Eliminating Vermin

Weather: The week was gray with unfulfilled promises of rain not delivered.

NOAA, better known as the weather bureau, changed its menu for accessing satellite photographs. It’s now easier to switch from one region to another, and see the Pacific Ocean and the west coast. Since this is the first winter I’ve looked at it, I don’t yet know what’s normal. What struck me may have been commonplace.

In summer, much of our moisture comes from the area southwest of the tip of Baja where ocean waters warmed by the summer sun contact cooler ones to produce hurricanes. The moisture is sent towards us.

This past week, there was a tremendous turmoil farther west in the Pacific. It was about the time a typhoon hit the Philippines on 24 December. The moisture spun around a center at the north end of Baja, but when it came inland it went north into Arizona and east into southwestern Texas. We just got the wisps that drifted between the two streams.

Last snow: 12/29. Week’s low: 16 degrees F. Week’s high: 51 degrees F in the shade.

What’s green: Leaves on juniper and other evergreens, cliff rose, yuccas, pink evening primroses, one snapdragon, one alfilerillo, blue flax growing in tiles, a few hollyhocks, coral bells; juniper dropping its berries

What’s red or purple: Leaves on coral beard tongues; new growth on roses, apricots, and peaches, branches of sweet cherries

Tasks: A few seed catalogs appeared in the mailbox the day after Christmas.

Animal sightings: Small prints of bird feet along the garage path and veering into the bed. I don’t know that they were eating. The most likely seeds were the purple coneflowers.

Weekly update: When the varmint first began destroying my plants in 2006, I thought it was a gopher because it left huge mounds of dirt. It wasn’t until I actually saw a squirrel in my garden that I realized I might have been wrong.

In the meantime, I tried to find ways to get rid of gophers.

One day I was putting rose bushes into the trunk of my car in the parking lot of the local hardware store, when someone came up to evangelize me. When her husband joined her, the conversation changed from God to plants. I think he was a Sikh.

I mentioned I had problems with gophers and didn’t know what to do.

He told me a local feed store had something that worked. He gave me the owner’s name, rather than the name of the store.

For the next couple years I asked people if they knew where that store was located, but no one knew, not even people with that name.

Finally, I went into one of the stores and asked if they had anything that killed gophers. Someone pointed me to the appropriate shelves and left.

I bought something that said it would work, but didn’t pay much attention to it until I got it home. The active ingredient was arsenic.

All I knew about it, other than it tinted glass green, was what I leaned in Agatha Christie mysteries. Murders were always being doing with bits of arsenic left in the garden shed.

I marveled. The last time I bought a small bottle of rubber cement, I had to show an ID. When I made some remark, the clerk started treating me like I was some kind of criminal. I’ve avoided her checkout lane since. Sniffing rubber cement is hard, and the taste is bitter.

When I bought the arsenic, all they asked for was my credit card.

They left me with a greater disposal problem than eradicating gophers. I left the jar unopened in an old refrigerator in the garage.

Two years ago I was cleaning out my garage. I included it in a box of paint I was taking to the landfill. They were hosting a hazardous material day. It apparently was sponsored by some federal or other outside group who sent it its own truck and crew.

It was a rainy Saturday morning in October when I took my place in a line of contractors’ pickup trucks. The crew emptied my car with no questions. I supposed it was going to someplace with even more poisonous substances. Lord know what kind of brew was created when everything in that truck was emptied into some pit.

I makes little sense to think the man I talked to was a Sikh if his wife was trying to convince me of Christ’s saving nature. The only reason that association stayed in my mind was he told me the stuff the local store sold came from Pakistan.

Notes on photographs:
1. Ground squirrel in my garden, 26 July 2008; taken through the window with the zooming function.

2. Mound in near my house,  1 October 2006.

3. Mound near a cholla cactus that it eventually destroyed, 23 December 2010.

The Creature and the Can

Weather: Afternoon temperatures warmed yesterday when clouds moved in from the west, but they were diverted north. We got little moisture, a little wind, and enough humidity to moisture in the ground from evaporating.

Last useful rain: 12/8. Week’s low: 18 degrees F. Week’s high: 62 degrees F in the shade.

What’s green: Leaves on juniper and other evergreens, cliff rose, yuccas, chives, grape hyacinth, bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, snapdragons, alfilerillo, blue flax, hollyhock, vinca, violets, sweet peas, coral bells, Queen Anne’s lace, Shasta daisy, anthemis, white and yellow yarrow, purple aster, cheat grass; bases of needle grass; rose canes

What’s gray or gray-green: Leaves on snow-in-summer, catmint

What’s red or purple: Leaves on coral beard tongues

Tasks: Afternoons remained too cool for working outside.

Animal sightings: Small birds.

Weekly update: Ground squirrels like members of the rose family. When they first appeared in my yard in 2005 they left mounds in the drainage ditch in front of the house. I remember going out in February in a rain suit and boots and stomping them down so the thawing water could move.

The next spring, two miniature rose bushes were dead, and two produced little growth. They still have not recovered.

A few years later a neighbor told me gophers had destroyed their peach tree. By then I had called a exterminator who told me there was no evidence of gophers in the area.

I slowly realized the problem was another rodent, a ground squirrel, when it began systematically attacking my cholla cacti.

In 2015 I had my apple trees cut down because only the root stock survived, and it never even bloomed. I replaced them with four crab apples. They did better, but one was listing in the spring of 2017.

When I touched it, it fell over. The root was completely gone. Crab apples like peaches are in the rose family.

Two years ago I ordered trees to replace it and the remaining apples. When I went to dig one hole, I opened a ground squirrel tunnel so wide I had to abandon putting a tree in that spot. It would take more dirt than I had easily available to fill, and would drain away any water. It also created a create air hole that would destroy roots.

