Sun & rain grow the arboreal arc of the covenant. The canopy of boughs symbolize God's pledge to make this planet just right for us to live & thrive.

Sphere: Related Content

Weird Weather, Counting calories, Btu, and kWh – putting my house on an [energy] diet

My natural gas bill from Texas Gas Service showed that I virtually doubled my consumption this month (February 2010) compared to one year ago – from about 3,000 to about 5,900 cubic feet consumed.  The billing period covers from mid-December to mid-January.  Well of course the weather had something to do with it.  I have to wonder what happened to everyone else.

If NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) prices (as reported by Texas Railroad Commission) give any clues, I would guess that gas consumption increased considerably everywhere.  The January 2010 price at $6/mcf almost matches the price of one year ago.  However, last year’s price slid from January down to around $3 by May 2009 and this year’s futures prices on the spot market show investor interest keeping the price practically level through October 2010.

The Texas Railroad Commission reported in its Natural Gas Trends newsletter, 1,273 “heating degree days” (HDD), during the 2009-2010 [heating season] year-to-date for Austin, as of January 25, 2010.  That makes about 27% more HDD (colder) compared to the year-to-date figure for Austin in the January 26, 2009 Natural Gas Trends.

That difference seems a bit odd because I considered winter last year rather mild; and it varies only slightly from my previous high January gas bill (2007).  This year, widely reported as unusually wet and cold for Austin, gave us a few frosts in December 2009 and a killing freeze in the first week of January 2010; neither of which happened last winter.  I measure the severity of winters by the amount of freeze damage that I see in plants around my garden and around the city.  A tropical bauhinia tree bloomed in my garden this past spring; whereas, palm trees turned ghoulishly brown last month after the hard, but ironically ice-free, freeze.

During eight years in my present South Austin house, my previous high gas bill covered the December 2006-January 2007 period and consumed 4,200 cubic feet of gas.  Natural Gas Trends (TX Railroad Commission) showed cumulative annual HDD for January 22, 2007 as 1,006 – not much different from January 2009 (1,001).  My gas bill looks rather odd in the graph that TGS prints on my bill for illustration purposes.  My usage from May through October ordinarily remains in the single digits of ccf (hundred cubic feet).  The graph only shows a 13-month time frame; but the latest bill required a change of scale on the graph to show a virtual doubling of usage from January 2009 to January 2010.

Although the heating degree days between January 2007 and January 2010 only increased by 26.5%, my home natural gas consumption increased by 40%.  Obviously, something besides weather must explain the difference.  Perhaps I cooked more this year, used more hot water, ran the clothes dryer more often; who knows?

Without more detailed data, down to individual appliances, I can only guess at what causes my home energy bills to fluctuate.  The so-called “smart electric grid” will supposedly help consumers analyze their electricity usage and make wiser choices about how they consume energy.  Austin’s Pecan Street Project, smart grid pilot program talks mainly about electricity consumption and the “electric power internet.” 

When home energy prices climb back up and continue onward, we will need to know more than just how we use electricity.  We will need to know details about how we consume natural gas in our homes and gasoline in our cars.  Some of us enviro-nuts have worried about energy consumption for decades – ever since the Arab Oil Embargo and Iranian Revolution of the 1970’s.  I remember the queues and rationing for gasoline.  The rest of us will gradually pile onto the bandwagon as a matter of economic survival as scarcity pushes up energy prices and we start counting Btu and kWh.

Sphere: Related Content

Wait for it. A long cold winter may portend a gloriously psychedelic spring. Fruit trees often bear better after meeting their respective chilling requirement.

Sphere: Related Content

Naked in winter – tree silhouettes

Gray, misty weather on the first day of February creates a nearly monochromatic palette but accentuates the woody structure of trees whose silhouettes disappear when spring breaks their dormancy.

Suburban Austin neighborhoods tend to include a large collection of trees unceremoniously lumped in the category of “Arizona Ash.”  Tree Folks, in their “Great Austin Tree Roundup,” only mentions one species – Fraxinus velutina (velvet ash) that might refer to what residents commonly refer to as “Arizona Ash.”  Both the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center and native plant experts Sally and Andy Wasowski, suggest a peculiar amount of variation among specimens in this group.

