APPLE ORCHARDS IN BLOOM, AND A VERY LARGE HEADACHE

A MIXED MORNING

FRIST APPLE TREE TO BLOOM

PEAR TREE IN BLOOM

Friday, 8:00 AM.  62 degrees F, wind SSW, calm to light with stronger gusts.  The sky is mixed clouds and blue.  The barometer stands at 29.57 in. and the humidity is 87%.  We had some significant showers yesterday afternoon and everything is looking green and lush, even though  trees and shrubs are are not yet fully leafed out.  I mowed the lawn for the first time yesterday.
   The apple trees in the orchard country are just beginning to bloom but should be in full bloom in a few days.  Pears are also blooming.  It all seems very late, but I think only because we humans have such short memories.  I will report, second hand,  that Jim Hauser Senior, who is the oldest among the current orchardists and whose family business goes back way over a century, says that the end of May was always the anticipated date for apples to blossom.  The cool, damp spring with no late frost has been good for the fruit crops and the bulbs and perennial gardens, if not for the tourist industry.
   As regards all the Obama administration officials who have or will be taking the Fifth Amendment while testifying before Congress, I can only warn them that "taking the fifth" usually causes one a very large headache.

CHAIN SAWS AND PACEMAKERS

BULBS STILL BLOOMING IN THE GARDEN

CURBS OUT ON 6TH ST.

FOGGY MORNING

NEW SWEDISH BABY

Thursday, 8:45 AM.  60 degrees F on the porch, 52 downtown. The wind is calm. The sky is overcast and it is quite foggy, and the fog horns are sounding.  We got a bit more than .5" of rain last night, a welcome shower for the gardens.  The barometer stands at 29.71" and the humidity is 97%.  We likely will get additional rain.
   The road construction through town is proceeding nicely, and the old curbing along 6th street is all removed and ready to be replaced.
   I recently gained access to a great amount of firewood, dried slash, small logs etc. from logging on the Johnson property where I deer hunt.  My old chain saw is a relic, without a modern safety chain brake, and I no longer use it, so I went to Axel's in Ashland yesterday and bought a new 16" Stihl saw, made in Sweden and just the right size and feel for what I want to do.  But, when reading the operating manual there was a warning about chain saw spark plugs interfering with pacemakers.  I have gotten so used to my pacemaker that I never gave it a thought.
   I looked the subject up on the internet and the information was rather inconclusive, so I called the manufacturer, Boston Scientific, and was told that there should be no problem as long as the chain saw is kept at least 12" from the implanted device. So I am good to go, as I don't think I'll be carrying a running chain saw around in my arms, like a baby.

THE CHERRY ORCHARD

THE CHERRY ORCHARD

RENT-A-BEE

THE GARDEN IN SPRING

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  ll47 degrees F, wind calm.  The sky is mostly clouds and high overcast.  The barometer stands at 2983 and the humidity is 86%.  It still hasn't rained but continues to look like it.

   The sweet cherries at Fererro's Apple Hill Orchard are in glorious full bloom, the rented bees busy doing their job pollinating the flowers.  The weather has been perfect for the cherries and it will be a bumper crop.  Last year they sold out so quickly we missed buying any, but we will watch them closely this year.  According to orchardist Bill Ferraro, the cherries are so popular and so prolific in a good year that it makes up for the periodic loss of a crop due to bad weather.  Chekov would be proud.

   The perennial garden looks pretty good now that I have invested some more sweat equity in it.  The daffodils and tulips have been nice and the creeping phlox have just started to bloom.  Maybe by next year I will be able to put us on the Garden Tour again.

