"We've reached the end of antibiotics"

[GoldenBrain]

I do have dogs is that a recent picture.

I took it just a few weeks ago on Jan 11, 2014. It was sometime during our morning walk in the back yard.

That lack of snow disturbs me.

This cracks me up. Not that I'm rubbing it in or anything...

[GoldenBrain]

That's a cool name. I had a cat named Cat once. It wasn't by design, I just couldn't think of a name and after like a week she was responding to "Hey CAT!" so it just stuck. That cat was nutz too. Lil curtin climbing face divebombing bastard! Awesome mouser though.

I'm gonna name my next dog Tycho Brahe. Not so much because of who Brahe was, but cause it just sounds cool to my Danish ears.

Awesome! I like the names.


My great uncle had a cat named Damit. You know, come here Damit! That one always stuck with me.

In our family we believe dogs are cool enough to deserve two names, so my dogs official name is Ofi Chiiki (Chiiki is pronounced ChIkE). In the Choctaw language the two ii's are like a capital I, and one i is like a capital E. Chiiki means house, so Ofi Chiiki means house dog. Historical fact, Choctaw was one of the 20 or so Native American languages used for code talking in WWI and WWII. It's really complicated and I only know something like 50 words, but I try.

[SoCo KungFu]

I love Asheville! I've been to the Thirsty Monk, but not Wicked Weed (just added to the list of to-do's). The Thirsty Monk has some tasty brew, and a decent Reuben. The Reuben isn't quite as good as the one at Macado's in Boone, but it's close. Right down the road, stumble left, stumble right and you find the Mellow Mushroom…yummy!!!

Yeah, what they are doing to those forests just makes me want to cry. I know it's a renewable resource, and I have no problem with selective logging, but to clear cut a mountain top like they do there is just horrible. Have you ever been to Sugar Mt. and seen that hotel, Sugar Top I think it's called? It's like a giant cinder block plopped on top of a really beautiful mountain. At least they could have made it blend in somehow. Maybe leave a few trees to break the lines up a bit, or paint it cammo.

I've done some rock climbing at the Devil's Courthouse. You can see all the way to Georgia, TN and SC from the top. Just amazing!

Those blue ghosts are really cool. We have seen them in our yard in Millers Creek, so I don't think they are confined to just that area of the Appalachians. I was hiking around the Joyce Kilmer area one year on a solo. I left my little campfire to do my business and walked right into a swarm of these little beauties. It was like a forest full of blue glow sticks. It was pretty warm out so I went back to camp, put out the fire and just enjoyed natures light show.

Thanks for bringing that stuff up! Them's some good memories! I'll holla at you the next time I'm out that way and if you happen to be in the area maybe we can get a hike in or something.

Supposedly the ghosts used to extend around the southeast. I do think there may be some recorded sightings in the FL panhandle. For some reason they've been declining.

I have mixed feelings about the timber industry. Deforestation is slowing in rate in the US. But its still happening. The other issue is when you look and see we are using less than we grow. 1) We import wood (which mean its getting cut somewhere else. 2) We're increasing density but its young growth. That said, at least the forestry people have gotten better about mixing age and such, to at least try to keep some diversity going. And I would much rather us use wood as opposed to fossil fuel. Mainly because using fossil adds carbon that used to be locked up under ground. Wood, we're just releasing what the trees absorbed, so its a net zero. But I was actually referring to the adelgids that have invaded and are destroying the forest. Between pollution, temp changes, low atmospheric ozone (which we hear nearly nothing about anymore) and to top it off, the adelgids...take pictures of the hemlocks now while you still can.

That hotel is such an eyesore if its the one I'm thinking of. You can see that crap all the way from Roan. The good though, that spawned legislation banning that kind of development on mountain caps.

[GoldenBrain]

And I would much rather us use wood as opposed to fossil fuel. Mainly because using fossil adds carbon that used to be locked up under ground. Wood, we're just releasing what the trees absorbed, so its a net zero.

I've never considered this. Good info which I shall now research a bit. If correct, I don't feel so bad about burning wo

But I was actually referring to the adelgids that have invaded and are destroying the forest. Between pollution, temp changes, low atmospheric ozone (which we hear nearly nothing about anymore) and to top it off, the adelgids...take pictures of the hemlocks now while you still can.

Another new one to me. I just looked up what adelgids are and I have seen them but never knew what I was looking at. It would be really sad to loose the Hemlocks. Sounds like the American Chestnut story. Such is life on earth I guess…survival of the fittest. Sad though.

That hotel is such an eyesore if its the one I'm thinking of. You can see that crap all the way from Roan. The good though, that spawned legislation banning that kind of development on mountain caps.

That's the one. You can see it for 50 miles on a really clear day. I am glad about the ban on future development, but those folks around Banner Elk still have to live with that eyesore. Maybe an earthquake will strike just that mountain, while nobody at all is in the hotel and erase the problem. Wishful thinking.

[Syn7]

We're getting our asses kicked by the mountain pine beetle up here. Another lil side effect of warming trends. There are these huge swaths of dead/dying pines now, so we have to consider the fire angle too. It's pretty ugly.

[GoldenBrain]

We're getting our asses kicked by the mountain pine beetle up here. Another lil side effect of warming trends. There are these huge swaths of dead/dying pines now, so we have to consider the fire angle too. It's pretty ugly.