Once I’ve unpacked the bare root stock I don’t have time to solve problems; I feel compelled to get them planted. I put the tree at the far end of the line.

This past spring I ordered another tree for that opening. Long before it arrived, I bought a tin can to stuff into the opening. When I went into the grocery store I had in mind one of those 4.25" wide ones used for whole tomatoes. This being Española the store didn’t have whole tomatoes, but did have whole jalapeños. I bought the cheapest ones.

My only problem was what to do with them. I opened the can on trash day, and drained the liquid in the sink. I put the peppers in the trash, and saved the can.

When the bare root tree arrived, I stuffed the can in the hole and packed it with a little dirt. It must have worked because the tree survived.

When I saw that hole last week under a block, it took me a few days to realize the ground squirrel was targeting that crab apple at the far end of the row. The tree may have been more than 3' away, but that animal is an engineer.

I faced the same problem this time. There was no visible mound left by the digging, and I needed to fill the area under the block to keep it from rocking and breaking. Instead of hunting for dirt somewhere, I bought soup cans that are 4.25" long and 3.25" wide.

I had learned one thing from my past experience: I didn’t want anything I had to discard. Broth would have been ideal, but I accepted what was available. Condensed tomato soup. I put the contents in a colander and ran water until it was completely washed away and became dinner for the bacteria in the septic system.

Tuesday it was 46 degrees. I went out with the cans and tools. I used the chisel to lift the block, then pushed the steel point down. The ground was wet, but cold. The chisel sank into the hole. After pushing it down every few inches I was able to punch the dirt into the tunnel. The cans just fit the amount of dirt the critter had evacuated.

I put the can ends on the outside, so nothing could crawl into them. I don’t need my neighbor’s snakes.

On the crab apple side of the block, the tunnel continued unseen under the alfalfa and other vegetation.

The ground squirrel can reopen the tunnel, but now I’m walking out there more often to check. It tends to stay away when it thinks it’s being watched.

Now I think I know why those miniature roses are still doing poorly. I suspect tunneled air spaces are still under them that prevent the roots from growing much.

Notes on photographs:
1. Remains of gnawed crab apple root, 7 May 2017.
2. Ground squirrel tunnel opening, carefully hidden by grass, 11 December 2019.
3. Soup cans filling ground displaced by the tunnel, 11 December 2019.

It Didn’t Happen

Weather: It rained a little Thursday and has misted all day today.

Last useful rain: 12/8. Week’s low: 17 degrees F. Week’s high: 53 degrees F in the shade.

What’s green: Leaves on juniper and other evergreens, cliff rose, yuccas, red hot poker, chives, grape hyacinth, bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, golden spur columbine, snapdragons, alfilerillo, blue flax, hollyhock, vinca, violets, sweet peas, coral bells, Queen Anne’s lace, Shasta daisy, anthemis, white and yellow yarrow, purple aster, cheat grass; bases of needle grass; rose canes

What’s gray or gray-green: Leaves on snow-in-summer, catmint

What’s red or purple: Leaves on coral beard tongues

Tasks: The window of time that’s convenient and warm enough to work outside is shrinking as we approach the equinox. I got out one afternoon and cut some winterfat branches; they didn’t seem like they were dormant yet.

Animal sightings: Small birds. The rabbit used the snow-covered graveled path before I went out late Friday morning. The ground squirrel has dug a hole under a block I laid in a path this summer.

Weekly update: It snowed hard the day before Thanksgiving. I think at least 3" accumulated here. The Jémez, including Tchicoma were white from top to bottom.

Then, it started to rain, and by late Thursday, it was like it never happened. Trees in the mountains again dotted the snow.

The ground froze a little so I couldn’t open the gate again. This time, it was in a different place. The area that I cleared last spring was fine, but now an area up hill heaved. It was one of those problems one doesn’t discover until the first problem is fixed. Then, it’s like the repair never happened.

The ground hasn’t really frozen, and so it was possible to kick off enough dirt for the gate to clear. But, since I don’t know when the ground will harden, I’m still leaving my car outside.

Frozen ground seems to be more complex than I thought. All one ever reads is that, to be safe, water and irrigation pipes must be buried. The depth depends on the part of the country. And, I suspect all any contractor or plumber knows is the magic number. The process doesn’t matter.

Last year when it rained in January the water couldn’t sink into the ground because the ground was frozen. Then it was after a month of cold mornings.

This year, while the mornings have been cold since the end of October, the ground was so dry no water could freeze. Since that snow, the morning temperatures often have been above 20 degrees. That apparently was not enough to freeze more than the top layer that blocked the gate. As soon as the day warmed into the 40s, the snow could melt and sink into the still absorbent ground.

At least, so far, the gravel I was able to dump before the snow has been sufficient to keep the path by the house from flooding in the rain or turning to mud.

The path I extended at the far end of the property, however, has been attacked by the ground squirrel. For reasons not clear it dug a hole under one of the blocks, weakening it so it can’t be used. Perhaps its warmer under the block or safer from predators.

I thought, since it seemed to have moved under a shed in my neighbor’s yard, that I was safe from its depredations. That too was only a chimera.

Notes on photographs: All taken 8 December 2019.
1. Fruit on flowering crab apple.
2. Berry on one-seeded juniper (Juniperus monosperma).
3. Fruit of Cheyenne privet (Ligustrum vulgare).

Tiles and Ice

Weather: Rain last Wednesday and Thursday from tropical storm Raymond that developed off the coast of México around 11/12. It traveled west, but apparently kicked up enough moisture for us to get our fall soaking rain.

Last useful rain: 11/21. Week’s low: 18 degrees F. Week’s high: 61 degrees F in the shade.

