tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038517473644862442024-02-18T20:07:43.945-08:00Oak WatchChristian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.comBlogger357125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-11147234185117727952014-10-27T15:20:00.000-07:002014-10-27T15:20:27.898-07:00The Best Laid Plans...When a bur oak (<i>Quercus macrocarpa</i>) tree estimated to be as much as 250 years old stood in the way of construction of a new building at the University of Michigan, officials laudably decided to move it rather than chop it down. Estimated cost: $400,000.<br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/10/26/358965309/lifted-on-giant-inner-tubes-an-old-tree-moves-in-michigan" target="_blank">Their elaborate plan for moving the 700,000 lb behemoth included a spiffy computer animation</a>... so you know it's going to work, right?<br />
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<a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/10/inflatable_air_bladder_bursts.html" target="_blank">Doh</a>.<br />
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The words "KABOOM!" and "projectile" should probably not be associated with transplanting trees. In fact, moving trees should be almost entirely onomatopoeia free. Thank goodness no one was hurt (although there's no mention of possibly hearing loss).<br />
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Stay tuned to for updates.<br />
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Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-48128161651341599482014-09-23T14:01:00.000-07:002014-09-23T14:01:13.719-07:00White Oak WeddingI was lucky enough to be married about 10 miles from Homer, Alaska on the shore of a gorgeous little lake with a cow moose and her twins grazing peacefully on the opposite shore. The wedding was attended by five other people (including the minister), two of whom we had known for more than one day. I didn't think I'd ever be jealous of someone else's wedding setting. <a href="http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.ca/2014/09/a-great-white-oak.html" target="_blank">I was wrong</a>. Getting married beneath an oak of that size and age would be spectacular. <br />
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Hopefully the happy couple honored what I have read was a law in Middle Age Germany: Newly wedded couples were required to plant an oak tree, so that it would be mature enough to produce acorns when the couple's children were old enough to marry... so that young couples would have a ready source of food - yes, acorns as food - when they got married and started a family.Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-68028607456381158452014-08-07T16:45:00.001-07:002014-08-07T16:53:45.160-07:00Great oak photos and info...<a href="http://rslandscapedesign.blogspot.ca/search/label/Quercus" target="_blank">Tons of great stuff on this blog post</a>.<br />
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Gobs of great info about Middle Eastern and other oaks I wasn't familiar with. Gorgeous photos. And some of the smartest things I have read about oaks outside of this blog. For example,<br />
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"Many Oaks are both fast growing and an investment that will last for
many centuries... 1
inch of fill during regrading can kill an Oak by suffocating the roots.
Drip irrigation is not recommended. Water more than once a week can
cause chlorosis or kill. Roundup on weeds surrounding an Oak is ok. The
fact that Oaks like to be left alone may also be one of the highest
qualities. They withstand drought and bad soil better than almost any
other tree and on good sites can be <b>very fast growing</b> and extremely long
lived. They add permanence to the landscape... Here are a <b>few </b>of the <b>many </b>types of Oaks that make <b>awesome landscape plants</b>." (Emphasis mine)<br />
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I love how he capitalizes Oak! As it should be.Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-21554996103841578442014-08-07T15:47:00.000-07:002014-08-07T15:47:21.781-07:00"Let it be an oak..."<a href="http://isasouthern.org/classes.html" target="_blank">Click here</a>. Scroll down to September 17, 2014.<br />
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I got into those whole whacky urban forestry caper back in the mid/late 80s because I believed that oaks were massively under planted. They still are, but the tide is turning.<br />
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Today I got an email from a <a href="http://wilsonforsup.com/products/tree-tubes/" target="_blank">tree tube</a> customer in Kansas. He said he has now planted 12 different types of oaks on his property. How awesome.<br />
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And (returning to the subject of the link above, instead of - as usual - making it all about me) on September 17 Trees Atlanta will host "Let it be an oak" at their office at 225 Chester Avenue, a program that will extol the virtues of oaks as landscape trees and encourage tree planters to choose oaks. Super awesome.<br />
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Back in the 80s (to return to making this about me) I worked at a couple of different landscape garden centers in suburban Minneapolis/St. Paul. The first one didn't even offer any oaks for sale, and the second one did but rarely sold any. Too "messy" (those darn acorns, how dare they litter my lawn?). To "slow growing." Homeowners were obsessed with planting seedless green ash. <br />
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<a href="http://www.emeraldashborer.info/#sthash.9N9pLFOj.dpbs" target="_blank">Which has worked out really well for them</a>. On the plus side, I doubt very much that many of those seedless green ashes even lived long enough to be affected by EAB.<br />
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Well done Tree Atlanta!<br />
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Thanks for the tip Lucas.<br />
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<strong><br /></strong>Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-2930425595878071052014-05-29T15:59:00.001-07:002014-05-29T15:59:45.512-07:00A day no oak lover can afford to miss......except I will have to miss it. And it's killing me.<br />
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The International Oak Society is holding an Oak Day in Mississippi hosted by Dudley Phelps, nursery manager for <a href="http://www.nativnurseries.com/" target="_blank">Mossy Oak's Nativ Nurseries</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.internationaloaksociety.org/content/oak-open-day-starkville-west-point-area-mississippi" target="_blank">Click here to learn more</a>.<br />
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John Wooden was the most successful college basketball coach ever, leading UCLA to ten NCAA championships in a twelve year period. He was known as the Wizard of Westwood. When fans, sports radio hosts and especially rival coaches discuss Wooden, the argument always arises: Was it Wooden's coaching or was it his players? (As in, who <i>wouldn't</i> have won that many championships with Bill Walton, Lew Alcindor and the other amazing players he coached?) Chicken, egg, who cares? Fact is Wooden both got the players <i>and</i> he coached them to reach their fullest potential. Bill Walton tells the story of his first practice under Coach Wooden. What nuggets of wisdom would the Wizard bestow upon them? What complex offensive strategy would he blow their young minds with? Then Wooden proceeded to spend the first 20 minutes of practice discussing the proper way to tie a pair of basketball sneakers.<br />
