Architecture of Snow

Weather: Sunday it began raining around 7:30 pm, and continued after I went to bed.  When I awoke at 3:30 am, mist was still in the 35 degree air.  When I woke again at 6:30 am, three inches of snow covered every surface.  The temperature was 29 degrees F.

Snow lingers on the north and west sides of buildings and fences because an arctic air mass parked east of the Sangre de Cristo which had kept afternoon temperatures low.  During the night moisture freezes on my path from the house, and I’m forced to stay indoors.  That has induced a sense of foreboding when the sun goes down early because I know I’m shut in.  I no longer can go out to see stars that are bright against the clear black sky.

Last useful snow: 11/13.  Week’s low: 13 degrees F.  Week’s high: 43 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 31 mph in Los Alamos on Sunday and Monday.

What’s still green: Needles on pines, piñon, cultivated and native junipers, yews, arborvitae; leaves on cliff rose, Japanese honeysuckle, Japanese boxwood, yuccas, red hot pokers, vinca, bindweed, hollyhocks, winecup mallow, alfilerillo, sweet violets, bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, coral bells, Saint John’s wort, Queen Anne’s lace, tansy, lance-leaf coreopsis, white and yellow yarrows; blades on cheat grass; bases of blue flax, Mexican hats, needle grasses

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on fern bushes, four-winged saltbushes, winterfat, chamisa, snow-in-summer, Siberian catmint

What’s turning purple or red: Leaves on coral beard tongues; stems on apricot, fruiting crab apple

What leaves are dying but haven’t dropped: Apples and related fruit trees, roses, weeping willows, Russian olives, privet.  Tree of heaven seed heads still are in place.

What still has fruit: Apples, pyracantha, privet.  Juncos were in my flowering crab apple on Thursday.  I don’t know if Russian olives still had fruit; mine did not bloom this year.

Animal sightings: Birds larger than robins have been flitting past my windows; footprints in snow near the native junipers

Tasks: People who were lulled by warm weather must have been scrambling this week.  I noticed what appeared to be new stacks of fire wood when I drove into town on Tuesday.  No one was selling truck loads in the usual places.

Weekly update: Snow lands on horizontal surfaces.  Even when it is blown, it ultimately stays on flatter planes.

Trees have developed different techniques for dealing with the unwanted weight.  The ideal way for deciduous species is dropping leaves before the snow arrives.  Then it only lands on horizontal branches and in crevices where those branches join with trunks.

When I drove into town Tuesday I found most trees had shed their loads in the winds that preceded the precipitation.  Among the native cottonwoods and the naturalized Siberian elms there was some variation.  Those trees that were growing in isolated areas were bare, but those near buildings, which emitted or reflected heat, still had leaves.

For some reason, fruit trees in the rose family still had their leaves in orchards.  Apples and my fruiting crab apples tend to put out vertical branches that don’t collect snow.  However, their leaves do.  The weight bent the leaves, but not enough to affect the limbs.

Others species have leaves connected by flexible stems (petioles).  Snow fell on the horizontal branches of my apricots, and pushed the leaves down where they were unable to support anything.

The evergreens have similar differences.  My neighbor’s arborvitae is upright.  Snow massed where it could toward the top, but generally slipped away lower down.

Needles on tall junipers are narrower, but still relatively dense.  It and arborvitae are both in the cypress family, but one is native and the other comes from the far north.  Snow collected on the boughs which then bent.

The cliff rose has even tinier, sparser leaves.  Several inches of snow collected on the horizontal limbs, but they did not bend under the load.

 

Only dead trees are completely dormant.  Even those with no leaves continue to generate heat as they process sun and moisture, albeit at lower rates.  This heat begins melting away snow, even before the sun comes out.

So much snow fell on Sunday that not everything could be removed by sundown.  Moisture remained on leaves that turned to frost the next morning.

Monday’s sun absorbed the last of the vernal moisture, and the only frost since has been on my wooden porch and metal car.  Ice has been forming under snow that is warmed but does not disappear.  It refreezes in the night.