What’s still green: Leaves on juniper and other evergreens, cliff rose, yuccas, red hot poker, chives, grape hyacinth, bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, golden spur columbine, snapdragons, alfilerillo, blue flax, hollyhock, vinca, violets, sweet peas, coral bells, Queen Anne’s lace, Shasta daisy, anthemis, white and yellow yarrow, purple aster, cheat grass; bases of needle grass; rose canes.

The alfalfa fields have been cut, so the manmade landscape of fields and yards has been stripped to the base coat. It’s tan, while the fields on Dreamcatcher Hill have more colors and heights. A few dead leaves remain on the cottonwoods, catalpas; and Russian olives.

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on cliff rose, snow-in-summer, catmint

What’s red or purple: Leaves on coral beard tongues

Tasks: Men were cutting down the last of the corn stalks in market garden fields before the weather turned wet. Others have been replacing their farm fences with block walls, horizontal board fences, or coyote poles.

Animal sightings: Small birds

Weekly update: Years ago when I laid Saltillo tile along the west side of the house, I first had to apply three coats of sealer on each side. I ran out of tile before I was done. A few years later, I bought more tile and started the sealing process. I don’t think I ever finished.

A couple years ago I laid gravel between the tiles and bricks edging the western border of blue-flowered plants. That also could go no further than the tiles, but did eliminate most of my problems with standing water that turned to ice in the winter.

This summer, I decided ready or not, I was going to lay the remaining tiles. Before I started though, I had to reset all the existing tiles so they were flush with ones at the north end. On Tuesday, the day before the rains started, I finally got it all down — or all except some tag ends that I can do later.

After I was done, I took the hoe and leveled the dirt in the path. It was so dry, I couldn’t compact the ground enough to put down the rest of the gravel.

Last week’s rains revealed no low places, but I made some when I walked in the path to test the surface. They filled with water.

I didn’t stick my nose outside again until today. The ground was frozen. I’d never thought about it, but it’s obvious: you can’t have frozen ground without water.

The sun reached the area in the afternoon and thawed enough of the ground I could re-level it with a hoe and dump the gravel. I learned I only needed one layer to keep my feet out of the mud, and the stones didn’t need to be dense. There only had to be enough to support my entire foot.

I had a little gravel left, and spread it in tire tracks in my drive that had become bald. A thicker layer is needed there because the weight of the car pushes stones into the ground. Of course, if I could have gotten the man who rebuilt the driveway to hire a roller to compact the ground that wouldn’t have been a problem. But, that wasn’t a concept in New Mexico. He just told me to drive over the gravel a few times.

Anyway, there had been standing water in some of the tire tracks last Thursday. So, I used that most useful of tools — the side of my foot — to move loose gravel that had accumulated a few feet from the tracks into the bald areas.

Nothing is ever complete. The main drive probably will need a new layer of gravel this winter, but nothing will happen until we have rain following a thaw that creates problems. My neighbor only reacts to problems, not symptoms.

The new tiles already are beginning to disintegrate. I always thought that was because the interior tiles shouldn’t be used outside, and the actions of snow and ice eventually destroyed them.

However, last week I noticed something else. Some of the new tiles had splotches of white on them. I realized that some of the water that drains off my roof is sufficiently corrosive (either too alkaline or too acid) to eat through the sealer and the glaze. When that happens, chips loosen, and eventually the tile crumbles.

Like the realization that rain or snow is necessary for frozen ground, it was one of those answers to small puzzles that had never quite form themselves until the solutions appear.

Notes on photographs: All taken 17 November 2019.
1. The tiles and gravel two days before I finished laying the tiles to the stairs.  The hose to the burn pile is at the right.

2. Newly laid tile with white splotch.

3. Newly laid tile with section eaten from the surface.

Fire and Ice

Weather: The difference between morning temperatures below 20 degrees F and afternoons when it’s possible to work outdoors in the sun is the difference between the pessimist and the optimist. The Weather Bureau falls in the second group when it says there was a warming trend this past week.

Last useful snow: 10/27. Week’s low: 14 degrees F. Week’s high: 62 degrees F in the shade.

What’s still green: Cholla cactus; leaves on privet, juniper and other evergreens, Japanese honeysuckle, yuccas, red hot poker, chives, grape hyacinth, bouncing Bess, pinks, pink evening primroses, golden spur columbine, snapdragons, blue flax, green leaf five eyes, hollyhock, winecup mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, anthemis, yarrow, purple aster, dandelions, June, needle, and cheat grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on Apache plume, cliff rose, fernbush, winterfat, snow-in-summer, catmint

Tasks: I continued cleaning debris from around some rose bushes. The limiting condition wasn’t the weather, but my socks. I wanted to wear wool ones, but they collect bits of weeds and grass. It can take 15 minutes to clean them when I come in.

I found some rubber boots that came over the ankle. However, they only kept out the seeds when I made sure my sweatpants’ bottoms stayed outside the boots. When the elastic slipped inside, the cotton acted as a conduit directing the organic bits onto my socks.

I was cautious when I ordered them. Years ago I used rubber galoshes for yard work. They were a bit too low cut, but the ground was rarely dry. Water from earlier rains, the dew, or my watering always created wet spots.

The last time I ordered a pair, I discovered they had been gentrified. Instead of plain rubber, the manufacturer had put in a fabric insole that not only collected seeds but stood them erect. I couldn’t remove the seeds and I couldn’t remove the insole. I could put the rubbers in the trash.

I wondered why the maker thought everything had to fit the needs of the Martha Stewarts of the world who are always immaculately groomed in the yard and stress how one needn’t be discomforted by work. The boot maker had not so such illusions about its market.

Animal sightings: Small birds

Weekly update: This week I finally got rid of the last bag of peaches. It took two months to get the harvest hauled away.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t burn anything because I had put the bags near the burn pile. It was the only gravel place that was out of the way.

