Into the fold–working with Mother Nature’s garden

I’ve got big planting plans–at least for me, up here.  When I moved here, I was happy to NOT have a garden.  Don’t get me wrong, I love plants, designing with them and caring for them, but you know, it is work.  I grew hundreds of species of plants in my California yard for pleasure [...]

Squirrels, Bears, and birds: What’s the connection?

The Clark’s Nutcrackers have been very busy over the last month.  So have the squirrels.  They’re both competing for the Limber Pine seeds that grow around here.  The birds extract and stash seeds.  The squirrels create middens with stored seeds and cones.  The bears let these animals do their work, then rob the middens. It [...]

Limber Pine and Doug Fir seedling trees–reforesting my property

I finally got my tree seedling order.  I almost didn’t get my Limber Pines, but at the last minute the CCD found at least 1/2 my order.  Today was a frigid day, hovering around 35 degrees with a chilling wind–perfect for planting.  I gathered up my pick, several containers of left-over chippings from splitting wood [...]

Beetle infested forest–How I would have approached it

This small forest is almost exclusively spruce.  Springs from higher up feed the area, making it swampy in many places.   The springs are on public land; the forest you see in the photo is on the private lands of several homeowners.  It is a small island of conifers surrounded on both sides by meadow.  The [...]

Reefs, Bears, and the Beartooths

On of the unusual features of this area are the ‘reefs’, long cliffs exposed in the mountainsides.  There’s a beautiful area nearby that I’ve been exploring this summer called Reef Creek. A forest service road winds precariously up to the top of the reef, where you discover you’re now driving on a totally flattened surface.  [...]

Clark’s Nutcracker and some five needled pines

Every morning I take a walk on the open meadows above my house dotted with Limber Pines.  Limber pines are technically in the white bark pine ‘family’, which consists of all pines with a cluster of 5 needles.  So when people say ‘That’s not a white bark pine, but a limber pine”, technically they are [...]

Pine Beetles, Spruce Beetles, and what to do?

The County Fire Warden and the State Forester paid a visit to my neighbors last week.  There’s some money in the till to help homeowners clear dead and dying trees from their properties.  Since my area is full of beetle kill, and getting worse exponentially every year, we’re sitting ducks for a big forest fire.  [...]

Pheromones, Pine Beetles, and more about fires.

I talked with the Wyoming Dept. of Forestry today.  Apparently, the state deals with private landowners, not the forest service.  I’m definitely going to go for ordering pheromones for my trees. Paul in the department told me that, yes!, the grizzlies do use the Limber Pine nuts as well as the Pinus albicaulus.  He also [...]