HALLOWED GROUND

PRAYERS AND SPEECHES

LAYING  OF THE MEMORIAL WREATH

HONOR GUARD

TAPS

CIVIL WAR MEMORIAL

Tuesday,  8:00 AM.  52 degree F, wind NNE, calm to light.  The sky is mostly overcast with some intermittent sunshine.  The barometer is trending down, at 29.82 in.  The humidity is up, at 72%.  We should get some rain in the near future, which is O.K. because the flat of pansies that I planted will need watering again soon. I have cocoa been hulls to much the perennial garden with, but should put down some fertilizer first, and it would be good to have it rain beforehand as well. I have continued the weeding and revamping project I started in the perennial border last fall, and  it looks pretty good.  I will continue to tweak it until it is back in shape.
   I haven't seen (or I think heard) a spring warbler since Saturday, so I think it safe to say the migration has moved on.  It was sure great while it lasted.
   We have a Tree Board meeting at 10:00 this morning and we need to check the watering on all the newly planted trees, and do training pruning  on last year's trees, and pull the support stakes.
   I attended the Memorial Day service yesterday at Bayfield's Greenwood Cemetery.  It was wonderfully done, very dignified and proper.  The National Anthem was sung by a local young woman who sang in key, knew all the words, and didn't have a celebrity moment of singing notes that don't belong in the song. Another young woman played taps perfectly, and the honor guard did itself proud.      There were probably fifty or more people in attendance, a goodly amount, I thought, for our small town.  The memorial wreath was laid by the sister of a Vietnam Veteran who's remains were recently found and will soon be repatriated.  l haven't taken the time to read many headstones, but the town cemetery is old, and I know there are numerous grave markers from the Civil War, and I am sure from every conflict since.  It is hallowed ground.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, JUNEBERRIES AND BEARS

OLD GLORY, CIRCA 1812

JUNEBERRY ALMOST IN FULL BLOOM

NOTE THE REDDISH YOUNG LEAVES 

BEAR DAMAGE

LAST EVENING'S SUNSET

Monday, Memorial Day.   53degrees F, wind NE, calm at present.  the sky is mostly overcast with high gray clouds.  the barometer is trending down, at 30.13 in.  the humidity is 61%.  We will likely get some rain, which the gardens at least could use.
   We picked up our hanging baskets from Tetzner's Greenhouse yesterday, and they are now hung up on the porch and environs for Memorial Day.  In the past I have made up the baskets myself, but the spring has been so late that I thought they would never get done and three weeks ago I took my wire baskets to the greenhouse and they made them up according to our tastes and they got a good start inside.  It was so easy and  hardly more expensive than doing it myself that I probably will have them done again next year.  I also got my two tomato plants planted (all we need if I take good are of them) and planted some pansies as well.  So the yard and gardens are pretty well done except for planting a few more things. I was very much behind and in a stew about it but it all came together O.K.
   Thomas Jefferson famously said, "I may be an old man, but I am yet a young gardener."  I will paraphrase him with, "I may be an old man, but gardening doesn't make me feel any younger."  I am plenty stiff and sore from bending and stretching and pulling and lifting.  But it does give me a welcome appetite and thirst.
   The Amelanchier, AKA Juneberries, AKA shadblow(they bloom when the shad run up the eastern streams from the ocean ) and a lot of French colloquial names, are beginning to bloom.  The large one pictured is on 4th and Washington Ave. and is in full flower.  Most will flower in a few days.  Our tree-like Amelanchier are probably the species leavis, and the shrubby ones the species canadensis.  I say probably because there are at least a half-dozen species of Amelanchier native to Wisconsin, and most of them interbreed and hybridize.  They all bear a fruit that is a berry-like pome, usually with eight seeds.  The fruits are about the size of wild blueberries and ripen dark red to blue-black.  They are sweet and good to eat when ripe, but the birds usually get them before we do, also the squirrels and chipmunks.  And the bears, which will simply smash down limbs or a tree trunk to get the fruit.  I very much like planting Amelanchiers as small ornamental street trees, but only where there is enough traffic to deter the bruins.
 
And I’m proud to be an AmericanWhere at least I know I’m freeAnd I won't forget the men who diedWho gave that right to me

Read more: LEE GREENWOOD - PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN LYRICS 
 

A FEW SPRING "FIRSTS," AND A FIDDLEHEAD RECIPE

MARSH MARIGOLDS ALONG TURNER ROAD

SWEET CHERRY TREE AT APPLE HILL ORCHARD

SWEET CHERRY BLOSSOMS

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  45 degrees F, wind NE, very light.  The sky is cloudless but very hazy.  The barometer is trending down, at 30.34 in.  The humidity is 76%.  There is probably some rain in our near future.
   The marsh marigolds, Caltha palustris, are blooming in roadside ditches and marsh areas.  They have been blooming for about a week but this was the first photo I was able to take.
   We saw our first bear of the spring yesterday morning out on Hwy. K.  He was coming up from the Sand River at the bridge.  He saw us and ran back down the embankment before I had a chance to take a photo.  He was a good sized bear but thin from his winter's sleep and looked all legs and head, more like an Irish wolfhound than a black bear.
   The cherries are just now beginning to bloom in the orchards...very late!  The apples will bloom in a few days.  It has been a long time coming but it is a beautiful spring, all the early blooming plants lasting a long while in the cool temperatures.
   I have an improvement on the ostrich fern fiddlehead recipe, after experimenting a bit more:
 