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His point: Details matter. Details make all the difference between success and failure.<br />
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Dudley Phelps is the Wizard of West Point (as in West Point, Mississippi). His accomplishments dwarf those of John Wooden. Don't believe me? Take a look.<br />
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<i> </i>This is a white x overcup oak hybrid. It was planted as a 20 inch tall seedling in March, 2011. <i>This photo was taken 7 months later, in October 2011.</i> The plastic tree tube is 4ft tall. The tree is twice that. Do the math (no seriously, I'm not good enough at math to calculate the growth). Here's that same tree one year later, in October 2012. It's a good two inches in caliper at the base.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFMgX3qM_Aq4fVFazg12UQR3IQVmzjPHbn1S62Ydl9MowzetJh3yXKCm2HnFzaMewIjuxmdKPpq1rBVjkkdm8s10XWqjF09zJgFelafhnZW7HL52Zkl2zd15nd8M4LCrQwF01HKgJPfjs/s1600/111003+Overcup+x+White+now+121003-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFMgX3qM_Aq4fVFazg12UQR3IQVmzjPHbn1S62Ydl9MowzetJh3yXKCm2HnFzaMewIjuxmdKPpq1rBVjkkdm8s10XWqjF09zJgFelafhnZW7HL52Zkl2zd15nd8M4LCrQwF01HKgJPfjs/s1600/111003+Overcup+x+White+now+121003-2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Yes, that's 19 months - 2 growing seasons - after planting a 20 inch seedling. </div>
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Fluke you say? Take a gander at this:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGeRssrYH1cfHjw-VFKIyBOfi_gIEZHCq5ymsENVb67Ut5LH8m4KDKPkkf_gs7OyTRPdeNL_ytf8AoY_eVY5GifGkzn3wEccPe526Eo_N61YonJgmamG-U8IvaS00hcs5lGV9bEvoshWk/s1600/image-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGeRssrYH1cfHjw-VFKIyBOfi_gIEZHCq5ymsENVb67Ut5LH8m4KDKPkkf_gs7OyTRPdeNL_ytf8AoY_eVY5GifGkzn3wEccPe526Eo_N61YonJgmamG-U8IvaS00hcs5lGV9bEvoshWk/s1600/image-2.jpeg" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
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He can make trees grow sideways! Actually, blogger takes all vertical portrait format photos and turns them sideways and there doesn't seem to be a damn thing I can do about it. Sorry about that. Here's the story on this one. Chinese chestnut, planted as an 18 inch tall seedling in July, 2012. Didn't grow at all above ground for the remainder of the 2012 growing season (although I'm sure the roots were busy). This photo was taken in September of 2013. Four foot tube. Ten foot tree. One (and a half) growing season.</div>
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Kind of puts 10 NCAA Championships to shame doesn't it?</div>
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So what's the secret, superior players (in this case planting stock) or superior coaching (planting methods and attention to detail)? Both. Dudley 'recruits' the players (identifies superior parent trees* and collects their seed), trains them (cultivates the nursery stock), and coaches them (plants and maintains them). His attention to every detail of the process is what sets him apart. Ask him how to plant a tree and he'll spend 20 minutes talking about preparing the soil months in advance - the arboreal equivalent of how to tie your shoes. It's what makes him the Wizard of West Point.</div>
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* The longer I have been a sports fan the more I realize the importance of parentage; so many of the athletes I cheer for today are the sons and daughters - or in some cases grandchildren - of athletes I cheered for as a kid!</div>
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I would give up one or two non-essential limbs to be there for Oak Day. Hope you can make it, and I hope it draws the kind of turn out it deserves - which is to say enough people to fill a stadium. These days I'd way rather watch oaks grow than a basketball game - more action and fewer commercial.</div>
Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-34311787869048071772014-05-22T11:20:00.001-07:002014-05-22T11:20:28.456-07:00Reintroducing Acorns Into The Human DietGreat article on what we've been advocating for years: It's time for humans to rediscover the food that served as Staff of Life for much of our history.<br />
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<a href="http://scikon.animekon.com/news-80237.html" target="_blank">Click here</a>... in Scientific American!<br />
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How awesome is that?<br />
<br />Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-20081676166278094052014-04-25T14:54:00.000-07:002014-04-25T14:54:03.074-07:00The Massive Oaks of Costa RicaWow.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ents-bbs.org/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=6256" target="_blank">Just, wow</a>. I am ambivalent about Eco-tourism. I get the idea of creating economic value for ecosystems as ecosystems and not as natural resources/commodities. It might, in the end, be the only way to conserve them within the economic realities of the world. But I have a problem with consuming fossil fuels to go see natural wonders which are threatened/damaged by the consumption of fossil fuels.<br />
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But man, I'd love to go to Costa Rica and see these trees.<br />
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Scroll down. Either that's a REALLY big acorn or the dude has a really small hand.<br />
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Thanks Lucas!<br />
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Have a great weekend everyone.<br />
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<br />Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-58692278500479966352014-04-25T14:47:00.000-07:002014-04-25T14:47:09.933-07:00South Dakota State University planting hybrid oak on Arbor Day<a href="http://www.brookingsregister.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=79&story_id=20780" target="_blank">SDSU is planting a hybrid oak in a Brookings, SD park to commemorate Arbor Day this weekend</a>. It's great to see an oak being chosen for the planting, instead of the Siberian elms, green ash or blue spruce that were likely the choices. I don't have anything against those species (although the same can't be said for the panoply of insect and fungal pests that are effectively wiping them out), but oaks have been criminally under planted for decades, and it's great to see an increased emphasis on planting oaks.<br />
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But of I course I wouldn't be me without injected a mild quibble with the article. If you're planting a hybrid oak are you really planted a "certain species" of tree? (Then again as longtime readers - note the optimistic/delusional use of the plural - know, I defy anyone to plant an oak that isn't, to one degree or another, a hybrid.)<br />
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Some friends and I once ran a marathon relay in Brookings, SD. The only hills on the course were the man-made ramps to create freeway overpasses. <br />
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<br />Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-91212269006320701082014-02-20T17:52:00.000-08:002014-02-20T17:52:06.576-08:00New species of oak discovered in Thailand<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140212112603.htm" target="_blank">This is so cool</a>! I know, I'm always carping about botanists who head out into the woods, see an oak with slight variations from the local population of whatever oak "species" they are studying, and then proceed to name this new variant or "species" after themselves. Or their girlfriends. I have always thought <i>Quercus siemsii</i> has a nice ring to it. <br />
