10/31/11 GETTING BACK TO NORMAL

BLACK WILLOW LEAVES  HAVE  NOW TURNED YELLOW

THERE IS STILL PLENTY OF COLOR IN THE CITY (ODE FRONT YARD)

ENCOURAGING DEER ACTIVITY NEAR  THE STAND

TIME TO START BAITNG

FRESH BUCK SCRAPE

Monday, 7:45 AM.  42.5 degrees, wind NNE, light with stronger gusts.  The sky is overcast and the barometer again predicts rain. 
    We dog sat all day Sunday, which included the rather arduous task of giving the Lucky dog a bath.  What a mess!  I took him in the shower with me and we both emerged a bit cleaner, but it will take another bath at least to get him fully clean.  He still smells like swamp gas, including his breath.  He must have swallowed a lot of swamp water.  He ate a pretty good meal of boiled rice, ground lamb and yogurt in the morning but wanted nothing afterward. I managed to get him outside for a short walk by holding him up with a beach towel under his belly.  He didn’t complain.
    Needing to get out of the house yesterday, we went looking for deer in the dark and rain about 5:30 PM.  We saw no deer in the orchard country but there were a lot of white moths hatching and appearing in the headlights. The temperature was 39 degrees. 
    There is now some deer sign down at my stand, including what appears to be a fresh rub on a birch sapling, so I started putting out some apples and corn on Saturday, as baiting is legal in our part of the state, and there are no antlerless deer tags issued for the Bayfield peninsula management units.  I am neutral on the baiting issue, and I guess one pretty much needs to do it if everyone else does it.
    The willows are just now turning yellow, like the old black willow pictured. and there is still a lot of fall color in town, like the scene in our front yard. 
    We will take each day as it comes now until we leave for Madison on Thursday morning, and then and on to Columbus, Ohio Friday afternoon after my meeting.  Lucky got up yesterday evening, walked around a bit and then took himself to bed in our bedroom.  We anticipate him being able to travel. This morning he got up, walked around and drank water, and when I took him outside he did pretty well unaided.    He will have to live in the back of the truck cab, but he won’t mind that.  Lucky loves the truck.

LUCKY DOG IS BACK FROM THE "DEAD"! NOW,LET'S BOTH STOP PRESSING OUR LUCK

THE CREEK AND SWAMP

THE BRIDGE

THE TRAP

THREE DAYS WITHOUT DINNER...YOGURT AND BACON SURE TASTES GOOD!

I'LL NEVER LEAVE HOME AGAIN!

