Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 260
Another intense storm is predicted for tomorrow with t-storms, high winds, hail and who knows what else. The midwest has been hammered for the last week as these storms rolled across the country one after the other. Tornadoes have hit several towns and villages in their path with some loss of life and many homes and businesses destroyed. To look at the pictures of the damage it is amazing that more people hadn’t been killed.
We had some pretty high winds a couple of times and with the tree’s all leafed out they blow over much more than in the wintertime when they are bare of leaves. The evergreens on the other hand take it in the shorts in all seasons. I’ve seen where lots of them have been blown down during the winter and now the cleanup has begun. I’ve been meaning to mention that if you have a row of evergreens in your yard and one dies, it should be removed so that whatever killed it, doesn’t spread to the others. If left it may spread to the whole row of trees as I have seen happen many times.
The fires in western Canada mostly in British Columbia and Alberta have driven thousands from their homes as the wind driven fires keep moving. Hundreds of residents in four neighborhoods in the southern end of Canada’s oil sand hub of Fort McMurray, Alberta, were ordered to evacuate with a wildfire threatening the community. Fort McMurray has a population of 68,000 and a wildfire in 2016 destroyed 2,400 homes and forced more than 80,000 people to flee. More than 230 wildfires were burning across western Canada, most of them in British Columbia where about 130 were counted. The smoke from these fires is again blowing easterly and into the US affecting some major cities as it did last summer from the big fires in Canada.
We had a few more power flashes during the last week and a few lines were blown down causing minor fires in the area. I don’t know if you have been reading about the major power transmission line going from Canada to New York City. From Canada it is going under the length of Lake Champlain and south from there. I looked up how long the lake is, and I got two different figures, one was 107 and the other was 120 and I don’t know if the part in Canada the difference was or not. The other difference was in the width, one stated it was fourteen miles wide and the other said it was twelve miles wide and both agreed it was four hundred feet deep at the deepest point. If they can lay a cable under Lake Champlain and on to New York City as I haven’t seen the rest of the route if it is above ground from there or underground and some water from there. Why can’t they lay an underground line from Inlet to Raquette Lake where they had proposed the big Lithium Battery storage units to keep Raquette Lake powered up. For that matter put it underground from wherever to here and eliminate all the power outages from trees and vehicles taking down the poles and the lines.
I’ve heard the power company people say it would lose too much power underground so how much power is lost when you put it under water for 120 miles and maybe more before it gets to New York City. These tree service companies might be out of business in this neck of the woods but there certainly are places around the country where these storms are hitting that could use a lot of help.
When I was growing up the federal government built a high-tension line right over our two-acre garden. If you walked under that line while working in the garden it would feel like it would make your hair stand on end. They cut the big pine trees and a large elm tree from our property, but I was able to keep my pigeon coop because it was less than twelve feet high. The pigeons never had successful nesting after that power was turned on, babies were deformed, or eggs never hatched, and I didn’t connect it to the power line until later. My grandparents whose trailer was near to the pigeon coop both died of cancer as did my dad who spent much of his spare time working in the garden under the line. A neighbor who lived across the road whose house was right parallel to the line also died of cancer. If you walk under one of these big high-tension lines today, you can feel the activity. I am sure I will get some comments, but these are hard facts that happened in my life.
Loons are nesting early, and you may see some of the Loon Nesting platforms on area lakes put out by the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation. If you do see a loon on a nest, take your photos from a distance not with your cell phone at five feet.
Many wildflowers are blooming, with many pink lady slippers out in the area, just take a picture and leave them to have many seeds so more may grow.
Just so you know the black flies are out so be prepared if you are out and about but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo Above: Lady Slippers
