With the assistance of a forester, I have learned of the presence of several members of an invasive species in my yard. They are invasive simply by their presence well outside of their normal range. Having found their way into the local environment they certainly seem to have flourished. I will leave them right where they are; they are a whole bigger than I am by 10-fold or more. ( I could gather up a tape measure, protractor, pen, and paper and calculate a more accurate measure of their height, rather than guesstimate how many of me's would it take to stand that tall.) In addition to the disproportionate comparison of height, they are also a whole lot better looking than I.
I am speaking of a group of three Grand Fir (Abies grandis). They are known by several common names, including Western White Fir. There are two varieties and their home range is the Pacific Northwest. The home range of one, Coastal Grand Fir, (var. grandis) is the Oregon/Washington coast and the western slope of the Rockies. The home range of the other, Interior Grand Fir, (var. idahoensis) is the eastern slopes of the Rockies and the Cascades. They are reported to be hardy to zone 6. According to the United States Department of Agriculture mapping, these particular trees are currently residing in zone 5 or 5a, so they may be pushing that limit. They grow in elevations from sea level to 5,100 feet. My yard is a little more than 600 feet above sea level. One characteristic I have made note of over the years is that they don't drop cones like most pines. The 3-4" cones form only within the top 10 or so feet of the tree. The cones fall apart or disintegrate in place, if you will, approximately 6 months after pollination. One does not find intact cones, that have dried and released their seeds, on the ground. According to the forester the needles have a characteristic lemon or citrus odor when crushed or broken. (I am able to concur with this observation.) The species is a valuable source of lumber and is one of several species marketed as hem fir.
Off to the side of this small grove of Grand Fir and the several off-spring which they have produced are several White Spruce (Picea glauca). This is a species of the climax boreal forest and thrive in zones 3 through 7. A northwestern most slice of Wisconsin apparently makes the grade as boreal forest country. Therefore these folks are more native. All in all, the locals and the interlopers are getting along just fine. The Grand Fir, if true to their nature and adequately supported by the immediate environment, will continue to increasingly tower over their Spruce neighbors in the years ahead.
I can only speculate how the Grand Fir arrived in northern Wisconsin. The story is told that a previous owner of several lots in this city block was an employee of a county or state forestry department. Before these lots were developed and partially cleared for home sites, the owner planted extra seedlings that he had brought home from work. (I do not know the circumstances under which he found himself in possession of "extras.") I estimate that this all took place prior to the outbreak of World War II during the days of the WPA.
I find myself wondering if there are stands of Grand Fir elsewhere in the county. Did they thrive well and long enough to be harvested for paper making or some other wood product in the years since? Are any still standing today?
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Saturday, July 15, 2017
This is one of those posts that as it begins I have absolutely no idea where and how it will end. It may be very brief, and it may simply end.
Today would have been my father's 105th birthday. I don't know what it is about the number 5 and numbers ending it 5. I recall noting what would have been his 95th birthday and what was the 5th anniversary of his death, both of which occurred in 2007. These days were not marked by a passing thought of their significance in this respect, but by a certain persistent attention to, if not preoccupation with, the events of 1912 and 2002.
A Google search on the meaning of the number 5 reveals some interesting comments. Five is the number of the human being: four limbs and head and also five senses. It is also the number symbolizing marriage as it combines the female number 2 and the male number 3. I am afraid all this seems rather arbitrary, and doesn't strike me as helpful in answering my question: what is it about the number 5?
Now that I've pointed out this apparent significance to myself, I can only imagine that I will continue to dwell on the cycling of 5's going forward. I may be hooked by what occurred without any explanation during the past 10 years or the mystery of why it continues to occupy my thoughts or a combination thereof. It will not be be anniversary itself that has me thinking. It will be thinking about the anniversary that has me thinking.
Next month will mark what would have been my mother's 95th birthday. December will mark the 15th anniversary of my father's death. Two grandchildren will celebrate their 5th birthdays later this summer--one in late August and one in early September. That is a lot of 5's to think about during the remaining half of 2017. It may be best to think about the full range of 5's rather than to dwell on any one or just those with similar characteristics and emotional impacts.
Today would have been my father's 105th birthday. I don't know what it is about the number 5 and numbers ending it 5. I recall noting what would have been his 95th birthday and what was the 5th anniversary of his death, both of which occurred in 2007. These days were not marked by a passing thought of their significance in this respect, but by a certain persistent attention to, if not preoccupation with, the events of 1912 and 2002.
