Site Discussions

Color photos of both insects, to scale, and images or illustrations of their symptoms and effects in the trees, would be very helpful the layman, and easy to pass around via the Net.

We lived in our rural hilltown for 11 years without sighting a bear—and still haven’t seen one—although we awoke in April to a demolishment akin to what Dave reports. In this case, bird feeders (several, and all). Every day and night for those 11 years my bird feeders stood or hung outdoors, unmolested. Why this spring did that change?

After replacing or repairing the damages, I began bringing in all feeders every night. Of course, I forgot now and then. So of course, 5 weeks later, the midnight marauder returned. I haven’t forgotten since then!

What I really wonder is, now that the bear knows our yard offers a buffet, why hasn’t it come back to raid our lush, prolific berry patches? Or the vegetable garden? The kitchen-scraps compost pile? The stinky trash can? Or open vehicles with candy wrappers and half-empty juice bottles inside?

I live in an artist condo in Newtonville, MA (a town west of Boston).
We have a number of groups of Indian Pipes under dense undergrowth.
This is the fist year I have seen them - any ideas why after 25+ years here they appeared now?

Thanks, all, for your comments. This is very interesting . . ..

I would like to make contact with Charles Johnson as he is part of the family tree I am collating in New Zealand.
If I have the right Charles, his mother was Margaret and his sister Marjorie Hunter married John Plamenatz.
I would appreciate if someone in this discussion group maybe able to advise Charles of my request please.
Thank you.
Allan Steel.
New Zealand

We’ve noticed most of the phenomena and effects Dave mentioned; also, it seems that many perennials are blooming earlier than normal. The first tell-tale red leaves in the middle of the green canopy, which usually appear mid-August, showed up mid-July. Several bird species arrived early, too. We have the usual range of species but there seem to be fewer individual birds. Conversely, we are seeing species such as titmouse and red-bellied woodpecker expanding their range northward.

There’s been a definite shortage of bats—owing, I presume, to the white-nose disease decimating their population. Early in the season, we noticed fewer bees, but now I’m seeing more of them. Fewer wasps, fewer mosquitoes, fewer black flies, fewer insects altogether.

For the first time, we experienced a slug problem in the garden (in fact, they appear to have taken over the yard!), along with a tomato blight and themes-and-variations of mildews, rusts, funguses, and pest invasions. But the raspberry crop is astounding, for the second year in a row. Wildflowers and perennials have been awesome.

Along with the extraordinary wetness this year, there was a cold, dry start to the growing season. Latest frosts we’ve had in a decade, requiring a second planting in the veggie garden, which in turn might have affected crop development and sensitivity to the various malaises.

There’s been a dearth of activity in our pond, which normally houses fish, shellfish, and associated bugs, and draws kingfishers, herons, wood ducks, and things that prey on all of the above. But aside from an intense “peeper” season, we’ve neither heard nor seen the usual pond-related wildlife. The water has remained high, and summer scummy plant life bloomed very early. Not sure what to make of all that.

We’ve also noticed many more garden and field snakes than ever before.

—Carolyn

We have a pretty big stocked pond on our property and very skinny rainbows and brookies this year.  So we KNOW that hatches are down due to the daily and nightly drenchings.  Nor is the surface of the pond being suddenly broken by natural fly assaulting trout.  But we remain hopeful and the fly rods are by the side door primed for quick action!

I think the reason for the lack of mosquitoes, at least in Lincoln, is due to the fact that we have had rain almost daily which washes out the pools of standing water before the larvae have time to hatch.  It’s just a thought.

Marty

I have read a lot of articles on this plant, but no one seems to know that this plant is known as a ghost plant because it glows in the dark.

Dave—It occurs to me that these successive summers of substantial moisture, paired with relatively mild winters that have featured long-season snow cover, must be about optimal for tree growth. I’m seeing enormous growth of white pine shoots and limbs on a usually dry site near our house. Perhaps these luxuriant seasons are just what the forest requires to bank the reserves needed to withstand the next insect attack or drought or whatever comes down the pipe. Nice thought anyway - helps offset the rotting squash.—Chuck

Hey Vicky,

By this time next year I will have installed a wind turbine to supply electricity to my house, hot tub, barn, and my outside wood boiler. Are you going to have a problem with my wind generator too?