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But there are actual new species of oak out there for the finding. It would be incredibly thrilling to discover one.<br />
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This one is a <i>Lithocarpus</i>, not a <i>Quercus. </i>It is not closely related to California's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notholithocarpus" target="_blank">tanbark oak</a>, <i>Notholithocarpus densiflorus</i> despite the fact that tanbark oak used to be classified in the <i>Lithocarpus</i> genus. I have a half written post on tanbark oak which this story reminds me I need to finish. Prince - as in the singer - is involved.<br />
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This new stone oak, by the way, is <i>Lithocarpus orbicarpus, </i>so unless it was discovered by some dude named Orbi Carpus it was actually named for its physical characteristics and not its discoverer - a promising sign that it's truly a new species and not some botanist's ego trip.<br />
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Thanks Lucas!Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-55339302353440785832014-01-21T16:15:00.000-08:002014-01-21T16:15:19.385-08:00Oak abuse: Sean Hannity advocates spiking treesI spend a lot of my time in my truck listening to the radio. Depending on the time of day and my location, at any given moment I might be listening to sports talk, NPR, local San Joaquin Valley talk, Rush, Hannity or oldies (a.k.a. music I listened to as a kid). The combination often causes intellectual whiplash.<br />
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In the last four presidential elections I have voted for candidates from three different political parties, all with equal conviction. In my meanderings up and down the radio dial I come across smart liberals, dumb conservatives, dumb liberals and smart conservatives. (In my world smart = pragmatic and dumb = mindless demagogue... and they come in all political stripes.) There are two local right-leaning talk show guys in Bakersfield who are great - thoughtful, funny, and able to see other points of view.<br />
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Sean Hannity, on the other hand, is an idiot.<br />
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I was listening late last week as he proposed to provide a great service for the millions of out-of-work Americans who are disheartened by the weak economy and poor job market. He actually said this: If the average house in your area costs $400,000 (as if that's the median home value in most places), then the way to make money in a bad economy is to go out and buy a "fixer upper" that's a little run down for, say, $275,000. Put another $25,000 and some elbow grease into it and you can quickly sell it for $350,000, turning a tidy profit. Thank God for Hannity! Because I am sure there are millions of Americans who are out of work trying to figure out what to do with that $50,000 they have sitting in the bank and the extra money that keeps coming in every month, and here comes Hannity with the answer: Buy a house! A $275,000 house! Make a down payment, somehow get financing without an income, somehow make monthly payments, and somehow come up with the money for new cabinets, stainless steel appliances (yes, he said that) and other improvements. As a bonus you could then employ all of your children who are also out of work, paying them a wage for helping with remodeling, thusly teaching them the value of hard work. Jesus wept.<br />
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I must have been scarfing lunch on the fly and didn't have a spare hand, because for some reason I didn't immediately change the station. Hannity segued from that stroke of economic wisdom to a brief - but mentally deranged - discussion of trees. He decried the fact that he lives on a place where you can be fined $10,000 for cutting down a tree in your own yard. (For the record I have mixed feelings about such ordinances, but I can definitely see why they exist - because it's because of guys like him.) He went on to say that the way around these ordinances is to - oopsey! - prune the trees so heavily that they die or even to "spike" the trees. And I quote, albeit loosely: "Who's to know? You can do that you know."<br />
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Triple moron! Spiking trees is a horrific thing to do. It's meant to injure/maim/kill anyone who cuts down or mills the tree. It is terrorism. It doesn't kill trees, but Hannity sure sounded like he thought it did, and was therefore a brilliant idea. So the guy who hates the fact that he has to get permission to cut down trees on his own property is telling millions of (the most patriotic) Americans that the way to kill them without getting in trouble is to spike them. Thus exposing tree care professionals in the future tasked with removing them to the possibility of grievous injury. I wept. <br />
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Thank God for intellectual stimulation of ESPN radio's 24 hour coverage of the latest sports scandal or my brain would literally melt out my ears while driving.Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-21230078653897080452014-01-16T15:41:00.002-08:002014-01-16T15:41:59.387-08:00Child allergic to nuts, mom wants oaks in nearby park chopped downIt must be constantly terrifying to be the parent of a child with anaphylaxis-inducing food allergies. Heck, it's terrifying being the parent of any child, then add to that the constant concern about exposure to foods - sometimes as hidden ingredients in seemingly innocent fare - that could have the direst consequences.<br />
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But really. <a href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/ontario-mom-wants-park-oak-trees-cut-down-171929731.html" target="_blank">Read this</a>. A mother of a child with severe nut allergies wants a nearby park to remove four large oak trees. The mother says this is not a case of a parent simply wanting to bubblewrap her child. The writer points out - correctly - that she's right; this is a case of a parent wanting to bubblewrap everything her child might be exposed to.<br />
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Is this really how we want to interact with our natural environment?<br />
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A blue jay can transport an acorn 2 miles. OK, I made that up because I'm too lazy to find the research. But the point is a blue jay can carry an acorn a long way. And then drop it in this little girl's back yard. What is the right "radius of safety?" Do we eradicate every squirrel, chipmunk or blue jay that might spread disperse acorns?<br />
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This appears to be a case of a single mother (I mean one mother, singular - I don't know anything about her marital status ;-) misplacing her - very justifiable - concern, and it appears that the suggestion has met with an appropriate about of derision, so I won't pile on. Which is a first for me. I am not sure what is causing the sudden burst of understanding and kindness!<br />
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But it strikes me as terribly sad that even a single human being had this thought in the first place.<br />
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Thanks for sending this Lucas!<br />
