The importance of hugging trees

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, by Peter Wohlleben. Greystone Books, 2016, 272 pages.

This book got a lot of attention when it was published in German, in 2015, as Das geheime Leben der Bäume. Luckily we had to wait only a year for an English translation.

Though I believe that Wohlleben’s message about trees is well grounded in science and research, much of it also comes from his experience as a forester. It’s sometimes difficult to know just how metaphorical Wohlleben intends to be — for example, when he speaks of trees feeling pain, or of their experience or their character. But he is quite convincing: There is such a thing as tree behavior. If you observe tree behavior, then you must keep in mind that tree behavior is slow and requires years of observation, even if you do something brutal to a tree such as cut off a large limb or tear off some skin. In talking about the character of trees, he points out that individual trees (though the trees may be closely related genetically) may respond very differently to threats such as drought or an infestation of insects or fungus. It is as though individual trees make different judgments about when to start conserving water, or when to drop their leaves.

One of the most fascinating things that Wohlleben tells us about trees is the reach and power of their underground network, which involves not only the trees’ roots but also the mycelia of the many fungi that live underground in cooperation with the trees. This network can transmit messages about the forest environment (though slowly). And trees exchange water and nutrients with each other. Old trees “nurse” their offspring through their roots. Surviving trees sometimes keep the stumps of dead friends alive for many years. Sick trees get help from healthier neighbors. This altruism of trees makes sense, because all trees in a forest work together to preserve the forest environment — a canopy that catches 97 percent of the light, and where underneath the canopy everything is dark, moist, and friendly to fungi.

Wohlleben will leave you quite convinced that trees are sentient and intelligent in many ways, ways that are particular and appropriate to trees and their long lives (if left alone). Wohlleben also helps us understand how cruelly and stupidly we treat our trees and forests and the risks this poses to our ecosystems.

This book now takes its place among the works of other writers and thinkers who are leading us to what I believe is inevitable, assuming that we don’t destroy our planet. That is that all living things have natural rights, and that these rights must be protected by law.

This book is a must read.

Adams Motor Grader

When I see fine old machines, decaying and unlikely to ever run again, I feel something like pity. There’s something about well-made machines down on their luck that deserves our empathy.

But people do restore these things, and that’s part of why I’m posting the photo. This one is for sale, and it’s parked alongside N.C. 67 just east of Boonville, North Carolina. These were a common sight in my Yadkin Valley childhood. I still see them sometimes (newer ones, of course) on unpaved mountain roads.

Music, politics, and a smidgen of religion

Frankly, I am terrible at shooting and editing video. But I would like to get better at it. The abbey’s new satellite connection to the Internet is super-fast and, for the first time, makes it possible to work with video.

Here’s a wee practice video.

From the abbey organ, a Rodgers 730, this is a chorale prelude by J.S. Bach, BWV 644, “Ach wie nichtig, ach wie flüchtig.” The German hymn was written by Michael Franck in 1652. The English words are by an American, William Allen, who was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1784.

Review: Husqvarna weed-eater on wheels

Eight years ago, after I cleared an acre of elderly pine trees for the abbey and had the stumps removed, it was hard to imagine ever having a weed problem. It was all bare red dirt, scary to look at. I was eager for anything — anything — to grow. Now there are weeds, and lots of them.

Last fall, we bought a Husqvarna chain saw, and Ken was very pleased with it. This spring, an old weed-eater needed replacing. I went to the local hardware store in Walnut Cove with the intention of buying a Husqvarna handheld weed-eater. But outside the front door of the store I saw a Husqvarna HU 675WT weed-eater on wheels, and I was intrigued.

For one, it’s more powerful than a handheld weed-eater, with a four-cycle Briggs & Stratton engine. For two, it uses a much heavier cutting cord. After a demo from Mr. Bill, who owns the store, I bought it. With its handles folded over, it actually fit into the back of the Smart car.

Ken was skeptical. I was afraid I’d make a mistake. Some weeks later, though, he said that it was growing on him.

The weed-eater is almost perfectly balanced, on high wheels. That will easily deceive you into thinking the machine is weightless, which it isn’t. When working on a slope, it feels a bit heavy, but it’s manageable. One of the best things about the weed-eater is the heavy cutting cord, several times the diameter of handheld weed-eaters. Even better, the cord is not on a spool. The cutting cord comes in pre-cut loops. If the cord gets ripped up, it takes about 30 seconds to loop in a new cord. No fussing with a cord spool!