Viewing from a distance, the casual observer might notice the fat trunk base and low spreading crown with a dense proliferation of branches and twigs.  In this case, the owners pruned it up rather severely.  Perhaps in a more arid climate it grows more upright.  The abundance of branches ensures that many of them will produce narrow, weak joints, susceptible to storm damage and disease.  Judging from the way people prune these trees, I suppose that they don’t understand these potential problems.  Pruning ash trees up without eliminating narrow crotch angles only makes the problems worse.

A variety of structures may linger on its branches, such as last year’s fruiting twigs.  Other structures may appear early, such as pregnant floral buds.

The repeating trident pattern described by series of twig joints seems very common among Fraxinus species.  I hope against hope that my tree will turn out sterile but it probably appears free of ancillary structures for reasons of immaturity or winter chill requirements that I don’t know about yet.  I pruned this specimen to eliminate narrow crotch angles that might develop bark inclusions – which tend to do tremendous damage when storms break them.

Wavy “Y” branches seem a characteristic here.  Pecan (Carya illinoensis), the state tree of Texas, might or might not hold onto some nut husks to help people identify it during its leafless season.

Sandpaper anacua (Ehretia anacua), a member of the borage family, creates a distinctive silhouette.  It tends to grow in bursts, which creates long whip-like shoots; but it also creates strong horizontal branch planes to contrast with the vertical shoots.  Despite its impressive size for eight years in this spot, it has yet to produce its vaunted “sugar berries” for me or the neighborhood birds.

“Celeste” fig (Ficus carica) produces conspicuous raindrop-shaped buds on stubby branches in distinctive candelabra arrangements.  Every year, I keep my fingers crossed that it will stay dormant until the last frost.  A warm winter with a late frost tends to induce a break in dormancy just in time for new growth to get zapped.  This bodes ill for fruit production.  Lots of things in Austin bode ill for fruit production.

Hackberry (Celtis laevigata) gets a bad enough rap as a weed producer that its promoters have begun marketing it as “sugarberry” – try not to confuse it with anacua which also sometimes goes by the same nickname.  Some limbs produce twigs as uniformly spaced as teeth on a comb but from a distance the branch arrangement appears almost random.  This Texas native produces abundant food for birds and bugs.  Butterflies that use this tree as a larval food include:  Hackberry, Tawny Emperor, Snout, and Question Mark.  The pictured specimen shows typical evidence of gall insects.  I don’t treat for them because they don’t do any lasting damage.  In nearby Mary Moore Searight Greenbelt Park, last summer’s devastating heat appeared to have killed some older and sickly hackberries but they had already done their ecological job of enriching the soil and preparing the way for longer-lived tree species in the forest.

Besides insect larvae, other organisms grow on trees.  This ash tree supports a lush growth of lichens (a non-parasitic combination of algae and fungi).  All manner of bugs live in the lichens – a poorly kept secret among voracious birds and lizards.

Chinese tallow (Sapium sebiferum), a notorious invasive exotic species, also grows lichens, ball moss (Tillandsia recurvata, also not parasitic but rather epiphitic), and a controversial bird food (tallow tree seeds).  Non-ecologists tend to appreciate tallow’s fall color more than native plant advocates – who usually want to exterminate it because it escapes into wild areas (with the help of birds) and competes with native species.  Alternatively, Wikipedia reports, “It is useful in the production of biodiesel because it is the third most productive vegetable oil producing crop in the world, after algae and oil palm.”

Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana) produces rather sharply pointed fruiting spurs which help to identify it in winter.  Other members of the rose family (Rosaceae:  Malus spp, Pyrus spp, Crataegus spp.) also produce pointed buds and twigs.  Some mystery members of this group volunteered in my garden years ago but have yet to bloom – perhaps a result of insufficient winter chill.  Bark that exfoliates into papery sheets helps to narrow down the possibilities when trying to identify this tree while dormant.  Mexican plum branches also seem to undulate more than others in this group.

Mexican buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa) holds onto a quantity of large seeds as well as fruit husks through the winter, making it especially distinctive and easily identified.  This native grows abundantly in the greenbelt park but not usually as tall as in my garden.

Strolling through the dormant winter landscape provides a meditative experience for me.  I enjoy the shapes, ponder their strengths and weaknesses, speculate about their ecological roles, and marvel at the magic that enables them to survive the climatic extremes here in Central Texas.