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<br />Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-26872103064647476632014-01-08T14:43:00.000-08:002014-01-08T14:46:02.624-08:00Ground acorn patties called Twinkies of the paleolithic...... by a researcher who has never eaten - or even seen - one. Actually, by a reporter making a "clever" comment based on the "research" of a researcher who has never tried one. <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/06/260185944/looks-like-the-paleo-diet-wasnt-so-hot-for-ancient-hunters-teeth" target="_blank">Read this</a> and weep for the level of what passes for research and reportage. <br />
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Louise Humphrey, a paleo-anthropologist at the Natural History Museum of London, is shocked - SHOCKED I TELL YOU - that paleolithic people who made their home in a Moroccan cave 12,000 to 15,000 years ago exhibited significant levels of tooth decay. I know! I am as blown away as you that people living thousands of years before the advent of modern dental hygiene (as opposed to us, living as we are about a hundred years before the advent of modern dental hygiene) might have had the odd cavity... or ten.<br />
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To Humphrey this apparently is proof that the so-called Paleo Diet isn't as healthy as its adherents claim. Here's a tip Louise: NO DIET is as healthy as its adherents claim. No eating regime with the word diet attached to it is healthy. Apparently "we" all thought that tooth decay started after the advent of agriculture. Apparently "we" are idiots. No Louise, agriculture spawned <i>moral decay </i>and<i> environmental decay, </i>not tooth decay.<br />
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Humphrey based her conclusions on two facts: These folks had really bad teeth (insert British dental care joke here) and they clearly ate a lot of acorns. She added two and two... and came up with 137, that acorns cause massive tooth decay.<br />
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Here's the part that drives me crazy:<br />
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<i><b>"There's not one kind of paleo diet," Humphrey says. "I think
wherever people lived, they had to make best of the wild food resources
available to them."</b></i><br />
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<i><b> </b></i><i><b>In this case, Humphrey believes, ground acorn patties. She hasn't tried them herself, but she plans to.</b></i><br />
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<i><b> </b></i><i><b>"I would like to," she says. "I imagine that they would be something like sweet chestnuts."</b></i><br />
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<i><b> </b></i><i><b>Kind of like the Twinkies of the paleolithic</b></i>.<br />
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This is a perfect example of the one-two punch of modern environmental and food reportage: The researcher with no first hand experience with the subject matter making sweeping conclusions based on what she "imagines," and the reporter summing it all up with a glib turn of phrase.<br />
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You know what causes tooth decay? Food. <br />
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You know where paleolithic people would have been without acorns? Dead.<br />
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You know where we would be if acorns once again became a significant part of our diet? A whole lot better off, teeth and all. <br />
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You know where the planet would be if we relied more on permanent woody tree crops like acorns and less on beating the soil to death to grow cereal crops?<br />
<br />
... now I am off to go eat a Twinkie. Then visit my dentist.Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-81518325515042712162014-01-03T14:19:00.000-08:002014-01-03T14:19:45.979-08:00Bearded old manNo, I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about this stalwart valley oak (<i>Quercus lobata</i> - aka California white oak) growing on a hillside along Old Creek Road between Paso Robles and Cayucos, CA.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnXtwU-ghRDbLlmzaRtgIv_WFem3lpsAFt4mieA0_kuhnKbJbkdst280lNM0rAauARA484DiQSHxceyF4R2kA7QZ469HIQVH5P5m8Kda4SuppnZGKkPUJ417NoLwURtyRRqw9y2GCBdm8/s1600/Bearded+old+man+of+old+creek+road+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnXtwU-ghRDbLlmzaRtgIv_WFem3lpsAFt4mieA0_kuhnKbJbkdst280lNM0rAauARA484DiQSHxceyF4R2kA7QZ469HIQVH5P5m8Kda4SuppnZGKkPUJ417NoLwURtyRRqw9y2GCBdm8/s320/Bearded+old+man+of+old+creek+road+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>(Click to enlarge)</i></div>
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The hillsides are still brown in this, the driest year ever in many parts of California. Liberally hung with Spanish moss (nature's own t.p.) I'm guessing that given the crown-to-bole ratio this old gent - like so many of us - once had a lot more foliage up top than he does now.</div>
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Sorry about the lighting in the photo. Getting my back properly to the sun would have required that I play in traffic even more than my parents used to encourage me to do. </div>
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If that a fleck of light you see coming through base of the tree? Yes, yes it is:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1KQ4n0RpYkE3irMs11ITzdaXFZKiFnsFqN6GGY9ETv4KmKl0R8tGHtyfUBJLQQ8kCzefZN-jViTbIuZ3C-Ka-M82o55nGCeXPlda7HwXOiThvINNOFt-YXzVQFlP9k5TFU4p8nB5QPxQ/s1600/Bearded+old+man+of+old+creek+road+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1KQ4n0RpYkE3irMs11ITzdaXFZKiFnsFqN6GGY9ETv4KmKl0R8tGHtyfUBJLQQ8kCzefZN-jViTbIuZ3C-Ka-M82o55nGCeXPlda7HwXOiThvINNOFt-YXzVQFlP9k5TFU4p8nB5QPxQ/s320/Bearded+old+man+of+old+creek+road+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>(Click to enlarge)</i></div>
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<i> </i></div>
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Dude is completely hollow, probably after wounds caused by fire, lightening and cattle hooves. Hollow, but solid - it that makes any sense.<i> </i></div>
Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-38634889580954354772014-01-03T13:28:00.001-08:002014-01-03T13:28:45.528-08:00Cash CacheSo I'm driving along Old Creek Road between Paso Robles and Cayucos, CA today, completely unable to think of too many places I'd rather be. Out of the corner of my eye, in the hollow of an old dropped branch/pruning wound of an oak I'm passing, I see a flash of fluorescent green. Of course I have to turn around and see what's up. And this is what I see:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMrvEqvzIJg_jMomwnZ_uDzVUW9k6q2vl96ewZiN8VgmXpu68xnFGhQJdMYgvXNaMLxlEH4pOZMHZcVMG0sclcmKWZiaWiYpVLnv2JdyCfFNmHuKRDbnW2QzhHALrV1g4AgaF2GuvxO_8/s1600/Cash+Cache+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMrvEqvzIJg_jMomwnZ_uDzVUW9k6q2vl96ewZiN8VgmXpu68xnFGhQJdMYgvXNaMLxlEH4pOZMHZcVMG0sclcmKWZiaWiYpVLnv2JdyCfFNmHuKRDbnW2QzhHALrV1g4AgaF2GuvxO_8/s320/Cash+Cache+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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A pack of "Ice Breakers" and a Titleist. And what was behind them? This:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBJz8awgOvnxR6Dg_FiIkGZGn4vJ3yYxKxalKJcRmY1nPgKvVGMtYUZvLCMkHoqL-z7Bb4J51hFhE5nwFaXgd9aZQN60PbO5pbG4Smg6l9js1vJubQbzDR6gRxDnByUAVGGw65IDxyr7o/s1600/Cash+Cache+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBJz8awgOvnxR6Dg_FiIkGZGn4vJ3yYxKxalKJcRmY1nPgKvVGMtYUZvLCMkHoqL-z7Bb4J51hFhE5nwFaXgd9aZQN60PbO5pbG4Smg6l9js1vJubQbzDR6gRxDnByUAVGGw65IDxyr7o/s320/Cash+Cache+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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58 cents and a toothpick (don't worry, I didn't take either). </div>