Sunday, 12:00 PM.  47 degrees, wind W, light to moderate.  The sky is overcast and it is misting.  The barometer predicts partly cloudy skies.
    We were just getting ready to make dinner last night, when a Sheriff’s car drove into the driveway and there was an insistent knocking at the front door.  I knew right then Lucy was back home.  At the door was a Deputy, and Mike, the owner of the Seagull Bay Motel down on Hwy 13, who was holding a shivering Lucky dog, wrapped in a Seagull Bay Motel bath towel.
    Lucky was muddy, wet and bedraggled and smelled like the bottom of a gaseous swamp, but evidently very much alive, Lazarus back from the dead, exactly three days and nights from the time he disappeared (three days seems to be the standard time lapse for such things).
    Here’s the story: Mike was changing screens late Wednesday afternoon at the motel annex across Hwy 13 from Fountain Garden Park when he heard barking, whining and growling from somewhere in the nearby creek bed.  He investigated, and the sound was emanating from under a footbridge that crosses the intermittent creek, which had filled with water with the last three days of rain.  he tried to see what animal was underneath the bridge but couldn’t make it out.  Wondering what to do next he called 911 and asked for help.  The dispatcher was reluctant to send a Deputy Sheriff, and the Bayfield police night shift was not yet in.  He finally persuaded her to find a Sheriff’s Deputy, and one arrived within twenty minutes or so.  Mike didn’t know what kind of animal might be under the bridge…could be dog, coyote, or even wolf.  He and the Deputy removed enough foot boards from the bridge to see  that not only was it a dog up to its nose and eyes in water, but that it was Lucky, whom Mike immediately recognized, even though  covered with mud. 
    They pulled old Lucky dog out, and brought him home, shaking and miserable but otherwise seeming not much the worse for wear after warming up beside the fire.  We were frying bacon, and I added bacon bits and grease to some yogurt and it didn’t take but a minute and he was eating it off the spoon I held under his nose, and he ended up licking the dish.  He wasn’t thirsty.
    So, thanks to Mike and the Deputy, who are real heroes, we have our old dog back, and we can come out of mourning.  He isn’t any younger and still has mobility problems but he has proven he is one tough old guy.  If he goes now it will be in his own bed.
    Now, you say, how about my theory that  he just went off to find a place to die?
Well, I still think that was the case but he either changed his mind when the water got up to his nose, or it simply didn’t work.
    Which reminds me of the old Dustin Hoffman movie, Little Big Man, and the episode where his adoptive father, the old Indian chief, decides he has had enough of this life and its travails and announces  that he is going up the mountain to sing his death song and wait to die, as Indians are supposed to be able to do.    So up the mountain he goes, and sings and waits, and waits and waits, and finally he gets hungry, comes back down the mountain and looks  for his dinner.  When he is asked why he isn’t dead after singing his death song he replies, “well, it doesn’t always work.”
    Lucky and I have even more in common now than before; we have both rather miraculously escaped the Grim Reaper recently. Now we will have to ponder why we were let off the hook. But let’s neither of us push our luck any further.

10/29/11 AN EAGLE WOULD DO NICELY

Saturday, 7:00 AM.  34 degrees, wind WNW, light but picking up  The sky is mostly overcast with high gray clouds moving slowly in on the prevailing wind.  The barometer predicts rain (it rained quite a bit during the night) but the humidity is quite low and it may turn out to be a nice day.
    This is the third day of Lucky the dog’s disappearance, and I think it time to recognize that he has indeed “walked on.”  I truly believe he quietly left on a mission, which was crawl off somewhere to die.  Animals are known to do that.  Son Dutch, the Texan, and daughter-in-law Leslie have Australian Shepherds, and know animals well.  Comforting Joan, who has been even more upset by this than I, he said to her, “Lucky did what Lucky had to do.” 
    Ted, an acquaintance of mine, related a story to me when we saw each other yesterday which I found quite compelling.  He said a friend had a dog that did what Lucky did, and after a day  or two  his friend visited the dog’s favorite spot in the woods, and suddenly a white wolf appeared out of nowhere, looked his way until their eyes met, and then bounded off.  He knew then his dog had said good-by.  We humans should have such atavistic powers.
    Saint Francis of Assisi, one of Christianities most revered and popular saints and the patron saint of animals and the environment, was once asked if animals had souls, and he answered in the affirmative. Then, in true “gotcha” style, the questioner asked, “well then, how big a soul do animals have?”  His answer was, “As big as they need.”
    All the above only makes sense if one believes that humans and other of God’s creatures have “souls.”  The longer I live the more I want to believe that all creatures posses a degree of immortality, a soul, if  you will.  As a biologist of sorts I recognize the great economy of nature, which wastes absolutely nothing.  That being the case, how unlikely is it that nature would waste the very essence of the most complicated of all her creations,  the living individual, with all its unique characteristics and experiences?  I don’t have any theories as to how nature might conserve the essence of the individual, but the world’s religions abound with them, take your pick.
    I went to a funeral recently at which it was obvious that there was no recognition of the possibility of immortality (sorry, atoms dispersed at random through  entropy do not make the grade). All that was left was to count the possessions and talents of the deceased, as well as contributions to society and family, and for various attendees to testify to his (and more importantly their own) great sophistication. I guess that’s what we end up with when the media is our god and  celebreties our saints.
    The funeral was filled with sorrow, but was utterly devoid of hope and joy. I was struck by how sad and empty and final it all was; if there is nothing left, what was the purpose of the individual, and of the life that was led? Sing me a couple of verses of “Amazing Grace,” or something.  I suppose I should apologize for my politically incorrect, and  undoubtedly maudlin, rambling.
     So I am waiting, probably in vain, for some sign from Lucky that he has indeed “walked on, ” perhaps to some far away beach where we can stroll together again sometime.  I don’t really expect to see a white wolf; an eagle might do nicely, though.

