There's a mystery to good-burning balsam

 

I girdled these trees extensively two years ago. They still are not ready to cut down.

I have tried to solve this enigma for decades and still have no explanation. Why are specific dead balsam fir trees pretty good firewood when all the rest are just worthless?

I know what the trees look like on the stump: vertical, no needles, bark split or missing in patches. When the trees are cut down the wood inside is white, dry as a bone and light in weight. This wood will ignite easily, makes excellent kindling, and burns about as long as birch. It does not produce as much heat as birch but it has the advantage of creating little ash. Birch makes a bunch and it is always loaded with clinkers (charcoal) as well. 

Not every dead balsam passes the grade. If the bark is not split the tree will likely be rotten and wet inside. There can be a good firewood tree standing right next to a poor one. I have been trying to purposely kill some trees to see if I can get a handle on what is going on. Is it the length of time the tree stands dead? 

I girdled trees in two different areas in case location had something to do with it. In one place my girdled trees blew over in the wind well before the needles had fallen off. They are still standing in the other spot but even after two years, there are still needles on them. It looks like it will take at least another two years.

My guess about why firewood that died on the stump is so much better than green balsam cut and dried is that something chemically happens to the tree as it dies. Maybe it stores more sugar. It might also allow the wood to become drier. I just don't know.

The good news, in a way, is that lots of our balsam trees are dying. It is not budworm that is killing them this time (that happens about every 40 years); that's easy to see. The ends of the branches will be denuded of needles. Our trees have all their needles. 

I suspect they are simply dying from the drier and hotter summers we are now getting due to climate change. Birch trees are dying too.

The problem seems to only affect the adult trees. Saplings are still nice and green.

So, we should have a lot of balsam firewood in our future.

It's 'puzzling' why chickadees do this

 

Brenda likes working on jigsaw puzzles on a table in a south-facing window. Outside that window is a lilac bush which serves as bleachers for curious chickadees.

The bush an oasis in 'dog days' of winter

 

Dead, gray balsam in center should be good

A good workout for my body and a respite for my soul in mid-winter is to cut dead balsam trees for firewood. 

I snowshoe around on my trails and peer through the bush for the proper tree. It needs to be vertical with absolutely no needles - not even one ancient red one -- and have bark that is splitting. Frequently the trunk and branches will be covered with Old Man's Beard, a lichen.

As I find candidate trees I will at first mark the place with a piece of flagging tape. Later I will leave the easy-going packed trail to make a new one over to the tree. There I give the tree a closer inspection. I hate to cut down a tree only to find it is partially green inside. If it is, I leave it right there. It will be too heavy for me to drag out with my toboggan and won't be worth anything for firewood either. But if my eye is good, the wood will be sound and light and burn well.

Doc waits for me on the long trail back to the woodshed

It is cumbersome to cut down the tree, then cut it into four-foot lengths while on snowshoes but it is still better than sinking to my hips sometimes in the deep snow. I can drag out most trees in two or three trips, each one taking a half-hour or so. 

Tucked back into the bush the way I am the temperature never seems cold. As long as it is sunny, it feels great to be outside, even if the thermometer reads -20 C (0 F).

The whitetail deer know what I'm doing and come running when they hear the chainsaw. By the time I make my second trip they are standing around the tree munching on the Old Man's Beard. 

Chickadees and nuthatches always investigate the activity as well. Flies and other bugs under the bark can come spilling out on the snow as I work.

No dead balsam here but those birches will be what I'm after come spring

Separating the impossible from the free

 Let's say I'm going to take a road camping trip. I've got all the equipment and the vehicle, just no money. Is that possible? Well, this is Canada and there are lakes filled with fish everywhere. I could just eat fish that I caught myself. Also, depending on the season, there are berries and other vegetation to eat. If it was fall, I could hunt. Sure, I could possibly feed myself on this trip. Since I am an Ontario resident, I could camp on Crown land without charge, but not in parks. So, it wouldn't be as comfortable as staying where there are showers and flush toilets but it is certainly possible, maybe even desirable. 

Now what about fuel? I could fill up the tank with gasoline at home and go about 300 miles (500 kilometers). Then I would be out of gas. That would be the end of the trip. It would be impossible for me to create more gasoline without money.