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Any theories? The most likely explanation is a cache left by a cyclist while on a ride, Old Creek Road being a popular bike ride. I get the bright green candy container - makes it easy to find (too easy, if a dude with iffy eyesight driving by at 30mph can see it, although granted I pay a lot more attention to the passing oaks than most motorists). I am a little unclear on the reason for the golf ball.</div>
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And 58 cents? Might buy you a phone call, but when's the last time you actually saw a pay phone? And sadly it's not enough to buy a Coke at the end of the ride. Now the toothpick I get. It can get a bit uncomfortable biking up and down hills with a toothpick in your pocket. Oh, you mean why a toothpick in the first place? Well our hypothetical cyclist no doubt stopped along the way for a quick snack of acorns!</div>
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If it's still there next time I pass I'll leave a note with a pen for a reply!</div>
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Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-32388566274414577922013-12-24T11:14:00.001-08:002013-12-24T11:14:41.760-08:00Acorns a growing cash crop on the Greek island of KeaI have been getting email updates from Red Tractor Farm about their incredible effort to restore acorns to their rightful place in the local economy (an economy, I'm guessing, which has seen better days).<br />
<br />
I figured out how to provide links to those updates. <br />
<br />
Here's one: <a href="http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=47137f1c34e4960098f1cf150&id=2bf8fe5b9e&e=90fb9caee5">http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=47137f1c34e4960098f1cf150&id=2bf8fe5b9e&e=90fb9caee5</a><br />
<br />
Here's the other (that I mentioned in a recent post: <a href="http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=47137f1c34e4960098f1cf150&id=d4b5518616&e=90fb9caee5">http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=47137f1c34e4960098f1cf150&id=d4b5518616&e=90fb9caee5</a><br />
<br />
Sign up to receive these email updates here: <a href="http://www.redtractorfarm.com/acorn.html">http://www.redtractorfarm.com/acorn.html</a><br />
<br />
Read about their Acorn Initiative here: <a href="http://www.iloveacorns.com/">http://www.iloveacorns.com/</a><br />
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It is, without question, one of the coolest things going in the world right now... a small but critically important step toward the acorn reclaiming its place in our diets and our lives.Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-594712133092322632013-12-24T11:00:00.001-08:002013-12-24T11:00:48.997-08:00Huffington Post says: I love acorns!Check this out: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marisa-churchill/i-love-acorns_b_4395356.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marisa-churchill/i-love-acorns_b_4395356.html</a><br />
<br />
Acorns are going mainstream. Again. After only a brief hiatus for a couple thousand years for a brief and failed experiment with grain crops.Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-87066175227295530932013-12-13T15:17:00.000-08:002013-12-13T15:17:41.981-08:00Acorn Consumption in Civil War Spain...... would be a great subject for a master's thesis. Instead, sadly, it's just the subject of this mediocre blog post.<br />
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One of my favorite books is called, <i>Or I'll Dress You in Mourning, </i>by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. It tells the story of the rise of Manuel Benitez - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Cordob%C3%A9s" target="_blank">El Cordobes</a> - from abject poverty to bull fighting glory (as if there's a long list of men who were born into affluence who decided to make a living facing 1,200 pounds of angry bull in front of thousands of people wearing a sparkly pair of long johns and slippers and armed only with a marshmallow skewer and Linus's blanket). El Cordobes was born on the eve of the Spanish Civil War, and his father spent time in prison for being part - a somewhat half-hearted part at that - of the resistance. (Note: this El Cordobes is not to be confused with a later bull fighter calling himself El Cordobes who claimed to be Benitez's illegitimate son - a claim I suspect he shares with a small army of Spaniards.)<br />
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James Michener (who my dad always suspected of getting paid by the word) wrote about El Cordobes in his travelogue/doorstop <i>Iberia:</i><br />
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<b>"During this epoch there was a very brave young man who was to give his name to the period, El Cordobes, an illiterate street gamin from a town near Cordoba, who electrified the bullfighting world by the animal vitality he exhibited in the plazas. Part vaudevillian, part satyr, part inspired improvisator, he sold huge numbers of tickets and charmed huge numbers of people but not me... With a shock of unruly hair, a rock-and-roll manner and a mouthful of unusually handsome teeth, he revitalized bullfighting, but I am not sure that it was any longer an art. It was something else. I would have to confess, however, that three times I saw him perform a feat that even now seems impossible. Eager to make a good impression in classical Sevilla, he came out to cite his bull from a distance four times as great as the ordinary matador would normally choose, and as the bull charged at him, eleven hundred pounds of furious power, El Cordobes whirled in a tight circle, his small protecting <i>muleta</i> furled tightly around him and he in direct line with the bull's charge. At the last moment he stopped his whirling, dug his feet in and unfurled his <i>muleta, </i>allowing the bull to thunder past a few inches from his chest. It was exciting, but it wasn't bullfighting; it was vaudeville, and after a few performances I lost my taste for it. But not even the young man's severest critic could deny him extraordinary courage and the ability to spread his charisma over an entire nation."</b><br />
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I have no idea how I came to own this book - no recollection of how it came into my possession. I think I stole it from my parents years and years ago (sorry guys). I have read it four or five times. I love the story, of love the lyrical way in which it is told, and I love the history.<br />
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What does all this have to do with acorns? A lot. You could say that acorns, at least in part, made the "Epoch of El Cordobes" - as Michener calls it - possible. Very simply: No acorns, no El Cordobes.<br />
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<i> </i><br />
The last time I read <i>Or I'll Dress You in Mourning</i> I took a different - and very weird - approach. I know that Spain is one place where acorn consumption has continued well into "modern" times. I know that the Spanish Civil War was a period of extreme privation for the people of Spain. So I thought to myself, "I wonder if acorns are part of the story of El Cordobes?" and I pored over the book searching for acorn references. I found several. Here's the first:<br />