That didn’t mean the burn pile remained static. I spent the fall cutting dead wood from trees and shrubs, and adding it to the heap.

Now I could burn. There were only two prerequisites: a still day and running water. The still time was a challenge in the summer. Gentle breezes always came up in late morning as soon as the air warmed. It didn’t have to be a wind to make a fire dangerous. I always burned very early in the day.

Running water wasn’t a problem. I turned the garden hose on low and held it in one hand as I watched the fire. Only rarely have I needed to turn water on a stray ember that landed in the grass.

This past week, every day was still, but the mornings were all below freezing.

I decided it would be safer if I used a hose connected to the house, rather than to the frost-free hydrant. The hose I usually used was threaded through grasses in the shadow of the garage.

At about 10 am yesterday, I turned on the hose that was connected to the house. At first nothing happened, then shards of ice came out in 3" to 4" sections. That hose was laying on tiles on the east side of the house.

Next I connected the hose that was laying on the back porch. Little water came through because of kinks. Since it was cold, I feared, if I tried to unkink it, the hose would crack. Only slowly was I able to flatten the narrowest section.

Finally, I connected the hose that reached the burn pile. It had been coiled on gravel near the globe willow. When I turned it on, more ice came out. The pieces were about 3/8" in diameter, much thinner than the supposed 5/8" diameter of the hose. This was water that didn’t drain, but stayed on the bottom. However, the ice pieces were round like the hose, not flat.

Once I had a reliable source of running water, I stuck a small piece of paper in the pile on the east side and lit it with a match. The flames worked out from the ignition point, usually advancing under the flames so the smoke pointed east. There was little smoke. What there was didn’t bother me.

The air was cold, which may have limited the temperature of the fire. It certainly was too hot to approach. The twigs turned white, but kept their shape. I suppose if I had let them smolder they would eventually have turned to ashes. They look like so many snakes in a ghostly pyre. Their diameter wasn’t that different from the ice.

When the flames had died from the last leaves and twigs, I turned the hose on softly. In some places, the remains hissed when the water hit them, and it others they did not—they had already cooled. The white remains turned black.

Smoke rose, or rather smoke and steam, and it pointed west. It wasn’t long before my stomach began to complain about the fumes.

The peach branch that came down in late May from the weight of the fruit still hadn’t disappeared. It’s been fired six times now. However, it has gotten much smaller.

This afternoon I took the small broom rake and swept up the bits of wood that hadn’t burned and directed them to the peach branch. Then, I added today’s contribution to the next burn pile. The process never ends.

Notes on photographs: Taken 16 November 2019.

Abscission

Weather: Despite the occasional snowfall, the exposed ground in my yard is dry as a beach several inches down. The wet soil under the tiles I’m resetting has not frozen.

The house loses heat its retained gradually, so it’s now colder in the house than it was when temperatures were much lower. This week I made the transition from lambs wool sweaters to those made from Shetland wood. Those sweaters are now collecting hair and lint impelled by static electricity activated by the furnace.

Last useful snow: 10/27. Week’s low: 17 degrees F. Week’s high: 654 degrees F in the shade.

What’s still green: Cholla cactus; leaves on privet, juniper and other evergreens, Japanese honeysuckle, yuccas, red hot poker, chives, grape hyacinth, bouncing Bess, pinks, sweet peas, pink evening primroses, golden spur columbine, snapdragons, blue flax, green leaf five eyes, hollyhock, winecup mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, anthemis, yarrow, purple aster, dandelions, June, needle, and cheat grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on Apache plume, cliff rose, fernbush, winterfat, snow-in-summer, catmint, Silver King artemisia

What’s still red: Leaves on Bradford pear, woods and pasture roses

What’s turning orange: Tansy

Tasks: I began cutting dead wood in the back roses, and clearing the weeds from underneath them. There was lots of cheat grass stems that came away easily. The new growth is up, and providing some kind of ground protection for the rose roots.

Some sideoats gramma came up along the new soaker hose. I planted seeds elsewhere in 2005, and a few came up in 2015. Two years ago there were plants to the south of the roses. I don’t know if seed from them or native plants landed along the back porch and was just waiting for the right opportunity to sprout.

Animal sightings: Small birds, ants, worms. Insects are coming into garage; I saw two crickets, a moth, and a dying hornet this week.

Weekly update: As I indicated in the post for 1 September 2019 on Duff, the mere work of clearing dead wood and leaves from trees and shrubs is an education in the ways plants protect themselves. It also is a reminder there are no easy generalizations.

When levels of sun light decrease in the fall and the metabolism of plants slows, hormones begin the process of isolating, then dropping leaves. This year’s onslaught of early cold temperatures preempted the process, leaving dead leaves on trees. What happened next has varied.

The apricots, peaches, and some sweet cherries quickly dropped the dead matter, or let the winds remove it. They either had begun the process of abscission, or were able to complete it in the afternoons when temperatures warmed enough to allow some metabolic functions.

The members of the rose family whose leaves had turned red were arrested. The leaves are dead, but still in place. If I touch the ones on the sandcherries, they fall. The leaves on the Bradford pear, however, do not come down. Whatever the interplay of chemicals that produced their fall colors has been reacting differently than the apricots that didn’t have time to change color.

The trees that always hold their leaves still have them. The leaves are still clinging to the cottonwood, and if they fall do so when the wind can blow them away. These are the ones I suspected created problems for the tree’s ability to drink when they accumulated, as they do, on the side where the fence traps them.

The Russian olive also retains its leaves, and the ground is nearly bare under it.

Notes on photographs: Taken 9 November 2019.
1. Bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana) with full set of dead, red leaves.