• Pick a good sized handful of 6" long fiddleheads per serving.
• Wash well and drain, place in pot, cover with water.  Add generous amount of salt to water and boil until tender, about three minutes.  Do not overcook.
• Cut one slice bacon per handful of fiddleheads  into bits and fry in pan until crisp.  Place fried bacon bits on paper towel to drain, save bacon grease.  Sauté boiled fiddleheads for a minute or so in the hot bacon grease.  
• Mix bacon bits with sautéed fiddleheads, pace in serving dish.  Salt and pepper to taste.

 
 
 

PASQE FLOWERS, STREET CONSTRUCTION, AND TAKING A SICK DAY

PASQUE FLOWER...A LITTLE LATE

RITTENHOUSE AVE. CONSTRUTION

OSTRICH FERN FIDDLE HEAD

UNIQUE V-SHAPPED GROVE IN FROND STEM

Saturday,  8:30 AM, 46 degrees F.  Wind NE, light.  There are a few scattered clouds and the barometer stands at 30.35 in.  The humidity is  80%.  
   The big news around town is that Rittenhouse Ave., our main drag, is completely torn up from third street to first street, which is about the extent of our main drag.  Road, gutters and everything underneath, including water and sewer.  It is supposed to be finished by the Fourth of July and good progress is being made.  Most of the businesses remain open and accessible by alley and sidewalk.  Unfortunately no provisions were made, despite the attempts of a number of us, to include street trees in the remake.  All the old photos from the forties and fifties have large shade trees on Rittenhouse and that would have been a fine historical touch.  We will have new, old-fashioned street lights, though if that is any consolation.
   The Pasque flower, Anemone patens, AKA wind flower, is blooming in the front garden.  Somewhat late, I might add.  For more information and prior flowering dates, use the blog search engine.
   We have some ostrich  ferns in the little herb garden on the north side of the house, and since the young spring growth, called fiddle heads,  are edible and often featured in local upscale restaurants in the spring, I decided to cook some for lunch yesterday.  They were quite good boiled until tender, then sautéed with butter and salt.  To my palate they tasted like a mild version of asparagus.  The ostrich fern, Pteretis pensilvanica, is native to much of North America, and grows in rich bottomlands and woods. The mature fronds are from three to six feet tall and quite dominant in the landscape. It is also recognizable by the prominent, almost woody base from which the leaves grow, by a rather unique v-shapped groove in the stem of the frond, and by the separate fertile fronds which bear the spores by which the plant reproduces (ferns are primitive plants which have no flowers).
   There are other edible fern fiddle heads (the unfolding fern frond in the spring is shaped like a fiddle head), including the sensitive fern and the lady fern, but the ostrich fern is the one usually eaten.  As far as I know, no ferns are actually poisonous, so this is not like picking wild mushrooms.  There is a lot of good information available about edible ferns, their identification and how to cook them, on the internet.  Give it a try, but hurry, as spring and the fiddleheads will soon be gone.
   As will be Attorney General Eric Holder, I am sure.  His excuse for not knowing about the IRS scandal of targeting conservative groups and individuals was, "I recused myself."  Only a lawyer could come up with recusing himself from his job.  Sort of like taking a sick day when the potatoes need to be hoed.

WARBLERS, DEER AND SARGENT SCHULTZ

SUGAR MAPLES ARE BLOOMING

WHO'S THERE?

...WE'RE NOT STICKING AROUND TO FIND OUT

Friday,  9:30 AM.  421 degrees F, wind S, light.  the sky is clear and visibility good.  The barometer is down, at 30.48" and the humidity is 79%.  It should warm up today and continue to dry out.
   Sugar maple trees are in bloom.  The flowers are usually so high up I can't get a good photo but I gave it a try.  They are a rather bright yellow-green, but do not stand out particularly.
   I am absolutely enthralled with the bird life  all around us. O the back porch, in the garden, in the trees.  The warblers, which usually only stop to rest a few days on their northward migration, have been around for over a week, and I wonder if many who would ordinarily move on will stop here to nest.  I assume all this is due to the very cool weather.  I am not much of a birder, but even I have identified a black and white, a Cape May, a chestnut sided, and a Canada warbler, and if this continues I will see and identify more I am sure.  I have taken to doing yard work with my binoculars around my neck.  I and my camera are not capable of taking photos of warblers, so you will have to trust me.
   Last evening we took a ride around the orchard country about dusk, and saw eight deer, all of which looked in good shape.  We didn't see any fawns,  but they are usually hidden somewhere.  The apple trees have not begun to flower as yet;  and I don't think the cherries have blossomed either, although it is possible I missed them.
   Watching IRS and other testimony before Congress is like watching Hogan's Heros reruns, with Sargent Schultz announcing, "I know nothing!  Nothing!