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<b>"These years would later become known, in the memory of those who suffered and survived them, as <i>los anos del hambre, </i>the years of hunger. Every facet of man and nature seemed to conspire to produce the terrible, searing hunger that stalked the villages of Andalusia in the years of 1940 and 1941... (The people) turned to other expedients. On the Plaza de Abasto, the town's covered marketplace, a new commodity soon became a staple item in their diet. It was grass, wild grass cut during the night along the banks of the Quadalquivir. It was prepared by being boiled in a big kettle. To that green and glutinous mass the fortunate added a drop or two of oil or the leg of a stray dog or cat, until the day came when there were no more cats and dogs wandering the streets of Palma del Rio... Nor was grass the only staple furnished by the open spaces of Analusia. <i>Tangadina, </i>a kind of hard and bitter wild cauliflower usually reserved for mules and horses, and <i>cardo, </i>a sort of thistle, also found their way into the cooking pots of the poor. <u>Acorns were ground up and used to produce a brew consumed in the place of coffee</u>. Dried leaves and the shavings of potato peels replaced tobacco."</b><br />
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Yum. Remind me of this next time I complain about eating a vegetarian meal. I have to question the historical accuracy of this a bit. Using acorns to produce a coffee-like brew has a long history, both in Europe and among indigenous North Americans. But I have a very hard time buying the fact that the starving peasants of civil war era Andalusia ate wild grass, bitter cauliflower and thistle (although granted artichokes are thistles) while at the same time relegating the most nourishing food available to them - acorns - for use only in the coffee pot. I'm guessing that acorns played a large role in sustaining this starving population through this period.<br />
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Here is the second reference to eating acorns. According to Juan Horrillo, who shared Benitez's dream of becoming a famous matador, who traveled with the young El Cordobes from town to town begging bullfights (and sometimes stealing clandestine bull fights in the moonlight in the pastures of the local Don) and food alike - and who eventually, when finally given the opportunity to face a real bull in a real bull ring, did what any sane person would do - he ran like hell and was thoroughly humiliated:<br />
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<b>"'We learned to live in the field. <u>We ate acorns and fir nuts</u>, wild asparagus, sorrel and <i>cardo. </i>In the worst time we ate the grass the bulls ate. We knew what herbs to crush and spread on our wounds to stop the bleeding if the bulls got us. In the winter when the bad weather came and we caught cold, we learned to burn eucalyptus leaves and breathe in the smoke to cure ourselves. It was the season of our adventures. Manolo Benitez was learning to be a bullfighter and I was his soul.'"</b><br />
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This is a bit more like it, spoken by the man who actually lived through this time: acorns as a dietary staple and grass as, well, a salad I guess. Acorns helped fuel Manuel Benitez through the time when he was living in the field and fighting bulls in the moonlight.<br />
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Here's the third reference I found: <b>"Their pursuit of the corrida's mirage took them that summer over half of Spain. They existed on the fruits of their petty thieving and, when that failed to nourish them, on whatever they could rip from the fields in which they fought (the landowner's prize bulls). Sometimes for days the only items in their diet were acorns and grass. They lived in a constant state of fear: of the Guardia Civil, of the ranchers' vaqueros, of the railway police on the freight trains they hopped, of the animals they fought."</b><br />
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In the poignant epilogue to the book three young bullfighting aspirants shiver outside the gates of El Cordobes mansion, hoping for a chance to meet their idol and beg him for a chance in the ring - exactly as he had done a decade or so before. <b>"Scattered around them were the acorns which, with the grass underneath their feet, had constituted their sole nourishment for three days." </b>Eventually their hero drives down the lane in his Jaguar and instructs the kids to head to his kitchen and get something to eat.<br />
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Eventually, Benitez - with the same intensity he brought to his life or death battles with the bulls - learned how to read, write and do arithmetic... primarily so he could count his growing stacks o' money.<br />
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All of these quotes talk about acorns as an emergency food source, sustenance of last resort. And to some degree, undoubtedly, they have always played that role. However, I also wonder if the forebears of El Cordobes and his fellow Andalusians who I'm sure made acorns a staple of their diet and cultivation of oaks their primary form of "agriculture" were nearly as vulnerable to the vagaries of other crops and better able to deal with times of drought or upheaval that hindered the production and transport of other foods. <br />
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I have to finish with this extended quote from the book. Nothing to do with acorns, except to say that if acorns give you this type of courage/stupidity I'm not sure how healthy they really are. Imagine a portable bull ring hastily set up in a tiny town. Imagine a homeless waif in a rented suit of lights striding to the center of the ring, to the jeers of those who have only known him as a delinquent and a thief. Imagine that his best friend, the above mentioned Horillo, has already run from the ring in disgrace. And imagine that by the end of this halcyon summer this young man will be the most famous matador in Spain. I will let his trusted picador Antonio Columpio tell the story:<br />
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<b>"Manolo came strolling back to the barrier, trailing his cape behind him. He took the two banderillas I gave him and showed them to the public. Then he took them and broke them in half on the edge of the ring. Then he broke them in half again. By the time he had finished, they weren't any bigger than a pencil. With that big smile of his, he started to sneak along the edge of the ring like a cat to the spot where Almendrita (the overly experienced, enormously horned and very dangerous cow recruited for duty in the absence of a fighting bull) was waiting. Five or six meters from the horn he stopped. The crowd gasped when they saw what he was doing. He turned his back toward the wall and knelt down. 'He's trying to kill himself,' I said. I slipped behind the <i>burladero</i> closest to him. The animal was so close, I didn't even dare shout to him to stop. Put in sticks like that, kneeling down, with your back to the wall, sticks no bigger than a pencil, I can tell you there isn't anything much more dangerous you can do in bullfighting. It takes incredible precision and you have to be dumb with courage to do it. The slightest error, the slightest twist in his charge, and<i> - op - </i>you've got a horn in your eye or your mouth... Manolo raised his arms with those tiny sticks stuck in his palms. He stuck out his chest and yelled, <i>'Vaca, venga!'</i> Almendrita shook her head. <i>'Vaca, vaca!'</i> he shouted again. She hesitated. The <i>whoosh</i> she charged. For one second it looked like she would get him. I did the only thing I could to help. I flicked the corner of my cape from behind the <i>burladero</i>, trying to get the cow's eye. That sudden flash of color bent he charge just enough. As her horns went by his face, he spun and stuck his sticks right where they belonged. </b><br />
