Monday, September 30, 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).

Monday, September 16, 2019

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.

Sunday, September 08, 2019

Nature’s Bounty


Weather: Rain last Sunday from the north, followed by a week of July temperatures with no low-level water vapor. That means all the humidity is from water being sucked out of the ground and plants. Soil that’s not being watered every third day behaves like dry sand when it’s disturbed.

Leaves on a few area cottonwoods have turned yellow. Many of my cherry tree leaves are yellowing, and some spirea leaves have turned orange.

Last useful rain: 9/1. Week’s low: 50 degrees F. Week’s high: 95 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, coreopsis, chrysanthemums, cultivated and Maximilian sunflowers.

One may has selling pears, apples, and peaches. One person has at least three large melons on the ground.

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, alfalfa, white sweet clover, leather leaf globe mallow, 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 asters, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas.

Stems on Virginia creeper turned red.

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, garlic chives peaked, Royal Standard hosta, catmints, calamintha, lead plant, winecup mallow, sidalcea, white spurge, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Mexican hats, African marigolds, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, Mönch asters peaked, bachelor buttons, white Sensation cosmos

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, sweet alyssum, nicotiana, snapdragons

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, magpie in cottonwood, geckos, small toad, monarch butterfly, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants


Weekly update: I’ve had trouble with aphids ever since I had someone do some yard work for me in 2013. The insecticides I’d used didn’t seem to help, so this year in May I tried systemics. They seemed worthless as well.

In mid-August I noticed some leaves on a cherry tree and a younger peach were distorted. As I mentioned last week, when I tried to find an insecticide locally I couldn’t.

So, Sunday I finally sprayed the trees with something from a Santa Fé big box that was supposed to handle insects, mites, and powder mildew. It even was supposed to last for 14 days.

I sprayed early in the morning when the bees weren’t out. And, while I sprayed as much of the yard as the bottle would do, I didn’t spray the garlic chives where they’re active.

The air was still. At most there was a 20% chance of rain in Los Alamos, and nothing less than 50% ever comes to my yard. Very little low-level water vapor lay over the state. It was so dry, the Forest Service was exploiting conditions to expand the fire in the caldera and was eyeing one at Canjilon.

Around 3 pm, the weather bureau reported heavy rain in Los Alamos County. At 5 pm, some thunder. Then, the wind started throwing water at my north facing windows. It didn’t last long, maybe 20 minutes, but everything was wet. So much for the insecticide.

When I went out Monday, there were peaches everywhere on the ground. It was trash day, and we’re limited to one of those plastic containers a week. Boxes had been accumulating for weeks, because I was getting rid of the weeds I’d cleaned and bagged.

I spent my yard time breaking down boxes and cursing tape. When I was a kid, sealing tape was considered a luxury and used sparingly. Now, people who ship cover every opening with tape, and sometimes the entire box. It’s dangerous and arduous to get boxes designed for easy opening to flatten.

I finally got out Tuesday. I began by sitting in the June grass under the main peach and picking up nearby fruit. That proved unproductive, so I got out a small hoe - its handle is about 4' long and the blade 3". I used it like an oar, pulling fruit in to where I was sitting.

The younger peaches had very thorny Dorothy Perkins and Woods roses growing under them. I stood with the hoe pulling the fruit out. I developed different techniques for guiding them between dead rose canes. It was more like miniature golf than a putting green or croquette court.

Random thoughts come when you’re doing mindless tasks. Earlier in the summer, when the fruit was just turning color, I speculated on fruit trees being the original model for Christmas trees. How else would someone think of hanging colored balls on a branch?

Later, as the boughs began to hang heavy I thought of the "Cherry Tree Carol" in which Mary asks Joseph to get her some fruit. He refuses, and tells her to get the father of her child to do it. Then, like magic, the fruit-laden bough bends down.