Sphere: Related Content

Communion of trees, ecology, and appropriate landscapes

Planting trees from seed requires strategy to ensure success.  We humans, dealing in relatively small quantities and very particular agendas must take pains to protect seeds and sprouts from all manner of hazard and adversity.  Mother Nature disperses seeds in enormous quantities.  Most of them do not survive to make mature trees.  Predation by birds, insects, rodents and other animals claim a fair share.  Rot, or the appetites of fungi and other decomposers, claims innumerable seeds of all species.  Some seeds germinate in peculiar and precarious places that subject them to abuse.  I once saw a sycamore seedling avail itself of the abundant moisture in a storm drain, but municipal maintenance workers probably saw the danger to the sewer system and removed it. 

Nurseries take great pains to maximize germination and survival of every seed in their care; economic necessity requires such behavior.  Special seedling containers and carefully engineered irrigation systems help ensure high germination rate and survival.  I plant some seeds in pots so that I may watch their progress, protect them from too much sun during their tender early stages, and fend off multifarious blighting influences – especially cats and pill bugs.  Sometimes, I sow seeds interstitially, knowing that I cannot tend them; neither can I protect them from cats, pill bugs, or marauding mowing crews – land scrapers.  In such instances, I sow seeds by the handful.  I prefer big seeds – legumes, buckeyes, etc. – for these guerrilla gardening episodes because their large store of nutrients gives them an advantage in uncertain circumstances.  Seeds and seedlings represent a measure of faith in the natural order, over which I can exercise little or no control.  I accept that most of these seeds will not develop into trees, but if they do, I might look upon them in future years and know that I started something that became wonderful.

We who plant and grow trees make assumptions about what each plant needs, based on species and ambient conditions.  A Texas mountain laurel (Sophora secundiflora) prefers full sun but will tolerate summer shade as an understory member if its evergreen leaves can see winter light through bare branches of deciduous trees.  Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) likes full sun – as do all canopy “climax” species – but it needs copious quantities of water, river and lake banks work well.  Another water-lover, weeping willow (Salix babylonica) appears in my front yard as a result of an unwise decision by a former occupant; and the lack of nearby standing water guarantees its early demise.  All trees share a few requirements:  water, light, soil, nutrients, air, and moderate temperatures.  Genetic diversity arising from geographic, climatic, and ecological diversity imposes a wide range of variations to the basic list.

Most people not schooled in ecological relations tend to think of trees as discrete plants – or even furniture for the landscape – and forget that in nature trees participate in biological communities.  The most majestic cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) in Austin appear in creek and river bottoms; whereas, the one in my back yard struggles, situated nowhere near flowing or standing water.  Two seeds of identical provenance, placed in different circumstances can develop very different habits and appearances.  A pine in deep forest grows tall and straight but on a rocky wind-swept hillside grows short and gnarled.  McKinney Roughs, a quasi-public park near Bastrop, Texas shows visitors massive pecan, cottonwood, cypress, and other riparian species, too big for three adults to reach around, luxuriating in the Colorado River flood plain.  A short hike up the ravine places one in semi-arid soils dominated by retama (Parkinsonia aculeata), Texas mountain laurel (Sophora secundiflora), and honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa).  These leguminous species develop root nodules containing rhizobia (soil bacteria that fix nitrogen), allowing them to inhabit poorer soils that other species find inhospitable.  I sincerely enjoy finding such accessible biology lessons in public parks.

Climate and soil can make big differences but random incidents can cause a whole host of developmental variations.  Plants accommodate in ways utterly alien to animals.  Remember “fight or flight?”  Plants can summon toxic chemicals to poison their adversaries or seal off infection to prevent it from destroying the entire organism.  When that happens to us, we require surgery to remove the necrotic tissue.  They can also go to sleep when the stresses of daily life grow too taxing – whether winter cold or summer heat and drought.

External agents can cause novel changes in tree development:  animals – including insects, disease, lightning, fire, earthquake, and vehicular blight.  A solitary tree, buffeted by wind, might not grow tall but rather reach out sideways to capture as much sunlight as possible, turning it into sturdy and gnarled wood, almost pyramidal from its squat base to its tapered apex.  It adapts to its lack of tall arboreal company by resisting the wind’s shear forces, anchoring itself ever more securely into the ground.  A specimen surrounded by others of similar stature in a forest competes for light, grows tall and thin, while protected by its peers from buffeting winds.  Suburban subdivision developers remove most of the forest but leave a few spindly remnants that suffer storms poorly and punish the human inhabitants by falling on roofs.  The stoic solitary tree might provide a perch for the birds of the field, while the forest tree provides shelter for birds that prefer a more protected habitat.  Birds in either biological community may use trees to nest, seek refuge, perch, survey the territory, or hunt.

