in the gully have not come back, probably because there’s no grass yet to catch water. The sky is typical for noon time above the Jémez. The top white clouds are truncated by a featureless band of blue. In front are puffs of rising white. Altitude: 7223'.

5. Charred wood; it could be from the nearby short-needled pine.

6. Area of #5 charred wood. It looks like a dozer knocked down trees like the one laying in back with short needles. The grasses have not revived in the drought, but shrubs have regrown and the trees in the distance weren’t killed. Altitude: 7054'.

7. Close-up of gambel oak in #6. The trunks were scorched enough to kill the buds buried in the sapwood, but the roots have been able to sucker.

8. Gully was not destroyed and juniper have come back. Other sloping ground in the area is still infertile, but the ponderosa pine on the far bank survived. Trees in the distance, closer to Cerro Grande, are still black specks. Altitude: 7211'.

9. Storm over the Jémez, 3 July 2013, from my back porch. Three layers of clouds are visible, with the ones nearest the horizon backlit by the lowering sun at 6:15 pm. The blocked sun is responsible for the monochromic effects.

10. Russian olive protected when a field was burned near the village, 28 February 2009.

11. Ponderosa pine that survived in area where understory burned. Grasses now browned by the drought came back, as has the blue stem in front near the spillway for the road. Altitude: 7377'.


12. Juniper gully near White Rock, outside the range of the fire, with four-winged saltbush in front. Ground is kept cleared by water. Altitude: 6576'.