10/28/11 WE'LL KEEP THE LIGHT ON FOR HIM A WHILE YET

LUCKY DURING THE SUMMER

Friday, 8:30 AM.  32.5 degrees, wind WNW, calm. The sky is overcast with high dark clouds.  It rained off and on much of yesterday and the barometer predicts more of the same.
    Yesterday was spent mostly in looking for our pal Lucky, either as a primary activity tramping the wild areas or secondary, keeping an eye out going to the post office, or the store.  I walked every ravine and woods near home, and visually scanned the further areas.  I looked under neighboring porches and decks, inside open garages, behind and underneath stored boats.  No dog.
    Every time the phone rang, and it rings often at thr Odes, I half expected it to be someone who had found him.  No luck.
    City hall and the police have been alerted that he is lost.  His collar has his license and information attached to it.
    If I had been carrying a sidearm and stumbled across a  bear it would have been dead, guilty or not.
    While we were eating dinner I heard a noise on the back porch, and turned on the light, half expecting it to be Lucky looking for his dinner. It was an empty pot rolling around. No dog.
    Lucky has been gone thirty-six hours now, too long, I fear, for an old dog literally on his last legs to survive in the rain and mid-thirty-degree weather.  Last night I emptied his food dish and washed it.  Not a sign of hope. 
    If he should miraculously show up, like Lazarus back from the dead, I will boil some hamburger and mix it with  yogurt and spoon feed it to him.  But I fear he has, as our Ojibway  neighbors would say, “walked on.” But we will keep the light on for him a while yet.

10/27/11 WHERE'S LUCKY?

FIRST LIGHT

9:00 AM.  36.5 degrees, wind WNW, calm.  The sky is overcast and it has started to rain, which is what the barometer predicts.
    “Where’s Lucky?” Joan and I asked each other at dinner time, which was rather late last evening, when he usually is beneath our feet.  I filled his food dish and called him, thinking he was in the house.  When he didn’t appear, we looked in the office, the bedrooms, under beds.  No dog.  It was already dark and I went to all the doors, opened the garage door.  No dog.  “Oh well, he can’t have gone far, he can hardly walk.  He’ll be back.”  He didn’t come back.  Finally I got the flashlight, looked under decks and bushes, all around the house.  No dog.  I expanded my search, looked in all the usual places he might be.  No dog.  Finally I walked around the block, looking.  Then we got in the truck and drove slowly around the neighborhood and beyond, anywhere we thought he might possibly toddle off to.  Nothing.  There was nothing to do but go to bed and look again this morning at first light.  The most obvious place for him to get lost in is the woods right across the street, which is very dense and full of ditches and ravines.  I covered it pretty thoroughly, at least the first hundred feet in from the road.  I would have broken a leg or ran into the bear if I had tried to do that last night.  Finally I walked the road again, looking and whistling.  No dog.
    Maybe he got disoriented and just stumbled off somewhere, but if he indeed does not show up, I believe he got tired of his existence and wandered off to die in peace.  I hope that is the case, and that the bear didn’t get him. 
    After coffee and breakfast I will look again in a few places I have thought of while writing this.  If it were ten degrees colder he would no longer be alive, but these are is not yet hypothermic  conditions for a dog, even  one as old as Lucky. But his survival time is getting short.  It's a sad household this morning.

10/26/11 MORE NUANCES, AND WHERE IS THE "HERE"?