If your neighbor installed one would you be the type that complains about the noise, the way that it might appear, or that a bird might fly into it and lose its life? Or would you be proud of the fact that your neighbor is doing his part to help the environment?

Yes! Bark is indeed wonderful! Of course, the bark of a dead tree is even more interesting than that of a live one, though, then the poor tree itself is gone, alas! Hello, Mr. Amos! Glad to see you are still writing! Bryan Morris still asks for you. Jane

University of Rhode Island has a list of sustainable trees and shrubs. It can be found here: http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/sheets/sustplant.html

LOVE this article! The writer managed to capture the all too real safety issues of chainsawing and make me laugh at the same time. My husband’s wanted a chain saw for years and I won’t let him get one. But now maybe I’ll take the class and get one for myself. Thanks for this terrific, informative piece. Hope to see more from this writer.

Let’s really be clear Brad. Your argument in favor of OWBs is centered around yourself. First of all, wind changes but the excessive smoke and carcinogenic particulates scatter and hover all around neighborhoods, especially on still days and nights, even infiltrating houses that are tightly closed. I would like everyone to know just HOW BAD it REALLY is! Living between one OWB and a few wood stoves put me and some other neighbors into the hospital last year. YOUR savings will be someone else’s medical bill. I don’t inhale auto tail pipe emissions nor do I hang my face over my oil burner chimney, therefore I am not ingesting the excessive amount of poisons that your OWB is delivering to your neighbors’ lungs and also to you while you sit in your hot tub breathing poison. Burning wood is a filthy, self centered habit. 

To Jim: I own my land too. Why should someone else have the right to infect my home with putrid, harmful wood smoke? Where are my rights? Do I have to live with the smoke to please burners so they can save money at another’s expense? Burners should live in isolated regions where there smoke remains THEIR smoke.

Silly Environmentalists, Hares are for Lynx!

Once again, the knee jerk, thoughtless “environmental” (keyword being “mental”) movement saves us from ourselves to the detriment of everything around it.

When are thoughtful, concerned conservationists going to tell these vapid do-gooders to go back to the city and stay there?

i have a very nice modern hardwood mill,in excellent condition, for sale. it is located in fryburg,maine. the mill sits on 16 acres with extensive rail siding. recently,the state has approved this as a pine tree zone. this allows owners to pay no sales or corporate income taxes for five years.also has many financial perks related to pine tree as well. mill itself was constructed in a new building just a few years ago and just shut down in march 2009. the new mill"s cost was over 1.6 million dollars. many other buildings as well as equipment still here. extensive conveyor systems and boiler feed systems in very good shape also. buy before developers do. richard

Visit http://www.burningissues.org for important information, along with http://rawsep.spaces.live.com
http://www.cleanairhudson.com

We’ll be proud of our neighbors when they use clean energy, rather than burning wood that creates black carbon soot.

Tests done by the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM) found that the average fine particle emissions (a particularly harmful pollutant) from one OWB are equivalent to the emissions from 22 EPA certified wood stoves, 205 oil furnaces, or as
many as 8,000 natural gas furnaces. One OWB can emit as much fine particle matter as four heavy duty diesel trucks on a grams per hour basis. The smallest OWB has the potential to emit almost one and one-half tons of particulate matter every year.  Wood smoke travels far into the atmosphere where the fine particles pollute clouds and cause global warming—and YES Mark - there IS such a thing as global warming.

Huntington NY just BANNED OWBs because of excessive carcinogenic smoke. An OWB distributor from Catskill NY agreed, these devices have no place on less than 5 acres. I would think Councilmembers and OWB suppliers have more knowledge than you people do. I for one do not and WILL not breathe anyone’s wood smoke. 

We’re working on drafting and revising wood burning laws. Don’t waste your money on these OWBs people. They’ll eventually be banned or very strictly regulated. Put on a sweatshirt until cleaner heating alternatives are available.

To Jim: I own my land too. Why should someone else have the right to infect my home with harmful wood smoke? Where are my rights? Do I have to live with the smoke to please burners so they can save money at another’s expense?

The Snowshoe hare is the food base for this cat. They become tame, desperate the first season of a cyclic crash. This is usually when they are photographed in such places as Alaska. I have seen tracks, of pumas and lynx, in ME. and NH. respectivly, it’s always a uplift in spirit to spot these tracks.

                        Thanks!