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<b>'After that, they were ready to tear the ring down. Everybody was standing up, yelling, applauding, stamping their feet. Manolo was glowing."</b><br />
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Can you possibly imagine the scene? Benitez was carried from the ring and through the town on the shoulders of those who had mocked just an hour before, to the door of his sister's home. The sister to whom he had that morning promised success in the ring, "Or I'll dress you in mourning."<br />
<b> </b><br />
A dream. Sustained by acorns.<br />
<br />Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-91249631378372186542013-12-12T08:32:00.002-08:002013-12-12T08:32:38.312-08:00It's Time for Oak Leaf WineThis is completely new to me: <a href="http://treenuts.ca/oakleafwine.html" target="_blank">Making wine (and mead) from oak leaves</a>. Really, really cool.<br />
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And <a href="http://treenuts.ca/" target="_blank">this page</a> is going to keep me busy for weeks!<br />
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Enjoy.Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-42733651862026250862013-12-12T08:27:00.001-08:002013-12-12T08:27:36.408-08:00Making acorn flour, acorn recipes<a href="http://www.grandpappy.info/racorns.htm" target="_blank">The most complete guide I have seen on collecting, processing and cooking/baking acorns</a>. Check it out and bookmark it.<br />
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Thanks Lucas.<br />
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And thanks, "Grandpappy."Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-69031286102266511662013-12-09T09:41:00.004-08:002013-12-09T09:41:46.370-08:00Yours in Quercus,How cool is this? I received an email from a <a href="http://www.treeprotectionsupply.com/" target="_blank">tree tube</a> customer last week with the closing:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yours in Quercus,</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />Totally awesome. Tells me I'm doing something right. Although I have to say it's not the best letter closing I have ever received. That honor goes to a rather elderly gentleman member of the Pennsylvania Nut Growers Association who signed his letter to me, nearly 25 years ago:<br />
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Yours for better nuts,<br />
George Dickum<br />
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Classic. <br />
<br />
<br />Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-91882467411671971882013-12-09T09:35:00.001-08:002013-12-09T09:35:54.874-08:00Hope on the horizon - Red Tractor Farm <a href="http://www.redtractorfarm.com/acorn.html" target="_blank">Red Tractor Farm in Greece is turning the dream of re-discovering acorns as a food source into a reality. It gives me great hope for the future</a>. Read this, watch the video. Looks like paradise to me!<br />
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I received a "mail chimp" email from Red Tractor Farm about their 2013 acorn harvest. I'll try to figure out how to post it on this site. To quote:<br />
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<h3 style="color: #606060!important; display: block; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -.5px; line-height: 125%; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-align: left;">
3000 kilos (6600 lbs) of acorn collected in 5 weeks.</h3>
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We
began whacking green acorn out of the trees in late September. Trees
that have been harvested in this manner, in the past, are healthier and
heavier with acorns this year. We've learned that the best method for
whacking the trees, in order not to damage the next year's crop. is from
the trunk outward. Volunteers must be fearless of heights and able to
climb trees as well as swing a stick. </div>
That whole "fearless of heights" thing rules me out of the harvest process. Second rung on the step ladder and my knees start to quake. I will learn more from them about methods of harvesting acorns that do not reduce the size of the following year's crop. This is fascinating to me, and critically important.<br />
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On an unrelated - and very stupid - note, it's surprising that the Greek economy is in so much trouble. My family alone buys about 50 tubs of their yogurt every week.Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-77380108140548138642013-12-09T09:28:00.002-08:002013-12-09T09:28:41.413-08:00Good bye, MandibaThe greatest man of our age has left us.<br />
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Thank you Nelson Mandela. For everything. Never has someone left shoes so large to fill, to a world that so desperately needs them filled. Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-9705311592696924612013-11-25T18:11:00.000-08:002013-11-25T18:11:34.667-08:00Slow Growing Oaks #782: 6 inches of growth, but per year or per week?A friend sent a link to this <a href="http://www.qdma.com/articles/know-your-deer-plants-swamp-chestnut-oak" target="_blank">informational piece on swamp chestnut oak</a>, <i>Quercus michauxii. </i>Tons of great information about a very cool tree, and further proof that hunters are light years ahead of the landscape nursery industry in terms of planting trees that matter.<br />
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Two items in this piece caught my attention:<br />
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1) Swamp chestnut oak is allelopathic - it exudes chemicals that inhibit the growth of surrounding vegetation. In Forestry 101 we are taught that black walnut is the Typhoid Mary of forest trees, exuding the dreaded juglone (good ol' <span>5-hydroxy-1,4-naphthalenedione or 5-hydroxynaphthoquinone) </span>and killing everything in sight. I had never heard of an oak being allelopathic, but the author's sources - and they are good ones - were probably <a href="http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/quercus/michauxii.htm" target="_blank">this</a>... and <a href="http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/40/3/711.abstract" target="_blank">this</a>. <br />
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I have no reason to question this... other than that I always question everything regardless of how much more learned the source is than me. It struck me that a) swamp chestnut oak is very closely related to (to the point of blurred and overlapping species lines - but you know my thoughts on that) several other oak "species," b) so if swamp chestnut oak is allelopathic other oaks must be as well.<br />
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<a href="http://warnell.forestry.uga.edu/SERVICE/LIBRARY/index.php3?docID=160&docHistory[]=2" target="_blank">Turns out they are</a>, to varying degrees. Along with just about every other tree in the forest. So what have we learned today kids? Shockingly, trees use chemistry to gain a competitive advantage. <br />
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2) Then there's this (and I'm not blaming the author - I'm sure this information came from another highly reputable source): "Seedlings then grow fairly slowly at less than 6 inches per year."<br />
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Since we all know that the poet's conceit of oaks as the emblem of all that is slow but lasting, we therefore know that this must be a typo.<br />