Now what if my vehicle was electric? Could I possibly recharge it myself without buying electricity? As part of my camping paraphernalia I could have a raft of solar panels. These could be set up to capture the sun's energy and recharge the vehicle. It might take longer than I wanted but eventually the vehicle would be ready to move on and it would cost nothing.

Instead of taking a camping trip, I might decide to take a boat that I can afford and motor across the Atlantic or Pacific and see the sights. I've got a really good outboard on the boat. How much gasoline will I need to take? It turns out any boat in an ordinary person's price range cannot carry all the gas drums it would take to make the voyage, let alone pay for it all. On the other hand I could easily afford a sailboat that would make the voyage for free. 

You can sail on lakes too, of course, as well as paddle or row. It costs nada for fuel.

What else can we do for free instead of buying fuel? We can dry our clothes on a clothesline instead of in a dryer. We can walk to the store instead of taking the car. We could bicycle. You can pedal along quite easily at about 20 mph with a decent bike. 

Other than walking, you do need to buy something to start out but from that point on there is virtually no cost.

 

Let's get going again

 

I'm stuck in writing the next chapter of Yankee, so let's talk about something else for awhile. We're right in the middle of winter and that's a good time to muse about things. I did this on the old blog one other time. See Shadow. 

****

Want to reduce your risk from global climate change? Move! That's a joke.

Seriously, if you live in a community with river, falls, island, rapids, canal, creek, beach, bay, cove, point, lake or stream in its name, get out now. Head to higher ground but not to where there are trees or other vegetation that can burn. Don't go near the coasts. Better to stay where you are because the coasts will soon be coming to you.

Things could be worse. You could live in British Columbia. In 2021 that province saw record drought, record precipitation, record high temperatures and record low temperatures. In one mega precipitation event ALL of its highways were wiped out. The good news is...well, actually there isn't any other than they actually have traffic slowly moving again after months of around-the-clock repairs.

If we have learned anything from the fires, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes it is to keep a full tank of gas in your car and don't store valuables in the basement. No one is going to laugh any more if you have your tent, sleeping bags and camping equipment ready to go in the trunk or back of the truck. We need to be ready to move at a moment's notice and to survive for weeks until we can get back to what is left of home and make an insurance claim.

****

I would like to report that we have bought our first electric vehicle. I would like to do that but unfortunately, it wouldn't be true. Even if we had the money for one, which we don't, there are none for sale in Thunder Bay and barely any in Canada. I just read a survey that found 70 per cent of Canadians would consider buying an electric vehicle. The carmakers heard our plea and gave us gas vehicles with hands-free driving and really big computer screens on the dash. Pretty much the same thing, they figured. 

It reminds me of the energy crisis in the '70s. The public wanted small, energy-efficient vehicles and the North American automakers gave us little crappy cars that rusted-out in a year and got about a mile more per gallon. Pretty much the same thing. That's when we all turned to Japanese vehicles.

****

I've been thinking a lot about Cognitive Dissonance. That's the psychological term when you have two conflicting beliefs in your head. It causes you so much grief that you must choose between them. That choice could be to accept a new belief but it can also be to make absurd rationalizations to keep the old one. It explains why people can make so many ridiculous choices.

****

All around Red Lake, including right at our cabin, there are sections of the lake shore that are eroding. No one has a good explanation for this but one possibility is that the shoreline is still reacting to the higher water level created by a dam on the Chukuni River back in the '40s. It resulted in the lake being four feet higher. Whatever the reason, many of us with the problem would like to find a remedy. Plants with long roots would likely hold the soil in place but picking the plant is a bit of sticky wicket. It needs to be fast-growing, have long roots, and (here's the rub) be beaver-proof. 

After spending decades planting every native species of tree only to eventually see them all carted away to the big rodent's lodges, I came up with a new idea and it's one that should fit with the extreme drought and heat we are getting from climate change. Promise you won't laugh now. Cactuses! Or Cacti, if you prefer. I said don't laugh! I would like to see the varmints try to sink their buck teeth into these. For a fact, there are cacti that grow in Northern British Columbia that tolerate winter temperatures of -40. We're going to try a couple but as well we are thinking of planting some prairie grass species, like Little Bluestem. 

****

Speaking of the Prairies, shouldn't we be changing Woodland Caribou Provincial Park west of Red Lake to Prairie Dog Wilderness Park? It is perpetually on fire every summer. The Prairies are just to its west and with all the fires that prevent the forest from growing prairie species must be starting to take over.