2. Apricot (Prunus armeniaca) with a few dead, brown leaves; the rest are on the ground under it.

3. Cottonless cottonwood (Populus deltoides) with dead, faded green leaves on the tree, and a few accumulated near the fence. The rest of the fallen leaves have blown away.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (in Technicolor)

Weather: Mornings have been very cold, and afternoons only get above 50 in the afternoon. Saturday, it was comfortable to walk in sunny areas, but not ones in the shade. My hands began to get cold after about 20 minutes.

Last useful snow: 10/27. Week’s low: 11 degrees F. Week’s high: 65 degrees F in the shade.

What’s still green: Cholla cactus; leaves on privet, juniper and other evergreens, Japanese honeysuckle, yuccas, red hot poker, chives, grape hyacinth, tansy, bouncing Bess, pinks, sweet peas, pink evening primroses, golden spur columbine, snapdragons, blue flax, green leaf five eyes, hollyhock, winecup mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, anthemis, yarrow, purple aster, dandelions, June, needle, and cheat grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on Apache plume, cliff rose, fernbush, winterfat, snow-in-summer, catmint, Silver King artemisia

What’s still red: Leaves on woods and pasture roses

Tasks: Before it turned cold, I finished clipping dead wood from the Siberian pea, and moved on to the lilacs. They have been neglected for a number of years, and the dead wood turns too hard to cut easily.

Animal sightings: Goldfinches on Maximilian sunflowers, chickadees

Weekly update: My sense of normal temperatures in New Mexico is that it gets very cold just before the winter solstice and very warm before the summer one. Very cold means below 20, and temperatures remain cool into January. Summers are always hot, but usually in the 80s.

That pattern changed in the past few years. 2016 was a warm winter. It got down to 18 on November 30 and the coldest morning was 12 on January 7. The next year was dry and cold. It went down to 10 on November 26, and the coldest day was 5 on December 12. Last year was a bit better: temperatures fell to 17 on November 9 an the coldest day was 2 on January 27th.

This year we had a normal spring; it didn’t get really hot until June 25, and then afternoon temperatures were in the 90s through the first week in September. We went from mid summer to early fall, bypassing late summer when the annuls bloom and produce seed.

Then, on October 11 we went from early fall to early winter, with no late fall. Trees did not get the gradual messages to prepare for winter, and slow their metabolisms. Instead, morning temperatures went from the low 20s to 18. They rose into the 20s for days, then hit the occasional 18. This week temperatures dropped to 16 on October 29, 15 on Halloween, 11 on Friday and 18 on All Souls’ Day.

No autumn color. Leaves died and fell in masses. When I walked around yesterday, leaves on some, like the sandcherries that had turned red, fell as soon as they were touched.

This year the anomalies in temperature coincided with problems in areas far removed from this high mountain country. Temperatures had fallen into the 80s in the second week of August, presaging a normal transition into late summer. Then Hurricane Dorian began forming in the Atlantic on August 23, and on the 25th our temperatures returned to the 90s and stayed there until the hurricane finally dissipated on September 7.

Our cold weather was preceded by high winds that accompanied the fronts. In California, the utilities started cutting power in anticipation of Santa Ana winds on October 9. That was more than a week before we got high winds on October 17. Winds there continued. We got four days of high winds starting a week ago Saturday, and then the severely cold mornings.

The year has been one of traveling smoke. In May we started getting smoke from fires in México that lasted until the first hurricanes formed in the Pacific in late June. Then, during the worst of the winds we got smoke from California. Since Thursday it has been going north.

One begins to think about what climate change looks like. Some nursery catalogs advertise one can now grow zone 6 plants like azaleas because the USDA map shows average winter temperatures warming. That may be true on the east coast and at low elevations.

Here, we’ve had two years without many late summer annual flowers. They won’t die out, because, of course, they aren’t natives. The seed is grown in warmer climates and sold here. They will continue to thrive elsewhere.

It won’t be a return to the Carboniferous Age of Ferns either. The plants of early summer like bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, and golden spur columbine did very well. Then in early fall, they grew everywhere after temperatures cooled.

I think of them as sub-alpine although most really are lower elevation plants. I used the term incorrectly to refer to plants that thrive in cool temperatures.

They’ll keep our corner of the world green when plants that can’t handle the extremes either die or go dormant in the summer. It won’t become a landscape of sere browns, but it also may not be one where corn, melons, and tomatoes do well.

When I looked around at what still was green in my yard yesterday, it was an inventory of those invaders that were shoving everything aside this past September. Many, like golden spur columbine and cliff roses, were native to this area. Others were varieties imported from the north, like Cheyenne privet and Queen Anne’s lace.

Many were bulbs, like the grape hyacinths, or had thick, fleshy, deeply-buried roots like the yuccas and hollyhocks. Many produce seeds, but the perennials can survive for a few years without reproducing. They don’t need to adapt to the atmospheric changes. They did that eons ago.

Notes on photographs: Taken 2 November 2019.
1. Cliff rose (Purshia mexicana).
2. Cheyenne Privet (Ligustrum vulgare).
3. Fernbush (Chamaebatiaria millefolium).

End notes:
Wikipedia. "2019 Atlantic Hurricane Season"

Olga R. Rodriguez and Janie Har. "California Faces Historic Power Outage Due to Fire Danger." Associated Press 8 October 2019. WSB television website, Atlanta.