MAPLE, SPRUCUE AND TAMARACK

RED OAK WITH YELLOW LEAVES

RED OAK WITH RED LEAVES

Wednesday, 8:30 AM. 42 degrees,  wind N, light.  The sky is partly overcast, and the barometer predicts rain.
    Monday’s Tree Board meeting was well attended by Board Members, who listened attentively and asked numerous questions of Kelli Tuttle, of Bluestem Forestry, who presented a new and updated Tree Inventory and Management Plan for the City of Bayfield, and an ancillary study, a City of Bayfield Forest Area Assessment.  There is not room in this blog or even several blogs to go into detail, but the upshot is that we are doing a pretty  good job of keeping our urban forest healthy and renewed, at least with the resources at our disposal, and some good news is that we have relatively few ash trees within the city, either on public or private land, so if and when the Emerald Ash Borer arrives here, the city itself will not be greatly impacted.
    Continuing on with fall color nuances, the combination of maple, spruce and tamarack in our front yard is really  rather spectacular.
    The two red oaks pictured each have very different leaf colorations, one yellow and one red, this in spite of the fact that they are probably the offspring of the same tree in the woods; genetic diversity is everywhere, often unexpected, in nature.
    Political commentary: I have not heard the old adage “the buck stops here” in a long time. I have pondered the apparent demise of the phrase, and have come to the conclusion that, at least in the higher reaches of government, there is no longer a “here” for it to stop at.  Take President Obama, for instance.  By all accounts he spends little or no time in the Oval Office, the hallowed place which has always been the “here.” He is constantly jetting somewhere, making endless speeches, campaigning, to say nothing of the the golf course and the basketball court.
    I have vivid memories of old newsreels of Roosevelt, Truman (who I think coined the phrase “the buck stops here”), Johnson and Reagan, sitting behind the big desk, radiating power and dignity and purpose, and examining all the many “bucks” that were passed up to the “here.”  They read copiously, they listened intently in the quiet of their inner sanctum, they telephoned and “jawboned’ as Johnson put it.  Air Force One is not the Oval Office, and a Blackberry is not its big desk.  No one, no matter how intelligent, can grasp complex issues without quiet, diligent study.  No one, no matter how decisive, can make good decisions based on summary readings of some else's analysis. The attitude that one is so damned smart that one does not have to spend time and effort at understanding things (that used to be called “working”) is mimicked by everyone beneath the office, and we end up being governed by the attitude that “It's not my fault, I never saw it, nobody ever told me, I had nothing to do with it.” When the weasel occpies the hen house, us chickens don’t have a chance.
     I am obviously no fan of President Obama and his Administration, but he might get an occasional nod of approval even from myself if he would sit at the big desk in the Oval Office, go to work, and stop a few bucks from whistling by.

