An Update

A new work schedule and technological issues have conspired to make it difficult to keep up with this blog. I will resume posting as soon as possible!

Caring for Trees: Update

After I blogged recently about the damage done to our local ash trees by the emerald ash borer, an article in the New York Times took a grim look at the impact of this exotic pest. The conclusion: the borer will almost certainly destroy 99 percent of all ash trees across 17 states in the midwestern and eastern United States. The effects “will ripple through forest ecosystems, affecting other plants, animals and water supplies,” the article said. “You end up with a different ecosystem that different species prefer and where the old ones can’t do as well.” Among the animals affected could be woodpeckers, which likely will be unable to find as many of the caterpillars and other bugs that sustain them. Emerald ash borers almost certainly arrived in North America in packing materials carried by cargo ships and airplanes, so they’re one in a long line of sad examples of how humans are changing the planet in ways that are not good.

Caring for Trees

I have a special love for trees. I love their size, their shapes and their shade. I’m in awe of how long they live, and how they give shelter to so many birds and other animals. Trees even pump out the oxygen we breathe. Trees are just good.

Sadly, we’ll have firewood for life from dead ash trees

Southern Ohio has beautiful hardwood forests, but not all the trees in them are doing well. Sadly, the many species of ash trees here are rapidly dying out, victims of the emerald ash borer, a pest from another continent with no natural predators here. The forest in our neighborhood is just one of hundreds of forested areas all over greater Cincinnati that have the naked upper branches of dead ash trees poking out of them.

In some areas, ash trees make up about 30 percent of the forest; in others it’s closer to 10 percent. Virtually all of them are goners, and it’s a startling loss. Meanwhile, another serious foreign pest has arrived in our part of Ohio: the Asian long-horned beetle. It’s considered so destructive that wherever it’s discovered, the prescribed treatment is to cut down every tree within 100 yards. You can imagine the resulting loss of cover, not to mention the cost. Thankfully, only limited areas so far have been infested.

As trees are killed by these pests, other trees will fill in the gaps that are created, eventually. But you have to wonder about the birds and other critters that will be affected in the meantime by the loss of trees that they’ve co-adapted to for millennia.

There are many dead ash trees on our property, but we decided to have a local arbor company treat several of our still-healthy ones. A guy came and pumped a chemical into them that kills the emerald ash borers as they feed. Problem is, the treatment has to be repeated every two years, and it’s expensive.

Frankly, I don’t know what the long-term solution is, or even if there is one. I just know that I love trees, and that I want them to live long, healthy lives.

 

 

Tree Frogs

We’ve had a brutal winter this year, and it has lingered, with a transition from March snow and ice to heavy rainfall in April. Nevertheless, you can see spring is finally on the way. Shrubs are starting to leaf out, and any day now the native redbuds will be the first of many trees to bloom.

For the last few evenings we have also heard tree frogs, which are among the earliest creatures to emerge after the long winter cold. Their calls are like a high, sweet whistle, quite distinct from the croaking and singing of pond frogs that comes later.

It’s a welcome sound.

After the Ice Storm

Breaking the ice crust on the snow in order to clear the driveway

Mabel the Maple: A Timeline

February 2, 2013

Busy, busy, busy

My work status has changed and I’ve gotten extremely busy over the last month or so, which is why I haven’t been able to update this blog regularly. Things are liable to remain like this through the end of the year, unfortunately. Until then, I’ll try to post any interesting tidbits about southwestern Ohio when I can.

Spring Weather

Last year we had the wettest March-April-May ever. This year it’s the warmest, boosted in particular by a heat wave in March that sent temperatures into the 80s at a time when there’s often snow on the ground.

Just more confirmation of how unpredictable this region’s weather is.

The Garden

Faithful readers of this blog (if there are any left) may have wondered why the postings have fallen off recently. The pic shows why: We’ve been putting in a garden, a major home-improvement project (for us) that took nearly all our spare time for weeks.

The Garden

We’ve now planted several varieties of tomatoes, spicy peppers and eggplants, as well as strawberries, chard, onions and even a couple of artichokes. It’s all a big experiment for us because we’ve never tried to grow vegetables in a climate like Ohio’s, where the growing season is relatively short yet extremely hot, and there are a lot of bugs.

It’s the biggest vegetable garden we’ve ever had, and we had the fence built to keep out critters such as deer and rabbits. We built the boxes for the raised beds ourselves, and also assembled and put up the trellis. As with all the pix on this blog, you can click on it to enlarge it.

I’ll post some updates throughout the summer as we find out how things are doing.

American Geese Idyll

Six of the Nine

All of a sudden there are a lot more geese around. We can hear them honking in the early morning and at other times as they fly around the ‘hood.

A bunch of them suddenly appeared in the pond across the street, which seems to have pushed the original nine that have been hanging around all summer into our yard for more and more of the day. They come up the driveway and eat apples, crabapples and god knows what else, and leave a lot of poop behind. They’re not very afraid of me when I walk down the driveway, as you can see from this picture.

It’ll be interesting to see when they take off for the winter, and when — and if — they return.