Blackberries are tough. They’re the biggest weed challenge here. This thing will rip down blackberry stalks with ease — though the blackberries retaliate by tearing up the cutting cord if you try to move too fast.

The right side of the machine has a safety guard. On the left side, the cutting cord is exposed. If the cutting cord hits the base of a young tree, it will tear the bark off in no time. So it’s important, when trimming close to your beloved trees and shrubs, to always keep the guard side of the machine turned toward the tree.

The abbey also has a small battery-powered weed-eater for small jobs such as trimming grass. Thus it takes three machines to manage the grass and weeds here — a 28-inch Snapper riding mower, and two sizes of weed-eaters.

If the summer is as rainy as the spring has been, the machines are going to get quite a workout.

Adult spelling bee. We won!

Some months ago, friends from the Democratic Party mentioned an adult spelling bee here in Stokes that occurs each spring. It’s a fundraiser for the East Stokes Outreach Ministry, which provides food, household items, and other kinds of assistance for needy families. “Count me in!” I told her. Teams of four adults compete for the title of county spelling bee champs.

Last night, our team, “The Grimoires,” won the championship. Members of the team were Steve and Olivia Shelton (both retired music teachers here), and Ken and I.

It’s little events like this that help make rural living so much fun. There are many such fundraising events each year — music festivals, suppers, raffles (dinner included) and even a New Year’s Day dip in a lake at the top of Hanging Rock State Park.

As a child, my spelling bee record was pretty good, so it was great fun to do it again as an adult. All four of us got trophies. Here’s the word list:

abscess
barrette
cemetery
deductible
embarrass
facade
graffiti
harass
inevitable
judgmental
knead
lieutenant
massacre
miscellaneous
necessary
odious
paraffin
aficionado
belligerence
camouflage
decaffeinate
effervescent
facsimile
hemorrhage

Switched to satellite

The abbey is in a hidden little valley well off the beaten path, down in the woods. We wouldn’t have it any other way. But such isolation means that getting on the Internet is a problem.

For the past eight years, the abbey’s solution has been Verizon Wireless. I rigged up a nerdish system in the attic — Verizon “air cards” connected to directional antennas, with the antennas pointed toward the nearest Verizon tower (which is almost four miles away). In such a fringe coverage area, the Internet connection is slow and unreliable. The signal has to pass through woods, so performance is even worse when the trees grow new leaves in the spring. The trees have almost finished growing new leaves. We were fed up. Ken suggested that I ought to look at satellite again. He taunted me, actually. He’ll be spending the summer as a park ranger in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, in a park service cabin with only solar power and a satellite setup for Internet that he said probably will be faster than the abbey’s. I couldn’t let that challenge go, could I?

What I found was that, just a few months ago (December 2016) HughesNet launched an enormous new satellite, EchoStar 19. The satellite was built in every nerd’s favorite California suburb — Palo Alto. The satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral on top of an Atlas rocket. After a couple of months of testing, HughesNet began to offer (in March 2017) a broadband service that they call “Gen 5” or “Generation 5,” promising true broadband speeds of 25 Mbps. Not only that, I found their pricing plan entirely fair — unlike Verizon pricing, which is clearly structured to provide as little as possible for prices right at the peak of what the market will bear. I bought HughesNet’s 30 GB per month plan. That plan includes 50 GB per month of off-peak data (2 a.m. until 8 a.m.) free. If you exceed the 30 GB per month, HughesNet does not block service or scalp you for overage gigabytes. Instead they throttle your speeds (to 1 to 3 Mbps) for the remainder of the month, at no cost. Or you can buy reasonably priced “tokens” to get more high speed data. The tokens never expire. When you buy extra data, you get to keep it until you’ve used it all.

Bye-bye Verizon. And good riddance.

In the past, I had avoided satellite because HughesNet has consistently gotten poor reviews for its service. With a new satellite, a new transceiver-router box, and new network infrastructure, I’m counting on HughesNet making a comeback and improving their reputation. If the satellite service here at the abbey continues to be as good as it has been since the system was installed yesterday, I will be extremely happy. I’ll post a review after a month or so.