10/25/11 MORE COLOR NUANCES, AND PUTTING THE LID ON T HE COOKIE JAR

HIGHBUSH CRANBERRY

GINNALA MAPLE AND BURNING BUSH

WILD-GROWING ASPARAGUS

ASPARAGUS BERRY

WILD CLIMATIS

CLEMATIS SEED HEADS

Tuesday, 8:00 AM.  Wind NNE, calm to light. The sky is overcast but the barometer is trending up.
    The garden asparagus is often escaped along roadsides, and is very obvious now because of the vivid yellow-green fall color of its feathery leaves.  It also has characteristic bright red berries, which the birds usually get as soon as they ripen.
    The native highbush cranberry, Viburnum americanum, is obvious now in yards and along woods edges, with its maroon maple-like leaves and drooping panicles of bright red “cranberries.”
    Look closely along roadsides and woods edges and you may see the autumn clematis, or virgin’s bower,  Clematis virginiana, a member of the Ranununculaceae or crowfoot family.  I don’t remember ever seeing it in flower, but its fluffy, recurved seed heads, which look almost exactly like those of the Pasque flower are very obvious and beautiful, attached along the climbing stems,  which drape themselves over shrubs and clamber into trees.  From a distance it might be confused with wild cucumber.
    Political commentary: Texas senator and perennial Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has proposed eliminating federal Student Loans for higher education.  Sen. Paul is a Libertarian at heart and I often disagree with him, but totally agree with this proposal.  In my opinion, and I have watched this program since its inception, it is bears primary responsibility for the outrageous tuition and other costs of colleges and universities.  I paid for every penny of my BS and MS degrees with money I earned myself, because the costs were low enough I could.  It took six ears to earn a BS and as many the MS, working all the time.  But I incurred no debt. Joan and I paid, with no help at all, for her BS degree and my doctorate, again with no student loans.  It was a stretch for us but we also paid in full, with the exception of a small scholarship or two, for the Bachelors degrees of three children.  By the time the kids were in college the tuitions were going through the roof but we managed without debt although it caused us great pain financially. 
    Institutions of higher learning have been able to raise tuitions, room and board and all other fees at will because they can tell students (mostly those from middle class families who are not favored minorities of one kind or another) they can get a federal loan, and the loans have been given with little or no thought to how they would, or even ever could, be paid back.  It is fiscal irresponsibility of even greater magnitude than that of the housing loan bubble.  It is not uncommon for graduates of the professions to owe hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even bachelors graduates to owe forty or fifty thousand. The education debt of doctors, lawyers, engineers and even teachers has caused inflation to surge throughout the economy as they must demand higher wages to pay off the debt they so easily were ensnared in.
    And, by and large, the colleges and universities (at least Ivy league and other private institutions) have taken the profits they make through the student loan programs and squirreled them away in trust funds which may reach hundreds of millions of dollars, of which they often only use the interest.  So, we now have colleges and universities sitting on unconscionable hoards of money while they aggressively raise their fees to students and parents, are miserly with scholarships to average Americans, throw money at foreign students in the name of creating diversity, and pay favored professors and administrators hundreds of thousands of dollars a year or sometimes much more.  Higher education has become, by and large, corrupt and corrupting, while the product they produce, an education, has deteriorated noticeably and often serves unAmerican causes and attitudes.   Ron Paul is right.  Put the lid on the cookie jar.

10/24/11 FASCINATING FALL COLOR NUANCES

AZALEA AND WHITE CEDAR

BALSAM FIR AND SUGAR MAPLE

MAPLES, SPRUCE, FIR AND BIRCH

'AUTUMN BLAZE' MAPLE, COLORADO BLUE SPRUCE AND A RED TRUCK

RED GERANIUMS AND RED OAK

'AUTUMN BLAZE' MAPLE LEAVES AND CANADIAN HEMLOCK

Monday, 8:00 AM.  37 degrees.  Wind W, calm.  The sky is clear and the barometer up.  It will be a gorgeous late fall day. Yesterday it turned to rain in the afternoon, but only after I got the fallen leaves mulched with the lawn mower.  Today I will rake up some of the pine needles, and that will leave only putting the gardens to bed and doing some pruning before we get snow. And cleaning the gutters.  Tree board meeting this afternoon.
    Fall color fascinates me, and I hope my readers as well.  Now that the main fall color season is past, my eye has been attracted to the nuances of smaller palettes,  to vivid color contrasts, and to unusual color and plant species combinations.  I present them with no more comment than the brief descriptions of the photos.  I hope you enjoy them.

10/23/11 TAMARACKS, HOLLY AND THE TOWN OF RUSSELL FALL DINNER

GOLDEN TAMARACKS SOUTH OF ASHLAND

NATIVE HOLLY BERRIES

TOWN OF RUSSELL HALL

AFTER DINNER THE RAFFLES!

OUR DOOR PRIZES

THAT'S NOT ME WINNING THE RIFLE!