A Google search on the meaning of the number 5 reveals some interesting comments. Five is the number of the human being: four limbs and head and also five senses. It is also the number symbolizing marriage as it combines the female number 2 and the male number 3. I am afraid all this seems rather arbitrary, and doesn't strike me as helpful in answering my question: what is it about the number 5?
Now that I've pointed out this apparent significance to myself, I can only imagine that I will continue to dwell on the cycling of 5's going forward. I may be hooked by what occurred without any explanation during the past 10 years or the mystery of why it continues to occupy my thoughts or a combination thereof. It will not be be anniversary itself that has me thinking. It will be thinking about the anniversary that has me thinking.
Next month will mark what would have been my mother's 95th birthday. December will mark the 15th anniversary of my father's death. Two grandchildren will celebrate their 5th birthdays later this summer--one in late August and one in early September. That is a lot of 5's to think about during the remaining half of 2017. It may be best to think about the full range of 5's rather than to dwell on any one or just those with similar characteristics and emotional impacts.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
They say young men dream dreams and old men dream the dreams of youth. That might well be what reminiscence is all about. In the process of aging, not unlike both good and bad wine, dreams become memories subject to both aggrandizement and minimization. How dangerous is either? It may depend upon the presence or absence of an intermediate step and a well-founded appraisal of that intermediate step. The intermediate step in question is some degree of the earlier actualization of those dreams. Reminiscence (1)retells our close calls with greatness, disaster, and the in-between degrees of the same, (2)recalls who we once thought we were and who we would become, and (3)simultaneously provides entertainment for others and a reassurance for ourselves that we may continue to have access to a future with memories not yet made and reminiscences not yet given voice.
I suspect there is a degree and varying degrees of danger in reminiscence. Sometimes it feels like driving in reverse with only the view through a clouded rear window to guide one. At other times it feels like driving forward while looking back with only the backside of the rear-view mirror for guidance. The latter only works well when the vehicle is sitting in one's driveway with the motor running, the transmission in park, and the parking brake engaged. Tapping the gas pedal creates the sounds and shimmy of the perception of actual movement. This is about as safe as it gets. At least until someone takes the keys away.
I suspect there is a degree and varying degrees of danger in reminiscence. Sometimes it feels like driving in reverse with only the view through a clouded rear window to guide one. At other times it feels like driving forward while looking back with only the backside of the rear-view mirror for guidance. The latter only works well when the vehicle is sitting in one's driveway with the motor running, the transmission in park, and the parking brake engaged. Tapping the gas pedal creates the sounds and shimmy of the perception of actual movement. This is about as safe as it gets. At least until someone takes the keys away.
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Thursday, April 6, 2017
I wrapped up another read this week. The book has been returned to the local library and my notes were filed, as in "dropped in the bin." They were on top of the stack as one would expect so I was able to easily retrieve them to help write this post.
The title is The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel. It is the story of Christopher Knight who spent some 27 years sequestered in the woods of Maine in a primitive camp which he kept stocked by raiding cabins and a youth camp in the area. It is estimated that he committed in excess of 1,000 break-ins over the years, and there were only two face-to-face encounters with other persons during these years. The treatment of the story is very much in the style of Jon Krakauer and his Into the Wild, but Krakauer is much more thorough in his works, in my judgment. Finkel covers multiple facets of the story and makes use of a variety of outside resources in his attempt to get beyond the facts. The facts are relatively easily knowable. Considerable time and effort coupled with persistence and an inquisitive nature means that job gets done. The hard part is trying to ascertain the individual's motivation behind the behaviors, which can be described as peculiar at a minimum. Finkel had direct and sustained communication with his subject after his arrest. Krakauer did not. But even with that difference, Finkel was no more able to get at the internal machinations of his main character than Krakauer. The books ends with more unanswered questions than questions answered.
How is that? I suggest that this is the very nature of this "business" of human activity--physical and intellectual. One's internal workings, the motivations behind choices made and not made, and the intended consequences of one's thoughts and actions are unknowable to the very actor and thinker him or herself. To know something, we need to be able to put it into words and to be able to express it via the vehicle of language. Our thoughts are essentially internalized speech. The language, which we use to communicate within ourselves and among ourselves, is a common language. The vocabulary and grammar have been constructed over centuries. Throughout this same period of time, these have been evolving and continue to evolve. This evolution at time can render meaningless in a contemporary setting something that seemed so crystal clear at some previous day and context. What if the very place, which gives rise to the causal factors underlying one's individual view of and expression of this same place, the environment in which one finds him or herself, and the human activity which results, is so unique to the individual that the available common language is unable to communicate meaning and understanding? Language as the vehicle of social exchange and of thought and contemplation falls short of the task at hand. One is left dumbfounded, or makes believe that one knows that of which they speak, or knowingly creates figures of speech, such as metaphors, to do the best job possible in communicating whatever it is to oneself as well as to others.
