My fellow Penn State Extension Educator, David Jackson, posted an interesting story about deer-car collisions yesterday on his blog, noting that Pennsylvania has become the third most dangerous state for deer crossing the road, behind West Virginia and Montana. That got me to remembering one of the strongest, most lingering impressions I had of Australia - dead kangaroos on the road.
If you think you've seen a lot of dead animals on the road, and you've never been to Australia, think again. Even though the speed limits are strictly enforced, uncountable numbers of animals, and kangaroos in particular, find their end on the bumper of a four-wheel drive cruiser or "road train". Road trains are large tractor-trailer rigs that have two, three, and sometimes four trailers. I passed a couple of three-trailer rigs on my drive-about. When you have to pass a moving mountain, about seventy yards long, while it's hurtling ninety kilometers an hour down a two-lane highway...well, that's a memorable experience. You floor your vehicle and pray for the next ten seconds or so that another road train won't suddenly appear on the horizon heading in your direction.
I started counting dead kangaroos and stopped at one hundred, and I wasn't even out of New South Wales. I began to assume that the carcasses are just left for the scavengers, since I never saw a road crew, and I saw many in the final stages of decay. I didn't take any pictures; it just seemed the wrong thing to do. I did see about three live hoppers on the road, but they were well ahead of me and too far to get a picture of. Australians all seem to have a kangaroo collision story to tell, and they warn you adamantly to stop driving a half-hour before sunset, which I did my best to adhere to.
One study done in New South Wales determined that kangaroo road-kill was not biased toward either kangaroo sex or age-class, so that road kill incidents have no apparent effect on kangaroo populations. Another interesting phenomenon, besides the presence of all the dead animals on the road, is that demolished vehicles are sometimes left on the side of the road as a warning to slow down.
One of my trip hosts mentioned that they had a kangaroo harvest in a recent year that tallied over 9,000 animals, and yet it was less than ten percent of the harvest target for his property. Perhaps the surest evidence of the booming population of kangaroos in Australia is that they are one of the few species that are legal to hunt with a permit; it is strictly against the law to kill most Australian animals, even snakes. Regardless, Australians seem to like kangaroo meat, and one town I visited was even building a new kangaroo processing plant as its latest economic venture. I had kangaroo one night...tastes like chicken.
I did see a few live animals. The most ubiquitous was the emu...I saw them almost everywhere from Sydney to Darwin.
Look closely at the bottom of the tree line...there's a small mob of emus.
The birds of Australia are simply amazing. Their size, and color, and variety seem to be endless. I didn't see any ostrich, but saw cockatoos of every color.
This is a galah cockatoo, Eolophus roseicapillus. They were the most common bird I saw on my trip.
I also heard the famous Kookabura nearly every morning, although I didn't remember seeing one. In reviewing my pictures, I think I did get a long-distance shot of one...
Possibly a species of Dacelo, the kookaburra.
And millions of small birds that provide the listener with a symphony of the music of nature everywhere you go in Australia. I'm not a great wildlife photographer, but I was able to zoom in a little closer on this tiny flock and their mud nests in the trees.
But much of the fauna of Australia tends toward the more aggressive. There is a great ongoing story of how wild dogs terrorize the outback, and how the stockmen fight back against them as they ravage their herds. In fact, one of the longest structures in the world is the Dingo fence built across the continent back in the 1880's.
The Dingo Fence or Dog Fence is a pest-exclusion fence that was built in Australia during the 1880s and finished in 1885, to keep dingoes out of the relatively fertile south-east part of the continent (where they had largely been exterminated) and protect the sheep flocks of southern Queensland. It is one of the longest structures in the world and is the world's longest fence. It stretches 5,614 kilometres (3,488 mi) from Jimbour on the Darling Downs near Dalby through thousands of kilometres of arid land ending west of Eyre peninsula on cliffs of the Nullarbor Plain above the Great Australian Bight near Nundroo. It has been partly successful, though dingoes can still be found in parts of the southern states. Although the fence has helped reduce losses of sheep to predators, this has been countered by holes in fences found in the 1990s through which dingo offspring have passed and by increased pasture competition from rabbits and kangaroos.
I crossed through the fence in Western Queensland, but did not notice a rise in the number of wild dogs roaming around. In fact, the only wild dog I saw was one that had fed the crows and the flies...
Life in the outback can be harsh...
Speaking of crows and flies, I was reminded of this next stop in Queensland. I had stopped to admire the vista of a sprawling cattle station, but the 20 minute stop was little more than an attempt to keep my sanity while shooting video on the walk.