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I'm sure what the author of the source of this little nugget meant to say was either a) "Seedlings then grow extremely rapidly at more than 6 inches per <i>week</i>." Or perhaps, b) "Seedlings then grow mind-blowingly fast at 6 squared inches per year." (Sorry, I don't know how to do a superscript 2 in blogger and I'm not about to learn just to make a point.)<br />
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Six inches per week during the height of the growing season? No problem. 36 inches of growth per year? Child's play.<br />
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Don't believe me? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnH9pK8Lk_E&feature=c4-overview&list=UUXJic6arNiE_EHPPbR4WPvQ" target="_blank">Watch this</a>. Brought to you by Dudley Phelps of Mossy Oak's Nativ Nurseries, aka The Wizard of West Point MS. I told you hunters know more about growing trees than the whole landscape tree industry put together.<br />
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Slow growing oaks my heinie.<br />
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<br />Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-81742904817782358002013-10-14T15:11:00.000-07:002013-10-14T15:11:16.082-07:00An acorn filled weekendMy sons definitely out-acorned me this weekend, I'm embarrassed to say.<br />
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On Friday night we played Scategories, an activity I enjoy only marginally more than a rousing game of Poke Your Head. Or a really deep paper cut. Anyway, one of the topics was Ethnic Foods, and the letter in play was A. I suffered the brain lock I am prone to whenever an hourglass is transferring its contents with (seemingly) increasing rapidity from top to bottom and as the <i>scrit-scrit</i> of opposing players' pencils on their score sheets reaches a crescendo. I scored a big fat zero.<br />
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My son wrote Acorn. I immediately awarded him double points. And stabbed myself with my Bic pen for being such a moron.<br />
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The next day we were working on his book report on <i>Mortal Engines </i>by Philip Reeve. My son has read the book. I have read the Wikipedia version (Wikipedia = the Cliff Notes of 2013; those beautiful black and yellow books that got me through high school and college). One of the characters in the book was named Nikola Quercus, but later changed his name to <span class="st">Nikolas Quirke. Two weird things about this: First, if you were lucky enough to have the surname Quercus, why would you ever change it? (Well, apparently in this case you'd change it if you were bent on creating a post-nuclear-apocalyptic new world order in which mobile cities roam the barren countryside devouring each other for food and spare parts. You'd probably want to play down the "green" aspect of your family name.) Second - and I'm not kidding - I desperately wanted to name our second son Nicholas Quercus Siems. I was vetoed... for which Nicholas will no doubt be very grateful. In the same way our daughter is forever grateful she didn't become Harriet. </span><br />
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<span class="st">Later on Saturday, Ethan had a soccer match in nearby Templeton. While I was riveted to the action (lost 2-1 but Ethan got the lone goal and we had a penalty kick that would have tied the game get saved by the goalkeeper. A 6'2" twelve year old. Who shaves. But I'm not insinuating anything. Or bitter.), Nicholas was busy doing this:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEgWIKzrluBxlyOmcXKaRaS8QvQiIlswgI_c4PZmqdQTS8mqhT8BXMRzbzb98MAaH8Ql3uV9T5F18uoBbOeRq7kQnDYLz0Lw51JtwbPrLIUrz2Ep4R0O2S7-fhvO6nbfYFH-7tZ38PY2k/s1600/Cap+o%27acorns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEgWIKzrluBxlyOmcXKaRaS8QvQiIlswgI_c4PZmqdQTS8mqhT8BXMRzbzb98MAaH8Ql3uV9T5F18uoBbOeRq7kQnDYLz0Lw51JtwbPrLIUrz2Ep4R0O2S7-fhvO6nbfYFH-7tZ38PY2k/s320/Cap+o%27acorns.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Gathering a cap full of massive valley oak (<i>Q. lobata)</i> acorns. I asked what he planned to do with them. He said, "Pant dem and grow oat tees!" How cool is that?? Then I asked if we should grind some up and eat them, to which he replied, "No, papa. Dat would be ewey."</div>
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So the weekend wasn't perfect. But it was darn close.</div>
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<span class="st"></span>Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203851747364486244.post-42780317201995839062013-09-18T10:13:00.000-07:002013-09-18T13:35:24.656-07:00Battle Lost?While traveling on business in California over the last twenty years, and even more so since I moved to California just over 2 years ago, I have marveled at the way California oaks cling so tenaciously to life, even after losing huge chunks of crown to lightening, wind and decay.<br />
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One tree I have been watching for several years might have finally given up the ghost and gotten out of the proverbial canoe. It's a valley/California white (<i>Quercus lobata</i>) in Shandon, CA. I took this photo on August 31, 2012:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2gK3vl-6G-3zemE-9G9u7f1lgxP-HQqSDWLieXBgRHRzlnm9Skq0xhQ50uZJFxaZaVRUU6A8M8d7SOvlJL1TzBa8TosI9efhix1ZZsay10XLNFXnp64A4AnDaKyWqpwni7Pe34JsHep4/s1600/Shandon+struggler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2gK3vl-6G-3zemE-9G9u7f1lgxP-HQqSDWLieXBgRHRzlnm9Skq0xhQ50uZJFxaZaVRUU6A8M8d7SOvlJL1TzBa8TosI9efhix1ZZsay10XLNFXnp64A4AnDaKyWqpwni7Pe34JsHep4/s320/Shandon+struggler.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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This tree had looked exactly like this for several years. It had obviously been through the wars; huge branches dropped, roots disturbed by road construction on one side, agriculture (hay field) on the other side. But every year it leafed out, every year it kept fighting.</div>
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I took this one last week:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDfnhSJkwFQs3qrkBKL_d9VgZz70nThDVSaGiyZ-T2cvxSbLOq4lH0hCOWSmHGpqi1IDVHs3uaTZMYu574totqCDbfcPlcHZaIHPbI98A9xqFBzwHpdgOWIBiE3v1c1Q7rjbS7EjgZ4Kw/s1600/Shandon+struggled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDfnhSJkwFQs3qrkBKL_d9VgZz70nThDVSaGiyZ-T2cvxSbLOq4lH0hCOWSmHGpqi1IDVHs3uaTZMYu574totqCDbfcPlcHZaIHPbI98A9xqFBzwHpdgOWIBiE3v1c1Q7rjbS7EjgZ4Kw/s320/Shandon+struggled.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's dropped all its leaves, much too early for autumn. We're in the midst of a terrible drought in this area, and I'm afraid this oak might be a casualty - along with the vineyard industry and along with good relations between neighbors whose wells tap into the same shrinking aquifer.<i> </i></div>
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I will keep watching this one for signs of life next spring. Could be that in these dry conditions the leaves became more of an evaporative burden than a photosynthetic benefit, and it just "decided" -no, I'll get rid of the quotation marks and give the trees its cognitive due - it just decided to go dormant for the remainder of this season, conserve what little water remains within its reach, and try again next spring.</div>
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I'm hoping. I'll let you know.</div>
Christian E. Siemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07324736360466478622noreply@blogger.com0