Still another option might be to find/create a vehicle of communication that is so individualized and that sits outside of some commonly accepted standard, that it becomes labelled as insane. Some special persons may be able to bridge this divide between the knowable and the unknowable, which may be more accurately described as the speakable and the unspeakable. This may well be the creative genius of the great thinkers and artists, who are able keep one foot in both spheres. These individuals are able to incorporate enough of the sane with the insane, that the rest of us marvel at their genius and creativity and reward them handsomely. Even then the unknowingness communicated frightens some and excites others. Our individual response to the art of the other reflects our individual life experiences, our personalities, and our prior choices rather than any objective criteria. At this level, there are no objective criteria; we are at the level of individual mystery which is accessible only by direct experience and which is not able to be put into words as we might think about it (discuss it with oneself) or speak about it (discuss it with others).
This author's futile effort is insightful, not only as we attempt to understand others, but as we attempt to understand ourselves.
The title is The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel. It is the story of Christopher Knight who spent some 27 years sequestered in the woods of Maine in a primitive camp which he kept stocked by raiding cabins and a youth camp in the area. It is estimated that he committed in excess of 1,000 break-ins over the years, and there were only two face-to-face encounters with other persons during these years. The treatment of the story is very much in the style of Jon Krakauer and his Into the Wild, but Krakauer is much more thorough in his works, in my judgment. Finkel covers multiple facets of the story and makes use of a variety of outside resources in his attempt to get beyond the facts. The facts are relatively easily knowable. Considerable time and effort coupled with persistence and an inquisitive nature means that job gets done. The hard part is trying to ascertain the individual's motivation behind the behaviors, which can be described as peculiar at a minimum. Finkel had direct and sustained communication with his subject after his arrest. Krakauer did not. But even with that difference, Finkel was no more able to get at the internal machinations of his main character than Krakauer. The books ends with more unanswered questions than questions answered.
How is that? I suggest that this is the very nature of this "business" of human activity--physical and intellectual. One's internal workings, the motivations behind choices made and not made, and the intended consequences of one's thoughts and actions are unknowable to the very actor and thinker him or herself. To know something, we need to be able to put it into words and to be able to express it via the vehicle of language. Our thoughts are essentially internalized speech. The language, which we use to communicate within ourselves and among ourselves, is a common language. The vocabulary and grammar have been constructed over centuries. Throughout this same period of time, these have been evolving and continue to evolve. This evolution at time can render meaningless in a contemporary setting something that seemed so crystal clear at some previous day and context. What if the very place, which gives rise to the causal factors underlying one's individual view of and expression of this same place, the environment in which one finds him or herself, and the human activity which results, is so unique to the individual that the available common language is unable to communicate meaning and understanding? Language as the vehicle of social exchange and of thought and contemplation falls short of the task at hand. One is left dumbfounded, or makes believe that one knows that of which they speak, or knowingly creates figures of speech, such as metaphors, to do the best job possible in communicating whatever it is to oneself as well as to others.
Still another option might be to find/create a vehicle of communication that is so individualized and that sits outside of some commonly accepted standard, that it becomes labelled as insane. Some special persons may be able to bridge this divide between the knowable and the unknowable, which may be more accurately described as the speakable and the unspeakable. This may well be the creative genius of the great thinkers and artists, who are able keep one foot in both spheres. These individuals are able to incorporate enough of the sane with the insane, that the rest of us marvel at their genius and creativity and reward them handsomely. Even then the unknowingness communicated frightens some and excites others. Our individual response to the art of the other reflects our individual life experiences, our personalities, and our prior choices rather than any objective criteria. At this level, there are no objective criteria; we are at the level of individual mystery which is accessible only by direct experience and which is not able to be put into words as we might think about it (discuss it with oneself) or speak about it (discuss it with others).