Sunday, 7:30 AM.  41 degrees, wind WSW, calm.  The sky is mostly overcast and the barometer predicts rain but the humidity is low.  I have plenty of leaf and garden cleanup to do if it doesn’t.  the Geranium baskets are still blooming on the back porch, but one of these nights they will be done with.
    One doesn’t have to go far south of Ashland to see tamaracks in full fall dress now, but ours are just starting to turn.  Bright red winterberries (Ilex verticillata), the native deciduous holly, dot the swamps and bogs.
    Joan and I went to the Town of Russell Annual Fall Dinner and gun raffle last night.  We felt very comfortable there as we have as many friends and acquaintances in that neighborhood as in Bayfield itself.  The ham dinner with all the traditional trimmings and home cooked deserts was great.  I bought a few raffle tickets but the three prize guns went to luckier folks. 
    One of the fun things about the event is that almost everyone wins a door prize, and Joan and I each came home with a bottle of wine.  Later we watched the St. Lois Cardinals blow away the Texas Rangers in the third game of the World Series.  We are happy the Brewers never made it to the Series, as they would have been greatly embarrassed facing either of these contenders

10/22/11 FIREWOOD, AND "IT AIN'T OVER 'TILL IT'S OVER"

FIREWOOD FROM D & M LOGGING, RED CLIFF

ANOTHER BAYFIELD DAWN

MY FAVORITE OAK

GOLDEN OAK LEAVES

RED OAK LEAVES

MOUNTAIN MAPLE

QUAKING ASPEN

8:00 AM.  42 degrees, wind W, light.  The sky is clear and the dawn was a soft pink glow on the horizon.  The barometer is again down but so is the humidity, so it looks to be a very nice day ahead.
    We had our winter supply of mixed hardwood firewood delivered yesterday morning and it is  now all stacked in the shed.  Two face cords usually sees us through the fireplace season, but I sometimes order another in the spring.  A full cord of wood measures 4’ high by 4’ deep by 8’ long.  A “face cord” is 4’ high by 18’ deep or whatever length the logs get randomly sawed into for firewood length, so it is about half a full cord or a little less.  Going price this year is $75 delivered for a face cord.  Our fireplace is pretty efficient but less so than a stove.  Whether it actually pays to burn wood in the fireplace is debatable. Although it produces plenty of heat while burning a lot escapes up the chimney, and ambiance is probably the principal output.  But it is a good emergency heat source as well.
    Good friends Curt and Ruth, who now live in Northfield Minnesota but still have a condo here, called and we went to dinner at the Portside Restaurant last night.  It will close for the season after the weekend.  I had walleyed pike, which was excellent, as all the entre's were.
    There is still a lot of color in Bayfield, although it is mostly gone elsewhere.  Sugar and red maples still are colorful, and many of the oaks, including my favorite across the street, are finally showing some red along with the bronze leaves, and a lot of shrubs are still colorful, including the mountain maples in the woods on 9th St., orange leaves glowing like lanterns in the dark morning woods.  Fall lasts a long time in Bayfield, sheltered by bluffs and moderated by the lake as it is.  As they say in baseball, “it ain’t over ‘till its over.”

10/21/11 IT'S AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO-ONE SOME SWANS

STILL SOME BAYFIELD FALL COLOR

TUNDRA SWANS ON CHEQUAMEGON BAY

...HARD TO TELL FROM WHITECAPS AT A DISTANCE

Friday, 8:00 AM.  31 degrees, wind W, calm.  The sky is cloudless and the barometer is down, predicting precipitation, but the humidity is only 29%. There is heavy frost on the roof and truck windows, but what is left of the garden plants and the hanging baskets show no effects, so this was not  a killing frost.  The banana and the lemon tree, some geraniums and a few other tender plants are all inside.  There is still time to take care of leaves, etc. so I am not really behind on yard work, yet.
    The weather yesterday morning was very nsettled, the barometer down and the wind out of the N, and I remarked to Joan that I would expect to see whistling swans showing up on Chequaegon Bay.  When we went to Ashland later we looked and looked for the big white birds.  Sure enough, we finally spotted these two new arrivals just east of the Fish Creek bridge. At a distance they were hard to tell from the whitecaps. We often have large flocks of the native swans resting both spring and fall on Chequamegon Bay and smaller bays and inlets throughout the area, but in fall they sometimes just whistle on through riding a strong front.   It’s an ill wind that blows no-one some swans.

