Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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My meteorologist friends tell me that the word "normal" has very little meaning, as no year is ever really normal. Does that mean that every year is "abnormal"? I fear that the answer would take a long time and involve a deep dive into statistics. Maybe we'll just say that the 2024 growing season was weird. Or perhaps we'll call it "notable." That sounds a little more scientific. The year started out with a lot of moisture, throughout much of the region. In some places, it was so wet that...
I moved to North Dakota in September of 2002. During my last week in East Lansing, Michigan, I was having a drink with a colleague who's a forest entomologist. She had been on a conference call all afternoon, where they were discussing a new insect that they had just identified in the Detroit area. They called it emerald ash borer (EAB). My friend said, "It's going to be a bad one." Here we are, 22 years later, and the insect has finally been confirmed in North Dakota in rural LaMoure County....
My friend Don is recovering from a dislocated shoulder. He was on a ladder, using a chainsaw to prune branches from a tree. The first three branches came down safely and as planned. The last one did not. The final branch remained partially attached to the tree as it fell. The branch swept back towards the ladder and knocked it out from beneath Don. You can figure out the rest. Even though he was injured, Don realizes how lucky he was. A dislocated shoulder is tough, but it could've been a lot...
I travel a lot throughout North Dakota. It's part of my job. While it's sometimes hard to be away from home so much, I do get to see a lot of the state, enjoying both its natural beauty and the variety of the many small towns. I'm always on the lookout for rare or unique tree species during my travels. Recently, I was in Hettinger, N.D., and saw a newly-planted "MN Strain" redbud tree. I was glad to see the folks in this town trying something new and different. I was also a little worried, as th...
I’ve been to a lot of parties over the last few weeks, getting together with neighbors and friends as we celebrated the holidays with one year ending and a new one just beginning. Some people made resolutions for self-improvement and others were already making plans for this year’s projects. And a lot of people had questions about trees. How are they responding to the warm December weather? What will the mild temperatures do to the insect pests that will attack trees next summer? Is Dutch elm disease going to be especially prevalent next yea...
This phrase baffled me when I was young. What did it really mean? My friend Kevin, who grew up on a farm and taught me about baling hay, told me that it has two meanings. The first, literally, was to cut and bale hay when it would be sunny for a few days in a row. He didn't want the fresh-mown hay to get rained on, for fear it would get moldy. Also, sunlight was critical to drying out the grasses and other plants in the cut hay. The second meaning, though, was more symbolic. The expression...
I've completed nearly 20 years at NDSU as the Extension forester and I've seen a lot of the state (and its trees and forests) in that time. I sometimes wonder how many miles I've driven through the years. Numbers fascinate me. They can offer a clear understanding of a situation. For example, we could say that trees had great growth in 2022. My question would be, "How great is great"? What one person considers great, another person might consider to be average. Putting a number to that claim of...
When I was in college, I enjoyed country music a lot. In the late 1980s, Tanya Tucker had a No. 1 single titled, “Strong Enough to Bend.” The song relates strength to flexibility, with the analogy of a strong tree and a strong relationship. Both the partners in the relationship and the tree need to be strong enough to bend during difficult times. I like the analogy, though I’m much more of an expert with trees than I am with relationships! Though trees are tough, resilient and long-lived, some storms are so strong that trees can’t bend enough....