COMMON JUNIPER

FISH CREEK AND ASHLAND MARSH

COMMON SPREADING JUNIPER...

...JUNIPERUS COMMUNIS VAR. COMPRESSA

SIOUX RIVER

Thursday,  8:00 AM.  s40 degrees F, wind NE, light with stronger gusts  The sky is almost cloudless except for a band of cumulous clouds far on the eastern horizon.  The barometer is way up, at 30l.88 in., and the humidity is lower, at 76%.  It is a fine morning and things should dry out some today.
   Local streams (Pike's Creek, Onion River, Sioux River, Fish Creek) are running high and overflowing their banks.  All are running red with sand, silt and clay mud,  causing much of Chequamegon Bay to be discolored.
   The  common spreading juniper (Juniperus communis var. compressa) is native to sandy, rocky and other poor soils throughout Canada, the Northeast and around the Great Lakes, as well as high mountains.  Locally it is occasionally seen on roadsides, beaches and barrens.  It has sharp green needles each with a prominent white stripe.  It bears male and female cones on different plants.  They are wind pollinated, and the fruit (actually a single seed with a fleshy fruit-like covering) is green ripening to blue, and tastes like gin (which is flavored with juniper berries). Juniper berries are not pulpy enough to really be a human food source, but their distinct flavor makes them useful in cooking. Native Americans used the plant for many purposes, including ceremonial, and medicinally as a treatment for colds, etc.  European herbal medicine makes considerable use of the volatile oil of the berries as a diuretic.  
   Common juniper is a low, spreading evergreen shrub, which is not rare but which I find  rather uncommon in our area. It's variations and selections in the nursery trade  are much used as foundation plantings in the home landscape but I doubt the native plant itself is much so used today, but  the common juniper certainly has usefulness in landscaping with native plants and ecosystem restoration.
  Finally, I have to thank reader Pat Weeden for sending me a hard cover copy of "Firestorm at Peshtigo." I had purchased the paperback copy from our Bayfield bookstore, and when I received the copy from Pat they were good enough to take it back and exchange it for another book.  So, Pat, I owe you, once again!

A FIRESTORM AND A MARSHMALLOW ROAST

FIRE BLACKENED PINE PLANTATIONS...

...9,000 ACRES...

MORE DESTRUCTION

SLASH WAITING TO BURN

HOW MUCH HAVE WE LEARNED?