At that time I was going out every week or so and removing fruit to protect the tree. Because it wasn’t ripe, I had to use nippers to cut it. And, it only did so much good. I still had three branches break that had been damaged by aphids years ago. The last is still in the burn pile, where it has only been reduced by three firings.

This week, after I cleared the free fall from Sunday, I came out each morning to find more peaches on the ground. A number were half eaten. I had to wear rubber gloves to handle them.

The phrase "if you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree" ran through my mind. When I sat in the grass under the main tree, I wondered if it was possible to get some of the fruit before it fell without having to pick it. I took the hoe and used it to shake a branch. I was lucky nothing hit me on the head.

I now have about 250 pounds of peaches in plastic bags rotting in the burn area. I think the limit for those trash containers is about 50 pounds. That means, if I get rid of 30 pounds a week, it’s going to take more than a month to get rid of the harvest. Meantime, not everything has come down. I’m adding 10 to 15 pounds a day.

So far, the rabbit is only eating the day’s bounty. It comes out before there’s enough light to work, and eats its fill. Few ants have been interested, and the hornets are still over on the garlic chives.

But, of course, I can’t use the burn area until the bags are gone. That means, as I remove dead wood from the Russian olive and other trees, it’s going to accumulate and create its own kind of lure for vermin. Some carnivore left the remains of an animal on top of a grass clump in the pile last night.


Notes on photographs:
1. Maximilian sunflowers (Helianthus maximiliani) starting their annual sprawl, 7 September 2019.

2. Peaches as they fell Sunday night, 3 September 2019.

3. Peaches raked out from the grasses and dead wood, 4 September 2019.

Sunday, September 01, 2019

Duff


Weather: Afternoon temperatures are still climbing into the 90s. The Forest Service found another small fire it could escalate into a major one with aerial ignitions. This one was in Valles caldera. For three days now I’ve been suffering from the effects of the polluted smoke.

Last useful rain: 8/11. Week’s low: 47 degrees F. Week’s high: 93 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, purple garden phlox, datura, coreopsis, cultivated sunflowers

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, silver leaf nightshade, alfalfa, white sweet clover, leather leaf globe mallow, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, toothed spurge, prostrate knotweed, pigweed, Russian thistle, Hopi tea, native sunflowers, gumweed, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, golden hairy asters, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas.

Áñil del muerto has been blooming much of the summer in fallow market garden fields. It has only now begun to bloom along the roadside.

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, garlic chives, Royal Standard hosta, catmints, calamintha, winecup mallow, sidalcea, white spurge, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Mexican hats, African marigolds, chrysanthemums, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, purple coneflower, Mönch asters, bachelor buttons

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, sweet alyssum, nicotiana, snapdragons

What’s Coming Up: Early summer seedlings have not grown; some are still at their second leaves. The ones that did come up have to be watered every day when the temperatures return to July highs. This is now September.

Tasks: With the moisture in early August, hay and other grasses revived. This past week people have been mowing.

Insects and fungus are taking advantage of the disappearing moisture and heat: powdery mildew has appeared on the Dr. Huey roses, and leaves on the peaches and cherries are getting disfigured. When I treated them with the available sprays nothing happened. I’m sure the base chemicals work, but I’m not sure the products do.

One thing I noticed this year was it was difficult to even find insecticides in the plant stores and local hardwares. This week I finally went to one of the big boxes to get something I hope works. I don’t know whether the chains or the manufacturers have instituted exclusive contracts, but I do know it seems as if they have.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, hummingbird, geckos, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

The Flame red grapes have been ripening for the past two weeks. I was able to eat a few each day. Saturday morning they were gone; not even a stem was left. I assume the rabbit leapt up, bit the cluster stems, then ate the fruit. It tries the fallen peaches, but only eats a little.


Weekly update: Earlier this summer, I cleaned leaves and dead shrubs from under the cottonwood. Recently, I’ve been doing the same under the Russian olive and some sandcherries. The tasks were similar, but the execution was not.