Insects is a good subject for the end of this post. There is one you simply have to see to believe, although it's not the insect, but its home. Termites are perhaps God's way of ensuring that inland Australia will remain relatively free of humans. As you travel inland you begin to notice small mounds in the landscape...and they get bigger the further inland you go. Travel far enough, and they are taller than a human being.
Now if the termites stayed in their mounds, they might not be so intimidating. But invariably, I noticed a few of the little buggers in my motel room each morning, even though all the buildings are made of cinder block. One morning I had a thirsty little termite enjoying the moisture on my toothbrush. Lovely.
Of course, the Australians with their great sense of humor have devised a way to enjoy their termite co-habitants. The dress them up! I began to notice "earth people" springing up along the roadside at the border of Queensland and the Northern Territory. And I continued to see them all the way to Darwin on the northern coast.
First, you notice just a few mounds in the distance...
...then they get larger, and closer to the road...
...Soon, they're so large that they grow clothing as they mature...
...and once you've been on the road long enough, they actually start to look attractive.
These earth people can get to be quite elaborate. Just wish they had heads...
What do you know?! Penn State fans, even among the earth people of the Australian outback.
A memorial to my passing there....
Well, back to the people, the trees, and the wood of Australia in future posts...
Chuck, you have managed to see more of the Australian bush than most Australians. The sheer size of the country, the distances involved and, unhappily, a lack of amenities limits travel for most.
Glad you like the challenge of overtaking a road train. Years ago I was driving in the Northern Territory and understand the frisson of fear that grabs you when you finally decide to overtake one of these monsters. Wrecked cars along the side of the road don't help.
Come back another time and find someone to take you to Western Australia. That State is almost as big as half of the USA and largely devoid of human life but amazing flora and fauna.
What were you doing for fun last weekend? Well, Hannah Barron and her dad were throwing up a workout building. She recorded a video of it...and there's not a minute of the seventeen-minute video you'll want to miss.
Hannah is famous on social media as a "noodler"...for those of you not from The South, that's catching big catfish with your bare hands. Here's one of her best catches...
But here at Go Wood, we're even more impressed with her skill with the tools. If you've ever tackled a construction project, you'll love this one.
Lots of fascinating aspects of this video, not the least of which is Hannah's diet. Wish I could still eat like that and maintain my girlish figure.
I especially like her explanation of why they're using horizontal studs to make their board and batten siding installation go easier. This girl knows what she's talkin bout. (Now she's got me slipping back into my southern dialect.) And the best part of the vid…
If you're nice and cozy by your wood stove, and feeling good about your own energy and stamina in splitting and piling all that wood for the winter, then good for you. But don't get too impressed by your own firewood prowess until you consider these Herculean efforts.
Remember the holzhaus(en) we discussed back in September? Well, those were woodpiles that mere mortals would build. But real wood users need a real stack of wood, one to be proud of. And the young lady below certainly can be proud of her woodpiles, and whoever built them.
No need to stop at two when you're stacking big woodpiles. You never know how long it might snow, especially if you live near the Arctic Circle...
Of course, stacking wood is always better with a partner - especially if you're building a pile that endangers local air traffic.
And there just is no better way to display your national pride than building a wood stack flagpole.
Of course, you can always stay practical with your wood-stacking …
I was giving a presentation to a group of chestnut scientists (more about that in days to come) when I showed them these slides...
The first shows shows a phenomenon called tyloses, which is a waxy build-up of parenchyma cell distensions that grow like balloons and plug up the cell lumens, or the pores, of woody cells. Tyloses grow to a slight extent in most hardwoods, but they are especially prominent in the various species of white oaks.
The second photo, which illustrates the difference between red oak wood and chestnut wood (primarily, the wide multi-cellular rays in the oak [Item G]) also illustrates why red oak isn't used for wooden barrels. As you see, the large early-wood pores are mostly free of tyloses, whereas the cell lumens in the upper picture are obviously packed with them. This packing of the cell lumens with tyloses is why the white oak species are the preferred species for hardwood barrels...they have more tyloses than all other hardwoods. What advantage is this…
When I was contemplating the renaissance of Go Wood, I got lots of advice from The Wife and The Daughters, who are all social media experts. Daughter Two advised me to keep it shorter - the posts were too long to read. Daughters One and Three counseled me to be sweeter - my posts were all too serious. And The Wife gave me the best advice of all - make it sexier.