Location Rules

Weather: Some warm afternoons, but the winds begin soon after it’s warm enough to be outside.
Last useful rain: 10/04. Week’s low: 23 degrees F. Week’s high: 73 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming: Scarlet flax, broom senecio, snap dragons, a few blanket flowers and plains coreopsis, one chocolate flower

What’s still green: Cholla cactus; leaves on Bradford pear, crab apples, Siberian elm, beauty bush, juniper, German iris, red hot poker, regular and garlic chives, tansy, bouncing Bess, pinks, sweet peas, pink evening primroses, sweet violets, coral bells, golden spur columbine, blue flax, green leaf five eyes, bindweed, vinca, Johnson Blue geranium, winecup mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, Mönch asters, yarrow, dandelions, purple coneflowers, chrysanthemums, lance leaf coreopsis, Shasta daisy, June, needle, and cheat grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on Apache plume, fernbush, winterfat, snow-in-summer, catmint, Silver King artemisia

What’s turning yellow: Leaves on cottonwoods, lilacs, Maximilian sunflowers, goldenrod

What’ turning orange: Leaves on peaches, choke cherries

What’s turning red or purple: Leaves on woods rose, sandcherries and purple leaf sandcherry, purple leaf plum, leadplant

Tasks: Finished clipping dead wood from the Siberian pea, and moved on to the lilacs. They have been neglected for a number of years, and the dead wood turns too hard to cut easily.

Animal sightings: Small birds, small gecko, grasshoppers, ants

Weekly update: It’s not Herbert Spencer’s survival of the fittest that defines what survives the first cold temperatures, but the realtor’s "location, location, location!"

Temperature fell to 23 degrees a week ago Friday, and then went down to 18 on Saturday. Nothing prepared the floral world. The lowest it had been was 33, and that was almost a week before.

Anything that was exposed was killed: leaves on trees, stems on herbaceous perennials, and most annuals from warmer climates.

But not everything. Grape leaves along the top rails of fences along the main road died, but not those lower to the ground. The outer leaves of one person’s datura died, but not those between the dead leaves and the stone wall.

Wherever there was a heat sink, something might survive. I have three apricots. The leaves on two, which stand by themselves along the gravel drive, died. The other is next to a juniper. All the leaves died, except those nearest the evergreen.

Because the preceding days were warm, the ground retained heat. Most of the green leaves mentioned in the above list are near the surface. Most of the chocolate flowers that grow over Saltillo tiles died, but the a few leaves on one growing in dirt survived. It produced a flower, barely visible behind the protective stems.

Species does make a difference. The other plants that still have flowers are ones adapted to cold climates, like snapdragons, or native ones that are used to climatic extremes like the purple asters and broom senecio.

Landscapers like to tell homeowners how they can exploit microclimates created in their yards by buildings and trees. They can’t control the even smaller nanoclimates made by plants themselves.

Notes on photographs: All were taken 20 October 2019.
1. Blanket flower (Gaillardia grandiflora).
2. Chocolate flower (Berlandiera lyrata) growing close to the ground.
3. Apricot (Prunus persica) protect by a one-seeded juniper (Juniperus monosperma).

Arrested Development

Weather: Last Thursday’s morning temperature was 42; Friday it was 23. The lows have been below freezing ever since.
Last useful rain: 10/04. Week’s low: 18 degrees F. Week’s high: 76 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming: It’s too soon to know if any of the visible flowers are alive or freeze dried. Virginia creeper leaves turned burgundy before the cold, but other leaves simply died with the cold. It remains to be seen if any more change color.

What’s still green: The full effects haven’t been processed by plants, so many leaves are still green.

Tasks: My order of spring bulbs arrived after temperatures fell. It had rained 10/4, and water remained in the ground. However, the soil was cold to handle and to stand on.

The peaches seemed lighter when I put some bags in the trash this morning. I’m not sure if the cold forced them to give up more water, in effect partially freeze drying them. Of course, they warm every afternoon.

Animal sightings: Small birds, grasshoppers, ants and small flying insects still active. I heard migrating geese Sunday afternoon near the river.

Weekly update: I didn’t realize until this summer how much my sense of passing time is related to what I see in my garden. When plants stopped growing because of the high heat, I went into a hiatus. I knew what the calendar said, but my sense of time was that it was still early July. Until certain plants, like zinnias and cosmos bloomed, my internal calendar was frozen.

In the past few weeks I had a hard time adjusting to shorter day lengths. There were certain areas I watered in late afternoon, usually after I had eaten. Suddenly, when I did that, it was dark before the watering was done. I couldn’t remember to start earlier, because, or course, I was still waiting for the annuals to bloom.

We had another jolt this past week, when temperatures went from those of fall to winter. Plants didn’t have time to go through their usual deceleration. Since leaves didn’t change, my internal calendar again was suspended.

The cold temperatures mean nothing will get watered again: the hoses probably contain ice in the early morning.

Instead of doing any weed removal, all I can do now is continue trimming dead wood. I’ve only got a few more days left to use the presence of leaves as my criteria. After that, the only way I can judge if a limb is alive is if it is pliable. That isn’t a sure sign, but one can be sure that one that’s rigid probably is dead.

Notes on photographs:
1. Broom senecio (Senecio spartioides), 14 October 2019. This only started to bloom on a week ago Monday. The fact an insect was actively foraging suggests the flower is still alive.

2. Pink evening primrose (Oenothera Speciosa), 14 October 2019. This is blooming in a protected location, low to the ground and next to the heat-retaining rail-timber wall. They have been actively growing this fall. However, I doubt the presence of the ant signifies anything.

3. Catalpa with dead wood marked by glittery, light-catching pipe cleaners, 10 October 2019.

Chemistry Isn’t Everything

Weather: Humidity remained normal, even though there were little to no low-level moisture in the atmosphere. That means water was being sucked out of the earth and plants.

The cooler temperatures forced me to begin watering when it got warm enough to not harm the hoses; in the summer I start as soon as I can walk about safely. The annuals and recently planted shrubs haven’t like getting watered less frequently when they are fighting transpiration.

