Still in the blast furnace stage of heat — 105* yesterday.
By 8 in the morning we were roasting, but I didn’t turn on the swamp cooler until 9:00 a.m. I was trying to keep as much natural air in the house as possible. After that we just couldn’t do it.
There are lots of fires around us, one is up by the Silver Jack Reservoir near Cimaron. I would say, maybe 30 miles from Montrose. If memory serves me right it was lighting started.
You are looking at all the smoke around us.
I wish the forestry service (or whoever makes the decisions) would cut down all the dead and dying trees. They really need to get rid off all the fuel for those fires.
When we went to Yellowstone last fall the forests there were clean…nothing dead or in a dying stage. I saw new trees growing in lighting started fire burns, which was really nice to see.
It isn’t just humans that loose their homes or perish in these nasty fires animals do also and then many times they lose their lives.
When I was a child the lumber jacks would find a disease tree — go get the forest service ranger, show him the tree…it was marked…then the loggers could come back in and remove the tree, put it in a separate pile, tests were run on the tree to see why it was sick and what to do about it, then the tree was headed to the mill.
That doesn’t seem to be the case now. It looks like the trees are allowed to die so the bug or disease finishes off the tree — jumps to another tree and proceeded to decimate all of the lovely old trees setting up perfect fuel for a fire.
In talking to a ranger a while back and relating what I just said, he told me that the idea (I may get this a little off) is to let the forest take care of itself —so to speak. If one species dies then the fire will clean the land so new can grow. That maybe so, but watching these lovely old trees (here in Colorado it takes a long, long, long time for a tree to grow) die is really sad to me. (If any ranger or forest manager is reading this maybe you could leave us a comment so we can understand—understanding often helps.)
Anyway, the following is an older photo of where the Silver Jack Reservoir resides…beautiful country up there and extremely rugged.
We had a slight rainfall last night. Really nothing to speak of lots of wind and a few splatters then it blew on leaving us behind.
But it left us a touch of a rainbow! My first of the summer!
Well the day is waiting and I must get out there and get my watering done before the horrendous heat saps me and everything else.
Hugs,
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 
my husband worked in Yellowstone in 1988 when it burned and I actually went out for a few days. It was interesting and terrifying all at once. Hope it cools off for you! Love the rainbow 🙂
LikeLike
The folks coming up with the bright ideas usually live a long way from the problem and work in nice, sterile, air conditioned offices. They have no faith in the centuries of learning how to live with the land that is accrued by farmers, ranchers and loggers. What a shame….really even a crime!
I heard this morning that some of the flooding up our way was exacerbated by them closing the river dams again trying to get the pleasure boats moving. How nice that they were willing to sacrifice towns and homes for pleasure boats….but it is just too typical I guess.
LikeLike
Sending cooling, damp magical thoughts your way.
LikeLike
I am already dreading the heat we will have later today in Idaho. It is no fun.
We went by a marker for the historic fire of 1910. The fire burned 3 million acres in Idaho, Montana and Washington… in 2 days! After that the forest service started ‘managing’ timberland and fighting fires. There are those folks, now, who argue against this, saying the natural progression of forests, fires and regrowth is better. Who knows. It does seem that if the undergrowth is burned regularly, and fuel is removed before it becomes too extensive, then crown fires won’t occur and fires won’t sweep as far and be as damaging.
It is a scary thing – regardless!
LikeLike
Well said Linda. And Cyndi. It is a crime to let these magnificent forests burn. Not only does it burn the dead and dying trees, but it scorches the healthy ones and then they become the next to go. And you are right. It takes decades for trees to grow. But with all the lumber mills closed or closing where do the trees go? If you get rid of the under growth fuel, you let sunlight in for all the little trees to grow.
Stay safe and cool. 🙂
LikeLike
a trace of hope but no relief for you. 😦
LikeLike
The way forests are managed today is a crime. If they want the forest to “take care of itself” they shouldn’t even try to put out fires. What a stupid idea. If they would remove the brush and dead trees, we would not have these raging fires. You and I could manage it much better, Linda.
LikeLike
I’m not a forester, but having worked in the Black Hills and talking to the foresters there, there is no way to know when the trees are infected. I was told that the first year of infestation has no sign of disease/bugs. By the second and third year, the bugs have moved to a new area and the trees are starting to die. I don’t have an answer for why they don’t cut the dead trees, except that the number of dead trees is probably overwhelming, there may not be enough loggers, the terrain may make it prohibitively expensive to log or even impossible to get men and equipment in to log. Then when you throw congress and their rules, the environmentalists and a myriad of other things that I haven’t even thought of into the mix, it boggles the mind. I don’t know if anyone truly has an answer to the problem.