In each case, I first have to cut low dead branches to create a clearance. I was helped with the cottonwood by having someone cut some of the biggest limbs this past winter. All I had to do was cut smaller branches and winterfat.

The Russian olive was a different problem. The winter of 2013-2014 was particularly severe. Wikipedia said a polar vortex broke down in November, "which allowed very cold air to travel down into the United States, leading to an extended period of very cold temperatures. The pattern continued mostly uninterrupted throughout the winter." [1]

I wasn’t keeping detailed weather notes then, so don’t know exactly what happened. I did post an entry on 11 May 2014 on the consequences. Russian olives are not Siberian, but from a more temperate, moisture climate. [2] Trees everywhere in this area died back.


Once I cut or broke off the biggest branches, I had to defang the tree. It produces sharp, hard, wooden thorns. They aren’t poisonous, but pieces do produce infectiongs if they break off and get lodged under the skin. I didn’t always nip off the ones pointing up, but anything pointing down had to be removed.

It was after I had removed dead wood that I noticed the differences in the duff beneath the three species. Standard texts tell you that the duff is composed of three layers: the top strata of leaves and twigs, the bottom one of humus, and a middle one of organisms converting the one to the other. [3]

I know this basic model is valid. I remember seeing the various sorts of insects and worms that inhabit the middle world when I was in camp in Michigan. It was second growth hardwood, and I remember I would see them if I kicked over piles of oak leaves. But, of course, that was more sixty years ago, so I wouldn’t swear they were oaks.

That model does not appear here. As I mentioned in the post for 9 June 2019, the cottonwood leaves were fairly large and created a mat that stopped water from penetrating. It probably evaporated before it had time to seep down. [4] There was no humus, just bare dirt under the leaves.


Sandcherry leaves are smaller and seem to blow away. One is growing under a catalpa, and its leaves also move on. What falls to the ground are the dried shells of the seed pods. They create a web that allows water to go through. There were no signs of humus, but the soil had darkened from contact with decaying materials.


Russian olive leaves are small ovals that do drop. What I found under the tree was a caked layer of leaves and twigs, completely dried even though I watered the area every three days with a sprinkler hose. It had so much integrity, I could pick it up. It seemed like something that, given enough time and water, would turn into peat moss.


Under that layer, the ground was even darker than it was under sandcherry. Ironically, this hated invader seemed to be the only species capable of creating soil in this arid environment.


Notes on photographs:
1. Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia), 24 August 2019. You can see the dead branches at the base of the tree on the right. I have a limited ability to cut thick limbs. Often the loppers act pliers that twist and break what I can’t cut.

2. Russian olive thorns, 15 March 2014. They are aborted twigs.

3. Russian olive as it was recovering on 19 April 2014. All the low growth was dead, and it was putting out new stems from the trunk. All of that still has to be removed. I haven’t worked that far under the tree yet. I’m still removing pigweed from the periphery.

4. Cottonless cottonwood (Populus deltoides) duff, 30 August 2019. Different colors marked the different generations of leaves, with the grayer ones the older. You can see in the bare spot that there has been no creation of new soil. There’s a volunteer juniper growing with it.

5. Sandcherry (Prunus besseyi) duff, 24 August 2019. The bare shot shows this duff is sitting on the bare ground, without interacting with it. However, you can also see that debris allows water to penetrate.

6. Dried Russian olive duff, 30 August 2019, seen from the side.

7. Duff under the Russian olive after the caked layer has been removed.

End notes:
1. Wikipedia. "2013–14 North American Winter."

2. Kris Zouhar. "Elaeagnus angustifolia." United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service "Fire Effects Information System" website. 2005.

3. B. J. Stocks. Moisture in the Forest Floor - Its Distribution and Movement. Ottawa: Canadian Forestry Service, 1970. 1.

4. Stocks discussed the problem with evaporation from the duff.