Last useful rain: 9/23. Week’s low: 33 degrees F. Week’s high: 83 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, Russian sage, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, datura, chrysanthemums, Maximilian sunflowers.

This past week someone had some cosmos come into bloom, and another had some Heavenly Blue morning glories. I have a few short zinnias with very small flowers. This is at least a month later than usual.

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Bindweed, green leaf five eyes, alfalfa, white sweet clover, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, pigweed, Russian thistle, broom snakeweed, native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, Tahoka daisies, golden hairy, heath and purple asters, quack grass

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, calamintha, lead plant, winecup mallow, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Silver King artemesia, African marigolds, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, anthemis, bachelor buttons, zinnias, blanket flowers

Bedding Plants: One snapdragon, two nicotiana

What’s Coming Up: Golden spur columbine, cheat grass

Tasks: Last week when I put some bags of peaches in the trash, I slit them to drain the water that had separated from the pulp. This week that water had evaporated and the bags were slightly lighter. The smell still was sour.

Animal sightings: Chickadees, geckos, monarch butterflies, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

I’m ambivalent about woodpeckers. On the one hand, they clean out insects in wood and help solve a problem. I’m convinced the reason I had fewer hornets this year was one was banging away on the eaves of the house last year. However, their mere presence signals a problem exists. The one I’ve been hearing recently has been in the cottonwood. The one time I saw the small black-and-white bird, it was on dead wood, but if it’s in the leaves on live wood it wouldn’t be seen.

When the neighbor’s cat patrolled the yard, the mice stayed away. Now that they’re, wisely, keeping the cat in the house, the mice are back. There seems to be no getting rid of them completely.

Weekly update: People are fascinated by the fact some plants produce chemicals that inhibit the growth of others and give them more control of their territory. I think black walnuts are the best known.

The interest is partly an extension of developments in biology that followed the development of more sophisticated microscopes. Biochemistry has explained some diseases, and researchers are continuing to find new ways it affects our brains. It has become the single key to everything.

Others are interested in chemicals as weapons. As soon as botanists discovered the plant hormone that controlled senescence, the military turned it into Agent Orange. It became the basis for herbicides like Round-Up, which are used as expensive, labor efficient ways to handle weeds.

Note the constant interest we have in finding the easiest, cheapest way to do things. Our obsession with productivity blinds us to recognizing the many ways plants have of controlling their environment.

One of my chrysanthemums, the yellow Mary Stoker, remained relatively short all summer. Then, when it came time to bloom, the stems grew longer. They got both taller and reached wider until it became a ball.

The result was the water, which came from a spraying hose, was diverted to it at the expense of all the neighboring ones. They are now suffering.

A week of so ago I cleared part of a bed where golden spur columbine ranges to make room for some iris. This week I returned to the area to plant some lilies, and found some columbine had come back.

The seeds must be tiny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any. They fall thickly on the ground, especially around other plants and the brick walks. When I trowel around to uproot the young seedlings, all I do is remove competition so ungerminated seeds have an easier time.

They crowd out other plants with their leaves on arching stems that divert water like Mary Stoker. Worse, the roots go down lower that those of neighboring plants, then expand into tubers that monopolize water in their areas. It’s impossible to do more than break off the tops without destroying the unsuspecting neighbor.

Notes on photographs: All taken 26 September 2019.
1. Mary Stoker chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum rubellum). Blanket flowers (Gaillardia aristata) can just be seen behind it.

2. Golden spur columbine seedlings (Aquilegia chrysantha) surround the stem of a lily.

3. Mass of golden spur columbine seedlings that came up under a Kelway anthemis (Anthemis tinctoria).

Damp Leaves Don’t Burn

Weather: I wasn’t able to work outside yesterday because smoke was bothering me. I checked my blood oxygen level to make sure I wasn’t getting paranoid, and found it was down to 93. 95 is normal, and I usually register 96. Ten minutes after I put a mask on in the house, it was up to 94.

The problem with chemicals and smoke, either the ones used to dowse a fire or the ones to ignite one, is they don’t just evaporate. They get mixed in the dust on the forest floor. Once, they get thoroughly dry strong winds pick up the dust.

I had the same kind of breathing problems on Monday. This time there had been some wind, that I assume brought debris from the caldera fire site.

Last useful rain: 9/16. Week’s low: 41 degrees F. Week’s high: 86 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yuccas, Russian sage, buddleia, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, datura, chrysanthemums, Maximilian sunflowers

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, alfalfa, white sweet clover, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, pigweed, Russian thistle, broom snakeweed, Hopi tea, native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, Tahoka daisies, golden hairy, heath and purple asters, Nebraska sedge, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, garlic chives, calamintha, lead plant, winecup mallow, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox peaked, perennial four o’clock, Silver King artemesia, African marigolds, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, anthemis, bachelor buttons, white Sensation cosmos

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, nicotiana, snapdragons

What’s Coming Up: Golden spur columbine seedlings are up everywhere. Plants I cut to the ground two weeks ago have already come back with the encouragement of the high temperatures and humidity.

Tasks: The county cut vegetation along the shoulder this week.

Most of the peaches have fallen, though the ones at the top of the main tree continue to ripen during the day and drop after I’ve cleaned the area in the morning.

I ordered some iris that I thought would be shipped in October. They arrived August 31, when afternoon temperature were in low 90s. Temperatures finally cooled on Thursday, and I spent that day and Friday planting rhizomes. I watered them in, and now, last night and today we’ve gotten enough real rain that they may be able to settle.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, magpie, geckos, toads, earth worms, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

Weekly update: It may have been in the late 1960s, when I was in graduate school, that I first heard forestry experts had decided fire suppression was bad. They argued fire was a tool used by nature to maintain healthy stands of trees.