Notes on photographs:
1.  Two Tamarix rubra ‘Summer Glory,’ 14 November 2022.
2.  Fruiting crab apple (Malus sylvestris ‘Firecracker’), 14 November 2022.
3.  Apricot (Prunus armeniaca ‘Blenheim-Royal’), 14 November 2022.
4.  Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis), 14 November 2022.
5.  One-seeded native juniper (Juniperus monosperma), 14 November 2022.
6.  Cliff rose (Purshia mexicana), 14 November 2022.
7.  Same cliff rose, 15 November 2022.

Know Thy Enemy

Weather: We haven’t had any real rain since 17 October.  When I dug into the ground on Thursday, the soil was damp.  When I went back the next day, the area I had exposed was hard and dry, although moisture still existed if I dug in a new place.  When I went to swept Russian thistle seeds, the surface was dry and turning to dust.

Friday morning’s low of 17 ended any attempts by plants to pretend the afternoon temperatures boded well.  The night sky was clear with more stars than usual visible.  Saturday and Sunday mornings, the air temperature fell to 13 degrees F.  The weather bureau said some “upper level trough” that was protecting us had shifted east, and now something worse is headed our way.

Last useful rain: 10/17.  Week’s low: 13 degrees F.  Week’s high: 70 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 37 mph in Los Alamos and Santa Fé on Wednesday.

What’s still green: Needles on pines, piñon, junipers, yews, arborvitae; leaves on cliff rose, Japanese honeysuckle, chives, yuccas of all types, red hot pokers, vinca, hollyhocks, snapdragons, bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, blue flax, coral bells, Saint John’s wort, Queen Anne’s lace, tansy, lance-leaf coreopsis, white yarrow; blades on pampas and cheat grasses, centers of needle grasses

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on fern bushes, four-winged saltbushes, chamisa, snow-in-summer, catmint

What’s turning purple: Leaves on coral beardtongues

What leaves are dying but haven’t dropped: Apples, apricots, roses, pyracantha, cottonwoods, weeping willows, Russian olives, privet, Siberian elms, and many of the perennials

Animal sightings: Western chickadees

Tasks: I decided to stop excavating the dead cholla cactus until I filled more of the opening under the south fence.  Last week I had learned many barren spots in my back yard were actually burial grounds for stucco.  This week, when I begin looking for bare areas with scattered stones, I discovered someone had spread his leftover sand into a layer at least 3" thick over a wide area.  This was where I found rabbit holes.

Weekly update: No one will ever win the war against Russian thistles.  They are like the sea waters threatening the Dutch or the virus for the common cold.  They simply are part of our ecosphere.

That does not mean one should stop trying.  After all, most of us take some precautions against catching colds.  And, like a cold, it probably doesn’t matter which strategy one uses — scraping, mowing, cutting, pulling, or burning — so long as one uses it effectively.

Being effective means employing that maxim of war attributed to Sun Tzu: know thy enemy.

Russia thistles emerge as two blades that resemble grass.  They soon radiate into a head.  At this time, the roots are straight.  One can’t burn them but one can mow or pull them safely.

These grow into bushy plants with many branches with long, thin leaves.  The stems and branches are flexible and soft to the touch.  It may be too late to pull them, as their roots may have taken turns so that they leave a large furrow when they are removed.  Besides, Russian thistles are annuals.  Their roots will die in winter.

You can cut them and roll them into trash bags.  Ranchers may even let their livestock eat them.  The problem is they will produce new branches.  If they are kept mowed, the branches spread along the ground.  It is a temporary measure that is useful because it limits the number of seeds that will be produced.

Thistles begin to bloom in late summer.  The tiny yellow flowers form in the joints where leaves attach to stems.  The tips of the leaves begin to become more pointed.  These tips make it more difficult, though not impossible, to handle the plants.

The petals fall leaving the white holders or calyces.

