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| DEER BROWSE LINE ON WHITE CEDAR |
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| UNBROWSED BALSAM FIR GROWING UNDER WHITE CEDAR |
Monday, 9:00 AM. 33 degrees F, wind E, light with moderate gusts. The humidity is 84%, the barometer stands at 29.26 and we are socked in with fog.
There is a large stand of young white cedar (Thuja occidentals) on Hwy K that I have been watching for several years.
Every winter there is a heavy browse line where the deer eat the foliage right to the trunks as high as they can reach (they love young white cedar), but foliage under the heavy snow cover is left uneaten, making interesting topiaries of the white cedar trees. Saturday I noticed some uneaten branches within the browse line of a number of the trees and wondered why they were not eaten by the hungry deer. Closer examination revealed that the uneaten greenery was not white cedar at all, but balsam fir (Abies balsamea), which the deer find unpalatable.
The white cedar trees have acted as a nurse crop for the balsam fir seedlings, which are not being eaten by the deer and will eventually overtake the nurse trees. It will continue to be an interesting, changing scene in the coming years. The next time you see a stand of balsam fir, look closely; you will see no browse line. Look at a grove of whiter cedar, and there will be a distinct browse line (if there is none, there are few or no deer in the area).
I see there is a petition posted on the internet which calls on Sarah Palin to stop saying that the government is stockpiling billions of small arms bullets to wage a war on the American people. I would suggest it more appropriate to petition the Obama administration to stop stockpiling the ammunition, with which by all accounts they could wage a quarter-century of conventional war (sounds like Saddam Hussein, doesn't it?).
I don't think even the present government is evil enough to actually be planning a massacre of its own citizens, but what I am sure they are doing through this ridiculous and totally unwarranted action is attempting to limit the amount of ammunition available to the public, as well as to raise the price by creating great scarcity of popular small arms ammunition. They have managed with their bumbling hypocrisy to light the fires of paranoia in mega-millions of honest and law abiding citizens and fanned the glowing coals of actual rebellion.
Hmm... on further consideration, maybe they are smarter and more evil than I give them credit for.
I see there is a petition posted on the internet which calls on Sarah Palin to stop saying that the government is stockpiling billions of small arms bullets to wage a war on the American people. I would suggest it more appropriate to petition the Obama administration to stop stockpiling the ammunition, with which by all accounts they could wage a quarter-century of conventional war (sounds like Saddam Hussein, doesn't it?).
I don't think even the present government is evil enough to actually be planning a massacre of its own citizens, but what I am sure they are doing through this ridiculous and totally unwarranted action is attempting to limit the amount of ammunition available to the public, as well as to raise the price by creating great scarcity of popular small arms ammunition. They have managed with their bumbling hypocrisy to light the fires of paranoia in mega-millions of honest and law abiding citizens and fanned the glowing coals of actual rebellion.
Hmm... on further consideration, maybe they are smarter and more evil than I give them credit for.
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