7:45 AM. 56 degrees, wind W, light with stronger gusts. The channel is dark and wrinkled. The sky is mostly cloudy, which the barometer also predicts.
Bayfield streets have been torn up every summer for the last five years, replacing hundred year old infrastructure. Ninth Street is completely devastated, as has been Fifth Street and parts of others. The Coup de grass will be in a couple of years when the business district has its turn. Anyway, it is all necessary and gets done when money is available from the usual sources.
One of my favorite activities while having morning coffee is watching the distant quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) leaves dance in even the slightest breeze. The mechanism which allows this movement is a very long, flat leaf petiole. No other tree that I am familiar with really has this characteristic, for which I can think of no survival advantage. The quaking, or trembling, aspen is the most widely distributed tree in North America, occurring throughout most of Canada to the tundra, in New England, the Lake States, and the western mountains south into Mexico. They are mostly of medium height and short lived, but provide browse for deer and other mammals and the buds and seeds are the food of many birds. They are very important economically for pulp wood, sprouting again from the roots when harvested. Their golden fall leaves are iconic to the Rockies. All told they are one of the most important trees in the economies of man and nature. But why do they tremble and quake? I can think of no other reason than for my pleasure.
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