The biological community helps maintain conditions necessary to the survival and health of each individual arboreal member.  Pine trees need beneficial mycorrhizae (soil fungi that attach to roots).  [According to Wikipedia:  “This mutualistic association provides the fungus with relatively constant and direct access to carbohydrates, such as glucose and sucrose supplied by the plant.  In return, the plant gains the benefits of the [fungal] mycelium's higher absorptive capacity for water and mineral nutrients (due to comparatively large surface area of mycelium:root ratio), thus improving the plant's mineral absorption capabilities.  Mycorrhizae are especially beneficial for the plant partner in nutrient-poor soils.]  Pecan trees thrive with periodic inundation but not perpetual standing water.  Bald cypress trees appreciate the latter condition.  Networks of roots connect aspen, oak, and sumac forests.  One tree may produce a multitude of shoots, called “suckers”, from its roots, which become multiple trunks that appear as individual specimens but under ground share one root mass that securely anchors their corner of the forest.

Rarely does adversity enter the life of a tree because of something the tree did.  Unlike people and other mammals, trees do not engage in addictive behavior but they will respond to excessive quantities to nutrients, water, or sunlight.  The surplus might cause rapid but weak growth, root rot, or mineral toxicity.  For the most part, humans impose these conditions on captive plants against their wishes.  Nevertheless, some trees engage unconsciously in some self-destructive behaviors:  narrow crotch angles (that cause bark inclusions – weak joints); arid-climate species may imbibe too much water during a rainy spell and cause their trunk or limbs to split or break.  Weird weather might induce one to bloom or grow out of season with the result of not appropriately preparing for winter.  Trees, lacking free choice, vagility, and reason, must depend utterly on God’s grace and an impeccable lineage for their survival (aka the crucible of evolution).  Their genetic heritage dictates what to do in every situation.  They stand passive, or impassive – or so it appears to flighty creatures like us humans – while life casts slings and arrows its way.  Trees offer us the perfect parable of acceptance and grace.

In all cases, God intervenes to perfect species and enforce native geographic ranges.  Despite a series of warm winters that allowed a tropical species to flourish in a temperate garden, a harsh winter will eventually occur and enforce the climate laws.  The heroic gardener will drape, insulate, heat, excessively irrigate, or take other measures to protect a plant out of place.  A farmer, growing food for those who would otherwise go hungry, uses heroic measures to protect crops, and his customers show their abundant gratitude.  The denizen of suburbia who takes heroic measures to protect a plant out of place merely wastes precious resources.  In a foreseeable future, our society will not tolerate such waste.  We will sooner or later learn which plants belong and which ones do not … and why.

Sphere: Related Content

Heed lessons of failed states, or beware apocryphal apocalyptic prognostications

When will we ever learn?  Ah, religion and politics, either one provides a reliable “third rail” – touch it and die.  Whatever.  “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”  Thank you, Alexander Pope.  If I did not stay in trouble, I might cease to exist.  Thank you, Søren Kierkegaard, “father of existentialism.”  Perhaps trouble and degrees thereof define our era.  But no, trouble characterizes the human condition.  Nations rise and fall with and without it, mostly with.  Time magazine provided a marvelous quote in 1953. "The history of civilization," Historian [Will] Durant once said in definition of his method, "is a river on whose waters soldiers and politicians are fighting and shedding ballots and blood; but on the banks of the river, people are raising children, building homes, making scientific inventions, puzzling about the universe, writing music and literature."  Sometimes the river laps at our doorstep.

We Americans seem so convinced of our innate moral superiority that we believe we can solve all the world’s problems even though very similar problems appear destined to gravely affect our own future.  I do not mean to suggest that we withhold aid to neighbors in need.  I do want to point out that the escalating ideological conflicts among Americans might some day lead to devastating civil strife.  Examples around the world abound and we must pay attention to them so as to learn from them.

Ancient sectarian conflicts continue to tear apart nations and hamper socio-economic development around the globe.  Too many people on the same plot of land will do the trick equally well.  Gross hubris seems the best explanation for understanding why American politicians seem to believe that they can solve sectarian and internecine struggles in the Middle East, South Asia, and elsewhere that prior generations could not.  Turandot offered a similar proposition to her suitors.  Milk of amnesia, anyone?  A conundrum might have an answer, but we might call it a cruel joke.  I digress.

