{"id":20945,"date":"2022-04-15T19:53:16","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T23:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=20945"},"modified":"2022-04-15T19:54:16","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T23:54:16","slug":"episode-562-red-pine-forest-staggering-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=20945","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 562 RED PINE FOREST — STAGGERING TO DEATH"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE 562    RED PINE FOREST STAGGERING TO DEATH<\/p>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
April 15, 2022<\/div>\n

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NOT ALL PLANS WORK OUT AS ROBBIE BURNS SAID<\/div>\n

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Take our plan to create a forest refuge on our farm.<\/div>\n

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Seemed like a good idea 60 years ago.  <\/div>\n

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\u201cWe will reforest the farm by planting 10,000<\/div>\n
Red Pine seedlings.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy would we want to do that?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThe fields are not good\u2026.full of stones and pretty well worn out<\/div>\n
from too many crops of hay. \u201c<\/div>\n
\u201cYou really mean there are no animals to eat the hay now that<\/div>\n
Grandma and Grandpa are gone.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cCould be both reasons.   When we plow the hay fields we turn up <\/div>\n
enough boulders to build a stone house.  Better to reforest the land.\u201d<\/div>\n
(Decisions made around 1963)<\/div>\n

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And so the government arrived with 10,000 seedlings and a motorized<\/div>\n
planting machine.  Covered the farm except for two tiny fields.<\/div>\n

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Now we have a dense forest.   Hard to push through as dense cedars flourish under the canopy<\/div>\n
of the red pines.<\/div>\n

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Another reason for the planting was to create a refuge for wild animals.<\/div>\n
There were already two ponds\u2026.one small near the barn and one huge<\/div>\n
in the middle of the farm.  We added two more ponds where the land was<\/div>\n
really wet.  Got them excavated by Ron Saunders from across the road.<\/div>\n

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\u201cWasting your time, Alan\u2026never hold water.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Dad was wrong as usual.   One pond was big enough for Andrew to motor in smalll circles. The ponds are fine fringed with the backdrop of<\/div>\n
a growing forest of towering red pines.  But others now dominate\u2026cedars, maple, walnuts…And wild animals thrive.  Wild turkeys<\/div>\n
are present but not seen too often\u2026startled about 30 last summer..<\/div>\n

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And deer love the density of the forest and presence of water.  Unfortunately <\/div>\n
some hunters decided to set up a shooting platform\u2026high up in a tee.  Hardly sporting<\/div>\n
And, worse, an act of trespass.   Hunters even had a night camera tied to a tree<\/div>\n
so they knew where the deer would walk.  Cleared the $%^%$  out.   but police<\/div>\n
were no help.<\/div>\n

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Sadly the multi decade project of establishing a forest has not been a big<\/div>\n
success;    One stand of red pines picked up a root disease and about two<\/div>\n
to four hundred have died.  Maybe more.  Right now we are trying to clear the dead<\/div>\n
trees.  Not an easy task as you can see.    Must try to get the disease stopped. <\/div>\n

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Stumps and slash and fallen rees make the land almost useless except for rabbits to find hiding places from coyotes..<\/div>\n

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Now I wish we had planted maples and other hardwoods.  <\/div>\n

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EPISODE 562    RED PINE FOREST STAGGERING TO DEATH alan skeoch April 15, 2022 NOT ALL PLANS WORK OUT AS ROBBIE BURNS SAID Take our plan to create a forest refuge on our farm. Seemed like a good idea 60 years ago.   \u201cWe will reforest the farm by planting 10,000 Red Pine seedlings.\u201d \u201cWhy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}