I don't know if it's true, but I've read that North America has more forests now than in the 1700's because we fight forest fires. This is probably BS, but do you think it's because of the lack of natural fires that these little guys are out of control? Possibly a result of warmer temps due to climate change? They aren't invasive, so those are the only two things I can think of that might cause this imbalance.

[Syn7]

I don't know if it's true, but I've read that North America has more forests now than in the 1700's because we fight forest fires. This is probably BS, but do you think it's because of the lack of natural fires that these little guys are out of control? Possibly a result of warmer temps due to climate change? They aren't invasive, so those are the only two things I can think of that might cause this imbalance.

Well, I would most certainly call them invasive. But yes, they are native.

I don't know if we have more forest now, but we most certainly save regions by putting them out. Whether this offsets logging or not, I dunno. But people have been slashing and burning forever too. Natives used to make massive firebreaks with controlled burns as well as backburning when it got scary. So it's not as if fighting forest fires is a new concept to N America, but we are most definitely more spread out and better equipped now.

As for the pine beetle, it's thought that they are surviving winter at a greater rate than before because of warming. But I don't know that much about it.

[GoldenBrain]

Good point about the natives building fire breaks. There were something like a possible 80 million natives in N. America before the Europeans arrived. Europe at that time was something like 40 million. So, it's not like the natives didn't have the numbers spread across the country to do some damage to fires.


I suspect it's the warmer winters, although y'all have some pretty fierce winters up there so who knows.


No matter what the story, it's pretty hard to watch a beautiful forest getting decimated by anything.

[Raipizo]

Don't forget the Ash borer beetle also. Those guys are supposed to be pretty bad.

[Syn7]

Good point about the natives building fire breaks. There were something like a possible 80 million natives in N. America before the Europeans arrived. Europe at that time was something like 40 million. So, it's not like the natives didn't have the numbers spread across the country to do some damage to fires.


I suspect it's the warmer winters, although y'all have some pretty fierce winters up there so who knows.


No matter what the story, it's pretty hard to watch a beautiful forest getting decimated by anything.

Doesn't get that cold where I am. You want an American comparison, it's like Seattle here. Wet and moderate. You gotta go north and/or east to find the real cold. I can't remember the last time we had snow for more than a few days at a time.

One cool thing about being up north is that the days are long in summer. We get daylight till like 930.

[GoldenBrain]

Doesn't get that cold where I am. You want an American comparison, it's like Seattle here. Wet and moderate. You gotta go north and/or east to find the real cold. I can't remember the last time we had snow for more than a few days at a time.

One cool thing about being up north is that the days are long in summer. We get daylight till like 930.

That's pretty decent weather. I have some family in Seattle, and other than the overcast the weather is pretty nice. You're not really that far away. It's kind of like areas in the lower latitudes where we depend on the cold to suppress the insects like mosquitoes. If it's a warmer winter the mossies will be real bad the next summer. I'm guessing the beetles are much the same. If it's not cold enough during winter then they are bad the next season. Several years of this equals devastation of those beautiful forests.

Raipizo brings up a third devastating insect within just a few posts. Of course I'm just guessing here, but the lack of a really cold winter might be the culprit. We are experiencing a harsh winter this year so lets see if these insects are still kicking hard next spring/summer.

[Raipizo]

That's pretty decent weather. I have some family in Seattle, and other than the overcast the weather is pretty nice. You're not really that far away. It's kind of like areas in the lower latitudes where we depend on the cold to suppress the insects like mosquitoes. If it's a warmer winter the mossies will be real bad the next summer. I'm guessing the beetles are much the same. If it's not cold enough during winter then they are bad the next season. Several years of this equals devastation of those beautiful forests.

Raipizo brings up a third devastating insect within just a few posts. Of course I'm just guessing here, but the lack of a really cold winter might be the culprit. We are experiencing a harsh winter this year so lets see if these insects are still kicking hard next spring/summer.

I heard somewhere that this really cold winter will kill off a majority of either them or some other destructive bug. I forget though :c

[GoldenBrain]

I heard somewhere that this really cold winter will kill off a majority of either them or some other destructive bug. I forget though :c

Yeah, we needed this brutally cold winter. I just hope it gets the mosquitos and ticks back under control.

[Raipizo]

Yeah, we needed this brutally cold winter. I just hope it gets the mosquitos and ticks back under control.

Yeah hopefully lol.

[SoCo KungFu]

The cold may slow them down a year or two, but I'm highly skeptical that its going to knock them out. Every year they say this with a different invader and it never is the case. The best hope is that it knocks them back enough, and again in following years, that it allows time for native predators to adjust and learn to eat them. That's the best control. Yet another reason we need to stop jacking up our native environment.

As to fires. Fire suppression has been one of the worst things we have done historically. Fire is one of the ways that invasive plants are kept in check. Our native trees and such have evolved with regular natural fires. Also suppression allows density to build up and when one does occur, its more intense. Suppression is threatening the giant redwoods even. It allows understory trees to grow higher, which then when fires do form, the blaze can reach the crowns of the giant reds. Their trunks are evolved to resist flame, but if it hits the crown, they're done for. A lot of the pines in the south evolved with fire as well. That's why long leaf have all those different growth stages. And then there's gopher tortoises.

Actually one of the faculty here has a Phd candidate looking at riparian wildfire and found that it actually increases productivity in the rivers and insects will actually increase emergence following them, which down the line spikes fish populations and such. Which any fisherman should be thankful for.