Let’s hope the fires are out soon.
LikeLike
Linda;
Sorry for your excessive heat there — we’re actually having a “cool” spell here in Texas. Highs around 90 for the next few days.
I enjoyed seeing that picture of the road to Silver Jack, with Chimney Rock and Courthouse Mountain in the background. That’s on the Owl Creek Pass Road, which my dad surveyed back in about 1960. Dad was an engineer for the U.S. Forest Service. He was also a firefighter as were all “able-bodied men” in the USFS. Scary, scary times. He’d be gone for days, come home exhausted and smelling like he’d been barbecued. But at least he came home, and sometimes some didn’t.
Anyway, I continue to enjoy all your posts and the touch with home.
You folks take good care.
GW
LikeLike
We have the same problem in Kansas. The Flint Hills have been well taken care of by the farmers and ranchers. The last few years the folks in Wichita and Kansas City complain about the smoke when they burn pastures in the spring. It gets rid of old grass and scrub brush and other things,so the grass can grow up and be good feed for the cattle. To many that have not idea about that area,said the burning should stop . The folks that live in the Flint Hills and others finally got the reason across to the city people. They also have a method of burning now ,but there will probably be more complaints. The folks got a lot of people come out and see what it does and has changed some minds. It is just like the city folks do not understand how food is grown and some still don’t care.
We live south of Wichita, Ks. more rain this year then the last 2 years. Fall crops should be better this year.
Take care. Sharon and Harry Drake June 30,2013
LikeLike
Awesome rainbow!
My son works with a group in JH WY TREEFIGHT as they have a beetle destroying their trees out there and last year the whole mountain was a scary place to be when a fire over took it and they nearly lost communication with the world. They plant more and more trees to fight the many that are dying not sure why dead is not hauled off and burnt in NH if it is down it is our to take on State lands. Lots of poor people heat their homes with it in VT, NH and Maine
LikeLike
When it comes to the forest it’s much more than trees. Forests are home to many organisms that find food and home in dead trees. For cubes i used to do a station on food in the forest. You always had a nearby dead tree where you could show what was eating it. the problem is that people build in the forest and then want tot be protected. It doesn’t work that way.
LikeLike
My mom reminded me the West, South-West, is hotter than here, too. I hope you get some cooler weather soon. ♥
it’s a pretty little rainbow, isn’t it? 🙂
LikeLike
I agree, it’s good to understand why some things are the way they are. I did hear on the news that one was started by lightning. It breaks my heart when I hear they were caused by arson. Sending you ocean breezes!
LikeLike
Linda, the heat sounds horrendous… does this happen every year, or is this one of the hundred year exceptions? I can understand your grief and despair over the management of the forests. Forestry isn’t about letting them look after themselves, it’s about looking after them !!!
You only have to look at a garden that is left to look after itself to see the problem !!!
LikeLike
Ugh – such heat! I can’t fathom ever living in those conditions again…
As I understand the current theory of Forest Management, it’s Nature Knows Better Then We Do, so they leave the down-trees and brush to provide habitat, then let the fires burn when they’re lightning-set – some species of pine tree seeds won’t germinate without being burned…Problem is, an all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work either. People are here, people have changed things. Lives and property need to be protected…
LikeLike
We are hot and dry too, yesterday we lost 19 hotshot firefighters about 50 miles from here. Such a sad day and lots of grief for all those families. I hope we don’t have any more large fires, this is the second in two weeks in that same area. Send your thoughts and prayers to these families of the lost firefighters. Prescott AZ We all need some moisture here in the West/Southwest.
LikeLike
It seems like forest fires are getting worse..and destroying more acres. I am not sure what the right approach is..control burns m used to be the approach..now they just let nature takes its course. Sad. We try to clear out all the dead and down trees on our property. I think. just my opinion that not huge groups of one kind of tree should be planted..plant some Pines mixed with Oak and Ash..or Aspen.
I minored in forestry..there is no “right” solution but our forests do need to be managed better. I think the Dept of Interior went through budget cuts..about the time of the Yellowstones fires in the 1980s. Politics suck:(
LikeLike