The seeds form below, as the plant begins to die.  It has served its purpose.  First the green disappears, leaving a red stem, then the plants turns purple.  The tips at the ends the leaves become sharper to protect the ovaries.  Plants become dangerous to handle.

The plants dry to the familiar tan, seen in the top photograph.  While the carcasses now will burn, they contain so many chemicals the smoke is noxious.  These chemicals are the reason plants become difficult to handle.  Any scratch from a leaf tip can cause an allergic reaction.  My hands itch.

Now is when they become the most visible, especially when the stems break above the ground and carcasses blow across roads.  They are so big, and often so numerous, individuals try mechanical means to remove them.

Plants continue to dry and, when they are touched, fall apart.  This past week, when I was removing them, I noticed the carcasses rarely held any seeds.  The plants that men are removing no longer are the source for next year’s crop.

Dried leaves and petals litter the ground, with the heavier seeds under them.  Individual parts may be harmless, but the mass is prickly.  This is why I have been wearing gloves to sweep the debris into a dust pan.

I know I will never get them all, and hate to remove the harmless parts that protect the ground against the winds.  However, they now are the enemy.

Notes on photographs: All are Russian thistles (Salsola tragus).
1.  Carcass blowing in the wind in my neighbor’s yard, 5 February 2012.
2.  Seedlings in a field down the road, 3 May 2014.
3.  Young bush along the shoulder, 27 August 2011.
4.  Yellow flower along the shoulder, 7 August 2011.
5.  White calyces on the prairie, 20 October 2011.
6.  Thistles turning purple on the prairie, 20 October 2011.

7.  Thistles beginning to burn.  At this point the heat is drying the plants and releasing the chemicals into the yellow-gray smoke.  This is one plant collected from my neighbor’s shoulder, 16 December 2010.

8.  Empty stem in my yard photographed on a piece of cardboard, 8 November 2022.
9.  Debris in the same place in my yard, 8 November 2022.

End notes: I discussed Russian thistles on my Nature Abhors a Garden website on 16 March 2008 and 19 December 2010.  The first dealt with the plant and its history.  The second was devoted to problems burning carcasses.

Sins of My Contractors

Weather: The first part of the week was Indian summer, with wintry temperatures in the morning and warm in the afternoon.  I suppose it’s politically incorrect to say “Indian summer” though, through usage, it has gathered far different associations than whatever was the original.  It’s certainly more precise than late autumn, which can have many faces (like the cold on Friday and Saturday).  It certainly is preferable to the unimaginative third trimester of the third quarter of the solar year.

Last useful rain: 10/17.  Week’s low: 22 degrees F.  Week’s high: 67 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 31 mph in Santa Fé on Friday.

What’s still green: Trees and shrubs, especially in the rose family, began to change color.  Plants lower to the ground remain green but many are slowing their metabolism and turning chartreuse as less chlorophyll is produced.  Most soon will be yellow or brown or gone.

Animal sightings: Grasshoppers, hornets, and sidewalk ants still are alive.

Tasks: I got my first order of supplies for fixing my erosion problems and, fortunately, they are all that I hoped.  Because the edging is heavy, I have to order it in small quantities, and Amazon is in one of those periods when it deliberately ships slow if one hasn’t signed onto its premium services.  The holidays will make wait times worse.  What I wanted to hire done now may have to wait until spring.

Weekly update: I mentioned last week the importance of actually seeing the cause of a problem, rather than applying a template based on best practices.  This became even clearer earlier in October when I went out to inspect the erosion along the south fence.

I assumed water was running under the it, but hadn’t seen the telltale marks except at the far west end.  So, I went out to look when the rain on 16 October had lessened in the afternoon.  I discovered that water was landing on the fence, running down the boards, and dripping off the bottom.  The landing impact was what was eroding the earth below.

Retaining walls, as proposed by landscape specialists, would have done no good.  All I need to do is raise the ground level to just above the bottom of the fence.  Then I need to sprinkle a layer of stones to keep the loose dirt from blowing away.  Perhaps, depending on how it looks, I may need to add a layer of sand, because sand is what remains when the wind and rain have removed the lighter parts of the soil.  It might help maintain the barrier.