Wednesday, 9:00 AM. 42 degrees F, wind N, light with occasional stronger gusts.  The sky is overcast and it had been raining but has stopped.  The barometer stands at 29.88 in. and the humidity is 97%.  The weather has been lousy but the daffodils and forsythia love it and are lasting a long time.  The warblers are migrating through.  I caught a glimpse of a black and white warbler in the woods, and warbler songs, which I unfortunately do not recognize, fill the morning air.  We were elated to have a Baltimore oriole at the feeder this morning, and with the chickadees setting up housekeeping on the porch and the hummingbirds we have an abundance of bird life just out the patio door.
   Our trip to Spooner went well.  It is about two hours southwest of Bayfield and far enough south to be at least a week ahead in bloom time, with Juneberries and cherries blooming, a few apples and crabapples as well.  I will check our cherry and apple orchards today to see whether they have started to bloom.
   On our return trip we took state highway 27 north out of Hayward so we could go through some of the area of forest that burned a few days ago. It is about halfway between Hayward and Brule, and just north of Bayfield County Hwy. N.  I stopped in at a forest service garage at the intersection of N and 27 and talked to several of the equipment operators, who said the fire was out but it had been hard to contain.  The burned over area was 9,000 acres and forty-seven buildings were destroyed, including seventeen homes. Fortunately there was no loss of life.  From what we could see from the road the vegetation was mostly  plantations of young pine trees, a mixture of white, red and Jack pine.  The burned woods were completely destroyed, most of the trees being between fifteen and twenty feet tall.  The area I saw was all planted  pines, with little or no diversity of other species (that may not hold for the entire fire area).  The fire, when stopped, abutted similar plantations interspersed with huge acreages of slash on the ground.  Conifers and slash equal fire...not a question of whether it will burn, but when.  I don't think there was much in the way of living woody vegetation left in the burned area.  Jack pine old enough to bear seed cones regenerate by seed after a fire, as the cones remain tightly closed until a fire opens them and the seeds can fall out; Jack pine is a species pretty much dependent upon fire for reproduction by seed, but I have no idea if the jack pine which burned will regenerate.
   I am not trained in traditional forestry so my general comments on silviculture should be greeted with some skepticism, but just surveying the situation with my own related knowledge and training I can say that I don't see much sense in the plantation planting approach, or their design.  Certainly far greater species diversity would make ecological sense, and where there are pure stands of conifers, either by nature or design, I would think it wise to have what I would call a patterned landscape, with broad meadow or grassy areas as natural firebreaks.  I can envision landscapes of great beauty a well as usefulness.  Of course such patterns would would not be "natural" and would need to be maintained, but I can't imagine the cost being much different from fire suppression and the periodic loss of thousands acres of commercial timber.  I should emphasize that I am not anti-logging, and appreciate the beneficial effects of logging on most game species and wildlife, which thrive under conditions of new forest growth and forest edge vegetation.  I encourage comments on the subject from readers.
  I picked up "Firestorm at Peshtigo" by Denise Gess and William Lutz and read it from cover to cover without stopping.  I could not put it down, and am having a hard time getting it out of my mind.  It is absolutely riveting.  It is an excellent history of the worst forest fire in US history, so full of first hand accounts and quotations that it reads like a novel.  It is chilling, gruesome, and scientifically informative all at once.  The Peshtigo fire was the climax of many fires all burning at once, in the same time frame, and occurred on the same day, October 7th 1871, as did the great Chicago fire, which eclipsed it in news worthyness perhaps, but not in loss of life and property.  In fact, as it turns out, the Chicago and Peshtigo fires were part of the same immense pattern of cyclonic activity, drought and extreme low pressure that spurred tornadoes and fires across much of the Midwest at the same time.  The Peshtigo firestorm (actually including numerous smaller communities in several large counties in the area of Lake Michigan's Green Bay, and in particular Occonto and Door Counties) was by all accounts a tornado and immense fire acting together to create the destructive force of atomic bombs, blowing huge white pines out of the ground in fiery explosions, turning sand to glass and burning as much as three feet of topsoil  down to subsoil and rock.  Ships on Green Bay and on the big lake itself caught fire from blowing, burning debris. Peat bogs burned afterwards for years.  This is a tale also of greed and destruction of nature which left huge amounts of slash in the forests, along railway rights of way and in lumber mill yards.  It is also a tale of the casually stupid use of fire...in clearing farm land, railroad rights of way, to burn wood waste and so forth...fire was looked upon as a friend, and it turned into the worst of enemies.
   The German Road fire that burned 9,000 acres several days ago was but a marshmallow roast compared to the firestorm at Peshtigo, and yet it was the worst fire in Wisconsin since 1980.
   Have we come full circle now, once again taking the threat of fire in nature so casually that we think it is no longer dangerous, while we ignore the slash on the forest floor and the vast plantations of fire prone conifers?

" NICE, BUT NO CIGAR"

HWY. 13  SOUTH SIDE OF TOWN

FOUNTAIN GARDEN PARK

TRIANGLE PARK

LUTHERAN  CHURH

FRONT STREET

FRONT STRET

HWY 13 NORTH SIDE OF TOWN

Tuesday,  8;00 AM.  44 degrees F, wind NW, variable speed with strong gusts. It is raining hard, with some fog over the Island and the channel.  The barometer is steady to down, at 29.68 in.  The humidity is 97%. We have .75" of new rain so far and it looks like there will be a lot more.  Local streams are running high and there will be some flooding.   