There is one penalty with satellite Internet service that cannot be avoided. Service must be provided from a geosynchronous satellite. That means that the satellite orbits the earth at exactly the same rate at which the earth rotates. Thus the satellite is always in the same location in the sky, so that you can point a dish at it. The distance from earth required for geosynchronous orbit is just over 26,000 miles. A radio signal to the satellite must travel 46,000 miles — up and down again. Thus the speed of light causes a delay, or “latency,” in response times. That delay is a significant and often noticeable fraction of a second. But will I put up with the latency to get true broadband at a reasonable price? You bet.

So far, download speeds are exceeding HughesNet’s promise of 25 Mbps. We’re consistently getting 45 Mbps. Not only is that fast, it’s the fastest Internet connection I’ve ever used — here in the sticks! Of course, this is a new satellite, probably lightly loaded while HughesNet is adding customers. The speeds probably will drop. Still, I’m counting on HughesNet keeping their 25 Mbps promise. HughesNet is boasting that this satellite service is the first satellite service to meet the FCC’s definition of broadband. So I think that there are regulatory reasons why HughesNet must keep the speed up if they want to advertise it as true broadband.

I hold an Extra-class amateur radio license. I’m accustomed to working with communications apparatus. One of the things that frustrated me, in trying to make do with Verizon Wireless, was the cheapness and flimsiness of the consumer-level electronic components. Piddly “air cards” are about the size of a thumb drive. Their antenna connectors (when they even have one) are tiny, fragile, and unreliable. By comparison, look at the photo below of the feedhorn on the HughesNet satellite dish. The feedhorn is nicely made at a commercial (as opposed to consumer) standard. It has a nice, snug, coaxial connector. Also notice the heat sink (the fins on the bottom). That means it gets warm. If it gets warm, that means there is some power in it. The installer said that the feedhorn operates on a 45 volts DC that is fed to the feedhorn on the coaxial cable.

Yup, we can stream video now. And I’m actually paying less than what I’ve been paying Verizon, keeping in mind that I had both a 3G and a 4G air card for Verizon, because the service was so unreliable that a backup was needed. The new backup method will be tethering the iPhone. But I’m hoping that this HughesNet service is going to remain both fast and reliable.


⬆︎ Ken buries the coaxial cable while the installer sets up the dish


⬆︎ The dish’s feedhorn


⬆︎ The installer used an app to aim the dish. The readout on the phone is coming from the satellite and represents the signal strength as seen from the satellite. This number rose to about 120 after the dish was properly aimed.


⬆︎ The system comes with one box, the HT2000W, which is both the satellite transceiver and the WIFI router.

Hoping for a peach crop

The peach trees in the abbey’s orchard are loaded with young peaches this year. Last year, the entire crop was killed by a late frost.

One of our friends who is a retired agricultural extension agent says that, unless you spray, you don’t get peaches. All sorts of insects prey on peaches, including fruit moths and peach borers. Today Ken gave the peach trees their first dose of reasonably organic pesticides — a spray containing a mixture of neem oil and a pyrethrin.

If the peaches survive the insects, then war with the squirrels, possums, and raccoons will be next.

Rain!


⬆︎ Baby apples

Drought is terrifying at any time of year. But drought in the spring, I think, is the worst. After a so-so start with the spring rains, a weekend front left behind 5.54 inches, and yesterday the sun came out. Now we can have some serious spring.

One of the things that is easy to see when you live in an undeveloped area with lots of wildlife is how drought means hunger for the wild things. During last year’s dry spring, for example, the deer wiped out the day lilies. They did it because they were hungry. The vole population is greater when there’s good rain. The moles flourish. Somebody — probably a raccoon but possibly a skunk — is making little divots all over the yard, orchard, and garden, taking advantage of the soft soil to dig for grubs.

Because there are many young trees at the abbey — including the orchard — good rain in the spring is important, because it’s in the spring that young trees do most of their growing. The surrounding woods also got a deep, deep watering, which will maximum the growth of the wild trees during the merry month of May. If good weather continues, the squirrels will have lots to eat this winter.

Ken’s garden is flourishing. Last night’s supper included mustard greens and roasted turnips. Cilantro pesto is on the menu for tonight. The onions are flourishing. The cabbages are forming heads. The basil and tomatoes are starting to jump.

The long-range forecast looks good. If the voles are happy, I’m happy.


⬆︎ The first fence roses


⬆︎ Spiderwort


⬆︎ Baby peaches, of which we have a great, great many


⬆︎ It seems that some red clover seed hitched its way in in a bag of grass seed. It’s a beautiful plant, so next year we should plant much more of it.


⬆︎ Wildflowers at the edge of the woods, the name of which I do not know