The erosion problem did not occur wherever I had a wooden fence, so it wasn’t the fence design that was the problem.  It was the execution.

I remembered a conversation with the fence builder, when he was part way done.  He indicated the ground was getting uneven, and wanted to know if I still wanted the fence to follow the terrain, or wanted a smooth top line.  I told him to follow the ground.  He did the other.  The problems start where the fence takes a different tangent.  Of course, I didn’t notice at the time, and it has taken more than 15 years for the problem to appear.

His sin was that he applied assumptions based on Santa Fé where people who build fences to establish their property lines and create privacy are more concerned with appearances than function.  A fence that’s not a barrier is useless.

To recover, I first installed a row of pavers every so often under the fence to act as ribs to keep the filler in place.  The fake bricks laid on their sides at the center of the fence, and on their ends at the west end.  I used sixteen.

Then I started moving dirt.  I began with the mound surrounding the cholla cactus that was eaten by a ground squirrel.  It requires some energy to dig dirt and move the wheel barrow, so I only do one load a day.

Since I plan to work ninety minutes each day, I leave the wooden fence and move to an area on the west side of the house where I continue to remove Russian thistles by a wire fence.  I use loppers to cut them and toss the carcasses overboard.  Then I sit on the ground and use a plastic whisk broom to sweep the seeds and broken pieces into a dust pan.

While I was doing this, I noticed some of the soil had a crust with a whitish cast.  I think the man doing the plaster washed his tools in this area, and a thin layer of lime was preventing anything from growing in the area.  I lifted this crust with a drywall trowel and dumped it into a plastic dishpan.  When I was done, I took it to the south fence and dumped it in the empty space as fill.

Dealing with Russian thistles is tedious, and I can only do it for about thirty minutes.  When I get bored, I do something else for the rest of the ninety minutes.  Once I realized the plaster dirt could be used as fill, I decided to pick up the bits of concrete scattered here and there and adding them to the fill under the south fence.  I hadn’t done this before because concrete is heavy, and I couldn’t overload my plastic trash bin.

The first pieces were large chunks on the surface, that usually were in areas where grass was growing.  These had been left by the contractor who installed the concrete-block foundation, and used cement as mortar.

After I picked them up, I started on what I assumed was the sand left by the man doing the stucco.  I used the carpenter’s chisel to loosen pieces that I dropped in the dust pan.  As I was prying out stones, the chisel started to hit buried pieces of rock.  He apparently had dug holes around the back and buried his left overs, then covered them with sand and dirt.

His sins were two.   He probably had worked in Santa Fé as a subcontractor where he didn’t have to worry about his debris.  Someone else would be hired to bring in topsoil and landscape the site.  He realized that wasn’t the case here, and still was concerned with appearances.  That, after all, is the mark of a good stucco man.  So he did what he could to leave a neat work site behind.

It was obvious this was the reason nothing had grown back in an area that had had good native grasses when I bought the property.  I removed the gray dirt, digging down until I reached the reddish brown of the soil below.  More fill for the south fence.

My ninety minute daily regimen is now (1) dump dirt excavated by the ground squirrel and debris to stop erosion caused by the fence man; (2) remove crust left by the plaster man while I’m cleaning Russian thistle pieces; and (3) dig out layers of thick, coarse cement buried by the stucco man.
    
Notes on photographs:
1.  Daylily (Hemerocallis fulva cultivar) leaves are turning yellow while golden spur columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha) still are green, 5 November 2022.

2.  Cholla cactus (Opuntia imbricata) killed by ground squirrel that tunneled under it and left mounds of dirt at its base, 31 October 2022.

3.  Pieces of concrete left by the man who built the cinder block foundation, 5 November 2022.

4.  Pieces of stucco buried by a skilled tradesman, 5 November 2022.

5.  South fence with recovered debris scattered in the eroded area, 5 November 2022.