10/20/11 AN ANOMALY AND A GOOD BREAKFAST, BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL

NOT RED

CAN'T HAVE IT ALL

BAYFIELD INN DINING ROOM

BEST HARBOR VIEW

...DITTO

Thursday,  8:00 AM.  37 degrees, wind changing from W to NE, light with moderate gusts.  The sky had been mostly clear but dark clouds are rolling in on the wind.  The barometer is up, so it will be an unpredictable day.
    The antithesis, I guess, to a maple like the hybrid “Autumn Blaze” would be a red maple that does not turn red at all.  So, meet this red maple on Manypenny Ave. the leaves of which are yellow now and seem to have no intention of turning red.  I don’t remember if it has had yellow leaves in the fall in past years, but it certainly is an anomaly at present.
    The once popular ‘Crimson King’ maple, a selection of the Norway maple, Acer platanoides, has very dark purple foliage all summer long and into the fall, but then the leaves turn a melancholy, sickly brown and just hang there.   Can't have everything.
    Yesterday Joan and I went to breakfast at “Victor G’s” at the Bayfield Inn.  It only serves breakfast and lunch, and only during the “off season.”  Its menu is very reasonable and the food good, a boon to those of us who mostly stay the winter when there is a scarcity of Bayfield restaurants open for breakfast.  The dining room and service are pleasant, and The Bayfield Inn arguably has the best harbor view in the city.
  

10/19/11 'AUTUMN BLAZE' HYBRID MAPLE

'AUTUMN  BLAZE' HYBRID MAPLE , SPRUCE AND BIRCH TREES

'AUTUMN BLAZE' MAPLES PLANTED TEN YEARS AGO

EVEN LEAF PETIOLES AND TWIGS ARE RED

...LEAF VERY SIMILAR TO SILVER MAPLE

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  38 degrees, wind W, light with occasional moderate gusts.  The sky is overcast but looks like it might be clearing, and the barometer is trending up.  It rained a bit last night and the decks are wet.
    Although fall color is certainly winding down here, there are still some very brilliant contenders for our visual attention, and the hybrids between silver maple, Acer saccharinum, and the red maple, Acer rubrum, are very evident.  Although these hybrids also occur in nature,  those we see are nursery propagated. There are a number of named varieties, the one I am most familiar with is ‘Autumn Blaze.’  I planted two of them as perhaps 6’ whips ten years ago, and they are  over 20’ tall now and  6.5” DBH (diameter at breast height). A very apparent virtue of these hybrid trees is fast growth, and both parent species contribute to that characteristic.  The leaf shape of the ‘Autumn Blaze’ is very much like that of the silver maple but the sinuses between the leaf lobes are not as deep.  The leaf petioles and the young branches are a colorful deep red.
    Fast growth in trees is usually a mixed blessing or even a curse.  But whereas the silver maple in particular is weak wooded and prone to many problems, the hybrid seems much stronger in every way.  But the outstanding characteristic is its  absolutely brilliant, and in my experience unfailing, scarlet red fall color.  Consequently these trees are very popular and a great number have been and are being sold. 
    There are hazards in all of this popularity.  When trees truly become a fad, too many appear in the landscape and we tire of them, and if too many of any type of tree are planted it decreases the diversity of the urban forest.  We have seen his happen with the American elm, with varieties of ash and  honey locust trees, even with flowering crabapple trees.  Lack of diversity leads to insect and disease vulnerability and the threat of epidemics. Personally, I now recommend these hybrids as accent trees rather than as the backbone of a landscape.  And I am deemphasizing their use as street trees.