June 25, 2007

• After 2 days and nights of rain, the number of wildfires in this valley is down by one – ten active fires here currently, 39 statewide, down from 45 yesterday.  The big one caused by lightning near here is in its sixth day, has burned 9,754 acres, has 202 firefighters working on it, and is still uncontained along its southern edge.

  Down on the Kenai Peninsula, the big Caribou Hills fire, caused by sparks from a power grinder when someone was sharpening a shovel, has burned 52,000 acres, has 500 firefighters working on it, has destroyed 53 residences and 79 outbuildings, and threatens another 1600 residences.  In both areas, beetle killed spruce trees help the fires spread, igniting quickly even in wet weather.

  The spruce bark beetles are an introduced species, coming here from Asia in the 1960s, I think.  I remember from an ecology class in college that the way forests “mature” from young conifer and softwood forests to old hardwood forests is through the extinction and replacement of one species after another.  Spruce is on its way out here now.

  Aspen is declining, too.  The windstorm a few months ago seems to have knocked down a disproportionate number of aspens, probably weakened by bugs.  In the thirty-some years I have been here, aspen has never been as numerous as birch or poplar, and now virtually all the aspens are infested with leaf miners.  I had never seen any leaf miners here until the mid-1980s, and now they are ubiquitous. 

  The affected trees are clearly evident, even from a moving vehicle on the highway, with the silver-gray mined-out leaves down below and a top-knot of new green growth — leaves several times larger than normal — as the trees apparently strive to produce more chlorophyll and store some sugar for winter.  The tops of beetle infested spruces show a similar crisis response, in heavy clusters of seed cones.  A healthy black spruce tapers to a point.  One with beetles is topped by a bulging mass of cones.

  I don’t know what species will replace the spruce and aspen, but the one that seems to be most vigorous now is poplar, the species many locals call “cottonwood” because it reproduces through long hanging catkins of the fluff that carries its seeds on the wind.  Nobody here loves the poplar.  The fluff clogs the gutters and downspouts of houses, the heater vents of cars, etc, and leaves behind spots of resin that ruin paint finishes.  The shallow roots invade gardens and displace house foundations and pavement. 

  The wood rots too quickly to be useful in building cabins, and burns too poorly to make useful firewood.  Chipping it and fermenting it into biofuel has been suggested, but I haven’t seen any real projects set up, just talk.  Meanwhile, I’m tending a container garden whose pots I have to lift and move around on a regular basis to keep the poplar trees from sending roots up through the drain holes to choke out my plants.  I’m gardening in containers because that is easier than fighting the tree roots to establish and maintain a garden in the ground.
  

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  Memoir writing is complicated by what I now know and understand about what was going on with me back then.  My crazy, irrational behavior makes some sense in the light of my current understanding, but understanding the big picture does not help me remember the details.  If the story is going to have some authenticity and continuity, that must depend on my recall of events and how I felt about them at the time.  Written from my current perspective, it wouldn’t be much of a story:  I was nuts and did stupid things.  I gotta try and do better than that.  I’m gonna go try and do that now.

  

  • 3:06 pm
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