This author's futile effort is insightful, not only as we attempt to understand others, but as we attempt to understand ourselves.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
It is good to come upon a book or article every so often that either confirms or challenges one's thinking. These experiences remind one of the value of a broad-based liberal education and lifelong learning. This is such an article:
http://religiondispatches.org/what-a-forgotten-19th-century-suffragist-can-teach-us-about-womens-rights-vs-the-religious-right/
One often hears the complaint that is phrased something like this: "The only problem with this country is that it is no longer a Christian nation." The assumption is made that the Founding Fathers were devout Christians and the documents they drafted embody Christian thought, morals, and theories of social organization.
The Founding Fathers (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine, as a representative selection) were either committed Deists or very sympathetic to that philosophy. During the Age of Enlightenment or Modern Rationalism (17th and 18th centuries), Deists did not identify themselves as Christians nor were they so identified by the various Christian sects of the day. Deism was seen as the antithesis of Christian theology and thought. These are the folks who then drafted the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and much of the federal legislation of this era. Their roles in their respective colonies and later states found them drafting parallel documents and legislation on that level as well.
The above article points out the challenges faced by those during the Third Great Awakening (1850 to 1900), who were genuinely troubled by the absence of Christian underpinnings to the great American experiment in governance. They proposed a revision of the original documents to include specific Christian references. As they read the original documents, they clearly understood them to be irreligious to a fault. It is important that 21st century Americans understand this so that in our search for the intent and design of the Founding Fathers, we do not mistake the 1870's for the 1770's as we struggle to identify the original intent/originality of these documents and not read into them meaning that was never intended.
One might argue that the absence of a Christian component was an honest oversight by the authors of these documents. Such an argument is only valid if one ignores the conflict between Deism and the various Christian hierarchies in both the Old and New Worlds at this time. It also ignores the anti-Catholicism and the Christian denominational factionalism apparent within and among the original colonies during the 18th century. The Christian component is not there, and it is not there by design. The intent of the Founding Fathers was to found a state based on reason guided by that which they considered to be the soundest philosophy of their day. They may have been elitists or starry-eyed dreamers, but they were who they were. Whether we like it or not, we are their heirs; the inheritance is what it is. Our first charge is to do our due diligence and to understand that inheritance in terms which are aligned as closely as possible with the original intent of the authors. If we do so, I am confident we will find that the wisdom and foresight present therein are able to provide us with valuable guidance as we navigate the contemporary challenges of racial and ethnic diversity, multiculturalism, and religious sectarianism.
http://religiondispatches.org/what-a-forgotten-19th-century-suffragist-can-teach-us-about-womens-rights-vs-the-religious-right/
One often hears the complaint that is phrased something like this: "The only problem with this country is that it is no longer a Christian nation." The assumption is made that the Founding Fathers were devout Christians and the documents they drafted embody Christian thought, morals, and theories of social organization.
The Founding Fathers (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine, as a representative selection) were either committed Deists or very sympathetic to that philosophy. During the Age of Enlightenment or Modern Rationalism (17th and 18th centuries), Deists did not identify themselves as Christians nor were they so identified by the various Christian sects of the day. Deism was seen as the antithesis of Christian theology and thought. These are the folks who then drafted the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and much of the federal legislation of this era. Their roles in their respective colonies and later states found them drafting parallel documents and legislation on that level as well.
The above article points out the challenges faced by those during the Third Great Awakening (1850 to 1900), who were genuinely troubled by the absence of Christian underpinnings to the great American experiment in governance. They proposed a revision of the original documents to include specific Christian references. As they read the original documents, they clearly understood them to be irreligious to a fault. It is important that 21st century Americans understand this so that in our search for the intent and design of the Founding Fathers, we do not mistake the 1870's for the 1770's as we struggle to identify the original intent/originality of these documents and not read into them meaning that was never intended.
One might argue that the absence of a Christian component was an honest oversight by the authors of these documents. Such an argument is only valid if one ignores the conflict between Deism and the various Christian hierarchies in both the Old and New Worlds at this time. It also ignores the anti-Catholicism and the Christian denominational factionalism apparent within and among the original colonies during the 18th century. The Christian component is not there, and it is not there by design. The intent of the Founding Fathers was to found a state based on reason guided by that which they considered to be the soundest philosophy of their day. They may have been elitists or starry-eyed dreamers, but they were who they were. Whether we like it or not, we are their heirs; the inheritance is what it is. Our first charge is to do our due diligence and to understand that inheritance in terms which are aligned as closely as possible with the original intent of the authors. If we do so, I am confident we will find that the wisdom and foresight present therein are able to provide us with valuable guidance as we navigate the contemporary challenges of racial and ethnic diversity, multiculturalism, and religious sectarianism.
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