So I get it - shorter, sweeter, sexier. That's our new motto here at Go Wood.
I think this next photo is what they had in mind...
"Nothing like a great day splitting wood the old-fashioned way. Axe, muscle, concentration. While the camera takes my picture."
Well, I guess this does slightly resemble me splitting wood on a nice day. Slightly. I have the same jeans, anyway.
But I've considered their comments very deeply since then, and decided that no, I just can't diminish the dignity of Go Wood like that. We want folks to seriously consider the finer points of a Woody Life, without stooping to the lowest …
One of my earliest memories...about 1960, standing in the second row of the Littleton Baptist Church in Littleton, Colorado..I'm about four or five years old. We're all singing
"On a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame..."
My dad's deep singing voice stands out in my memory for this song, because he didn't normally sing out. But he did for this one.
This one will get your blood pumping again and shake off your post-Christmas lethargy. The technology just keeps getting better every year for those who can keep their cash flowing. Best watched full-screen on your computer monitor with the sound cranked up.
You've read in this blog about the westward movement of logging and the unique way of classifying wood products that evolved during this migration. But we've not really touched on the stories of the lumber kingdoms created and lost during this migration. In state after state, region after region, timber fortunes were made and then moved westward with the remaining timber. The tall timber stands of virgin Eastern white pines (Pinus strobus) in Minnesota in the last part of the nineteenth century were the last such stands in the country. As pine stands in Michigan and Wisconsin were harvested to build the booming cities of the Great Lakes, the timber barons looked even further afield for the majestic white pines with their strong, straight, and light lumber...and found it in the largely unpopulated state of Minnesota.
CREDIT: Halvorson, Lewis H., photographer. "Banner load, Blackduck, Minnesota : biggest load of logs ever hauled / by Lewis H. Halvorson." 1909. The Northe…
Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above Don't fence me in Let me ride through the wide open country that I love Don't fence me in Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees Send me off forever but I ask you please Don't fence me in.
And so begins a new chapter of Go Wood.
I imagine everyone out there has run into a situation where you felt like someone was trying to fence you in, trying to make you conform to some nebulous standard which is clear only to them. It can be frustrating...but hey, that's life. It happens to us all sooner or later.
And when it does, and we jump the fence and break into the clear, it can be invigorating. Fresh wind at our back, new companions to ride with, new places to see and conquer. A chance to listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees just for the pleasure of it. Without the constraints that hobbled us in the past...
I want to ride to the ridge where the west commence…
I spent an interesting day Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. But not doing what I had planned...
We had a couple of guests over for Thanksgiving dinner, a Penn State sophomore far from his home in Nebraska, and a doctoral student even further from his home in India. It was a nice meal, everyone was cordial, and all were stuffed by sunset. However, as we lingered at the table over conversation, and the setting sun caused us to turn on the overhead light fixture, I noticed a couple of tiny insects buzzing me at the table. They were bigger than fruit flies, but smaller than anything else I could readily identify. Odd, I thought. It was freezing outside and Pennsylvania is not especially known for flying insects this time of year.
The mystery was solved the next day. The Wife woke up in a Christmas decorating frenzy that Friday morning. One of the first things she decided to do was to re-decorate the sideboard in our dining area, and she started out by cleaning off the top and pushing i…
Ever wondered how sawmill operators make their sawing decisions? Or how square-edged boards are profitably produced from round, rough logs? Well, watch this video, and you will know.
Dr. Gene Wengert, who offers his advice online as "The Wood Doctor", does a nice job of laying out the steps and decisions made by a sawyer as hardwood logs are sawn. The emphasis here as illustrated is to maximize value by sawing for as much "clear lumber" as the log will produce...because clear lumber is much more valuable than lumber with defects in the board.
This differs from softwood lumber production, where logs are usually sawn for yield, or a yield/quality combination. Softwood lumber is usually produced for structural applications, such as rough framing, where defects such as knots and wane do not impact the value of the board as much as in hardwood lumber, where furniture, cabinetry, or trim are the most profitable products.
GoWood thanks go out to Patrick Rappold, who digi…
Comments
Glad you like the challenge of overtaking a road train. Years ago I was driving in the Northern Territory and understand the frisson of fear that grabs you when you finally decide to overtake one of these monsters. Wrecked cars along the side of the road don't help.
Come back another time and find someone to take you to Western Australia. That State is almost as big as half of the USA and largely devoid of human life but amazing flora and fauna.