   This year's Bayfield daffodils were not as spectacular as some other years but still were very nice.  I would say that in many locations about forty percent of the bulbs were "blind," having no flower buds.  I attribute this to several factors, the most important the deep, late snow which fell and lingered after the daffodil leaves began to appear.  A secondary factor is that some of these areas were probably mowed to soon after last year's blooms were over.
   Daffodils growing in grass should not be mowed down until the leaves are substantially dried.  It is sometimes hard to resist mowing long grass with daffodils in it but the bulbs will deteriorate in a few years and not bloom any longer if mowed early.  Daffodil bulbs  also need low-nitrogen fertilizer, such as bone meal, applied, and we try to do that every fall on those areas planted by the Chamber of Commerce.  We have been using a mixture of bone meal and Milorganite. In short,  this year's blooms were "nice, but no cigar."  Use the blog search engine to compare with other years.

   We are shocked and saddened, along with everyone else, by the devastation caused by the Midwest tornadoes.  We feel particularly for the school children who were killed ord inured and their families.   However, watching a disaster  continually  on TV comes close to voyeurism. Instead of just watching,  let's support the Red Cross,  the Salvation Army or other emergency responders.

   We need to take a trip to Spooner, Wisconsin today, and will perhaps see some of the German Road Fire area enroute, We will take photos if we can. 

NEW RESIDENTS, AND A PHOTO OP

WHO BUILDS THE NEST?

WHO SITS ON THE PERCH?

ARMED FORCES DAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE

Monday, 8:00 AM.  44 degrees F, wind NNW, moderate with stronger gusts.  The fog has lifted but the sky is  overcast and we got 2.25" of rain from thunderstorms last night.  The roadside gutters are all brimful and running like mountain freshets.  The barometer stands art 29.79 in. and the humidity is  96%.  We will get more rain.

   We have new residents!  We put up a new bird house this spring and my first thoughts were that

it might be too large, but our fears were unfounded, as a very determined pair of chickadees have begun to build a nest within it.  One of the pair constantly flits in and out with nest materials.  The other spends a lot of time sitting proudly on the perch, looking rather important.  Can you guess which is the female, and which is the male?

   Also on the bird front, Joan reminded me late yesterday afternoon  that it was May 19th and the hummingbirds usually return on the 15th.  I immediately made feeder solution and got the feeders up within the hour, and as soon as I   was finished a large and colorful male hummingbird showed up to claim one. " About Time!" he seemed to say as he looked me directly in the eye from about six inches away.

   Armed Forces Day was Saturday.  Our intrepid President was photographed making a speech in the rain in the Rose Garden with a Marine holding an umbrella over him  so he would not get wet.  I'll bet the Marine would rather be holding an AR15 with fixed bayonet.  Even a Papal Swiss Guard at least holds a halberd.

SLASH AND BURN

LOGGING  SLASH CLOSEUP...

...OVER A LARGE AREA...

...MORE...

...TRY WALKING THROUGH THIS

FOG OVER THE VALLEY OF THE SIOUX

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  48 degrees F on the porch, 42 degrees downtown.  Wind ENE, light to moderate, cooling things off.  The sky is overcast, fog obscures Madeline Island, and the ferry is sounding its fog horn.  The barometer is down at 29.89 in. and the humidity is 97%.  It looks like we are in for some rainy weather.  I think I see and hear migrating spring warblers this morning, and the other night I heard tree frogs.
   There is so much news that moves so fast these days that what happened a few days ago is  no longer news and is likely to be forgotten, even if it is a 9,000 acre forest fire in northern Wisconsin.      So I thought I should follow up on my pledge to present a few photos of slash left over from logging.  From what I can see the logging process is much the same around here whether it is on private, federal, state or county forest land.  There may be different rules and regulations, but it pretty much ends up looking the same.
   As I said earlier, I have voiced my concerns about logging slash to a number of foresters, public and private, and the standard reply is that slash is of really no great fire concern. Look at the photos and draw your own conclusions.
   Now maybe there is truly no risk in dried out slash (the logs are harvested, the branches and everything else left as it falls), or the risk is small, or the risk is acceptable.  If the risk is acceptable there should be some thresholds of acceptability, related to costs in dollars, property and lives.  Anyway, I find it all quite interesting,  and blog reader Pat Weeden posted a comment several days ago regarding a book on the Peshtigo, Wisconsin forest fire of 1871,"Firestorm at Peshtigo,"by Denise Gese, and William Lutz.  I will review it as soon as I can.  The firestorm killed between 1,200 and 2,500 people and burned over 1,800 square miles of forest, and since it occurred on the same day as the great Chicago fire it has been largely forgotten.