I had no reason to question what I heard until this summer. The promos for converting small fires into controlled burns said the natural cycle for fire was one every seven to fifteen years. [1] I’ve lived here twenty years. If I applied a literal reading of their argument, everything should have burned at least once since I’ve been here. Instead, we’ve only had serious spring fires caused by humans or power lines.

Following the pattern of science defined by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, forestry experts have sought an explanation for why their theory didn’t match reality and the fire regime didn’t reassert itself after they stopped putting out fires. They decided the problem was forest floors had become too cluttered from lack of fire, and no longer were able to burn naturally. That’s the rationale for controlled burns.

While the forest service was inducing fires this summer, I was cleaning debris from under some trees that had been neglected. Under the cottonwood, I only found leaves and remains of winterfat that had died when the cottonwood blocked their sun and water.

The Russian olive was a smaller tree. I found remains of grass that died when it first started growing. Inside the grass clumps I often found broom snakeweed whose seed had been stopped by the grass, then nourished by it. Over the dead snakeweed stems, I found winterfat that had started to grow in the ground protected by the snakeweed. Their limbs had gotten leggy or died as the olive canopy expanded and blocked their access to sun and rain.

It was the kind of woody mess the Forest Service deplored. It also had enough layers of wood with some air between to make them burnable, if they could be ignited.

Natural succession under a tree doesn’t necessarily follow the script of foresters. One reason they were reburning a burn scar near Taos was the wrong things had returned. Gambel oak thickets were growing instead of the desired aspens. [2] I might have preferred bunch grasses when I removed winterfat a year ago, but I got purple asters instead.

As I cleaned out debris and clipped dead wood, I put the woody things into a wheel barrow and the rest into plastic bags. The reason was simple: stiff twigs tore the bags.

Early in the season I put the dead wood around the peach and Siberian pea branches that had come down. Each time I set the pile on fire, the small wood disappeared and the bigger limbs charred and dried. It took three tries for the larger wood to ignite and become hot enough to burn. In a sense, this followed the foresters’ model for fire behavior in woodlands: fire consumed the small wood and left the healthy trees.

After working under the cottonwood, I had so many bags of leaves it would have taken a month to get rid of them with the restraints imposed by our trash company. I was skeptical the leaves would burn, but I thought it was worth a try.

The leaves and grass got compacted in the bags, then it rained on them. While the plastic kept out most of the water, moisture crept in as it does.

The middle of August I dumped the bags around another peach limb that had come down. They wouldn’t ignite. I usually can start a fire by using a match on a single piece of paper stuck into the twigs. I finally had to put a piece of cardboard over the leaves and start the fire under it for the fire to begin.

Then, the leaves and grass didn’t actually burn like the woody parts of shrubs and trees. They smoldered, and turned black. I had a deep pile of black debris, instead of a thin layer of thin ash when I was done, and the peach limb hadn’t dried. The fire never got that hot.

The Amole fire near Taos was started by lightening on September 2, and had grown to four acres by September 4. [3] The fire behavior was described as "creeping," which is exactly what I had seen happen in my yard when an ember landed in green grass. The blades would dry and burn, and maybe the blades closest to them would then ignite. But, the fire died out when it reached the space that separates bunch grasses.

That the Amole fire did no more than creep calls into question the idea that natural fires caused by lightening maintained the forest floor. It would have been a slow process to build up enough heat to ignite the dead, woody undergrowth that would then burn like the dead twigs in my burn piles.

The Forest Service’s answer was to artificially expand the fire. It cut and chipped trees around the perimeter of their proposed burn area, and added them to the fuel. Then they used "hand" and "aerial" ignition. One assumes that involved chemicals, and not matches put to tinder and kindling.

Fires started by lightening are slowed by that fact lightening usually is accompanied by rain. The Forest Service succeed in getting the Amole fire up to 1,917 acres by last Saturday, but still had a problem. Its spokesperson wrote:

"The fire carried well in the mixed conifer stands on south and west facing slopes. However, on the north and east facing slopes the fuels were not as receptive to burning due to recent rains. Green pockets of unburned fuels remain and an attempt will be made to burn these areas today weather permitting." [4]

That final attempt to finish the burn coincided with movement of water vapor from Kiki and other disturbances in the Pacific off the coast of México. I’m guessing the rising smoke mixed with the moisture and was trapped by it, then fell in the night when temperatures cooled. All I know is that, while I was miserable Sunday morning, the Forest Service was declaring victory. [5]

Notes on photographs: All photographs taken 15 September 2019.
1. African marigolds (Tagetes erecta) are the only annual that has bloomed this year. The odd leaf is from a corn plant behind the marigolds.

2. Purple asters (Symphyotrichum ascendens) that came back after I cut down a winterfat (Eurotia lanata) a year before.

3. June grass (Koeleria cristata) grows under the peach tree, where it seems to need water more than sun. It got trampled while I was picking fruit, much like it would have been if large animals had come through.

End notes:
1. SFNFPIO. "Cueva Fire on Coyote Ranger District, SFNF." New Mexico Fire Information website. 3 August 2019. "Historically, low-intensity wildfires burned through southwestern dry conifer forests like the SFNF every seven to 15 years as part of a natural cycle that removed leaf litter, eradicated disease and thinned the understory, making room for new growth and improving habitat for wildlife." SFNF is the Santa Fe National Forest.

2. cnfpio. "Smoke Expected to Increase on Amole Fire." New Mexico Fire Information website. 12 September 2019.

3. cnfpio. "Lightning-Caused Amole Fire to Aid in Forest Restoration." New Mexico Fire Information website. 4 September 2019.

4. cnfpio. "Firing Operations Near Completion on Amole Fire." New Mexico Fire Information website. 14 September 2019.

5. cnfpio. "Amole Fire Final Update." New Mexico Fire Information website. 15 September 2019.