Apparently we needed the phenomenon thrown into sharp relief one more time – and along comes the latest crisis [earthquake] to compound the seemingly perpetual state of misery in Haiti.  Among an accursed legacy of past slavery, colonialism, and a conflicted population of immigrants from numerous countries of origin, it appears that Haitians find a shared sense of national destiny elusive.  They just can’t seem to overcome their history.  Never mind how much that sounds like the United States, or maybe we should pay close attention to the object lesson du jour.  It seems to me that our shared sense of national destiny gradually began disintegrating after World War II.  The “Cold War” might have slowed the deterioration, but even that became absurd.  In that sense, toppling the Berlin Wall merely provided the closing statement in the saga.  The dissolution of our “enemy” consequently dissolved our “moral authority.”  Now, we grow enemies at home.

Often quoted or paraphrased by self-help programs that remind us to “clean up our own side of the street first,” Matthew 7:3 advises us, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”  We need look no farther than Congressional gridlock and legislative grudge matches, reflected in Fox News’ venom-soaked coverage, to see that the U.S. has a very dangerous situation staring us in the face.  If we Americans cannot tone down the rhetoric and shore up our senses of acceptance and pragmatism, I must wonder if social-political disintegration stalks the future of our nation.  I don’t see our future looking like Haiti or Yemen, but I can imagine something equally awful in other ways.

Miscommunications and conflicts with colleagues became a bit less mystifying after we together took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) personality inventory last week.  My score of “ENTJ” (Extraversion [weak], Intuition, Thinking, Judging [very strong, bordering on paranoid]) at least helps to explain why I took so long to develop a sense of camaraderie with these very differently-mannered individuals.  I prefer order and rules because chaos scares me.  At any rate, we all want to earn the respect of our peers, so we at least cooperated in the test exercise and learned a little about how better to get along with each other.  Wondering about the various international crises du jour, I couldn’t help wondering if a Myers-Briggs cooperation and communication workshop might help the international community and its leaders – not that it will ever happen.

After seven years, we all know more than we ever wanted to about Shia, Sunni, Baath, and other hard-liners more concerned about imposing their ideology than in building a durable government in Iraq.  Elsewhere, Emmanuel T. Dolo, Ph. D. discusses the case of Liberia and its status as a failed state masquerading behind the illusion of a democracy (From Failed State to False State: The Source of Nationalistic Agony, The Perspective, Atlanta, GA, 4/22/08).  Dolo describes parochial and personal interests that subvert national interests and socio-economic progress.  Der Speigel reported on the possibility of declaring Pakistan a failed state (Claus Christian Malzahn, 11/29/2008), owing at least in part to its intractable differences among Taliban, al-Qaida, Muslim factions, and Hindus.  For more evidence, Foreign Policy magazine indexes failed states annually.  Interestingly, the FP article groups troubled countries by the characteristic of “dependent on the import and export of commodities.”  As the U.S. relinquishes more of its manufacturing to other countries, we become more dependent on the export of agricultural commodities, recycled materials, forest products, and other things that Chinese factories turn into manufactured goods.  If I had a clever public policy graduate student and research grant funding available, I might want to examine the link between loss of manufacturing jobs and the rise of hard-line ideological extremism in state and national politics.  Alas, I don’t.

American separation of church and state has saved us from the kind of civil strife plaguing failed states so far, but I worry about the future with ascendance of radical organizations like “Dobson’s Focus on the Family,” “Tax Day Tea Party” protesters, NRA, Fox News, Lou Dobbs, and other right-wing conspiracists.  I will let my counterparts on the right list their favorite left-wing conspirators.

Maybe I need to meditate more earnestly on Will Durant’s river analogy of world history.  Then, maybe I will accept that powerful egomaniacs will continue to wreak havoc on the international stage.  Either the nation will unravel or it won’t.  Either the climate will destabilize or it won’t.  I can barely control my own tongue and other bodily functions.  I certainly cannot hold back a river.  I will strive to seek out higher ground and try not to get caught in the flood.  God will take care of the “Moral Majority” and give them what they deserve.

Sphere: Related Content

Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp.) soaked up water after drought then hard freeze broke it. More climate stress indicators will appear in coming months.

Sphere: Related Content