{"id":963,"date":"2021-10-11T22:26:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T03:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/?p=963"},"modified":"2021-10-11T22:26:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T03:26:33","slug":"recovery-in-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/11\/recovery-in-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovery In Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

What you’re told, in the management books, is that after a planned fire, everything comes back just fine.\u00a0 Wild fires tend to be hotter, get out of control faster, and do more damage because they occur in the hottest weather when fire departments hope to goodness no fires start.\u00a0\u00a0 There are enthusiasts for “prescribed fires.”\u00a0 There are no enthusiasts for unprescribed burns.\u00a0 I’m not an enthusiast for either, in today’s heating world, but Stuff Happens.\u00a0 It’s always caused, usually by human error of some kind.<\/p>\n

We have been lucky to have two rains (one about two inches last week, about a week after the fire, and one about four tenths of an inch last night.) \u00a0 Between the fire and the first of those rains we walked the entire fire scar and ordered seed to assist recovery.\u00a0\u00a0 The seed came in and this is what it looked like:<\/p>\n

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Two sacks of seed in a box, and seed in one of the sherbet containers we first carried out to the burn scar (light on the way out, even lighter on the way in.)\u00a0\u00a0 And the content list for the seeds…that’s a lot of species, but that’s what prairies are, a mix of many species, each finding its own favorite habitat within the land.\u00a0 Later we decided to carry the seed out in larger containers,\u00a0 Strongid ™ horse wormer tubs.\u00a0\u00a0 (Strongid used to come in VERY useful 5 gallon buckets, but I admit these are easier to use for sowing seed.\u00a0 I also use them to store sacks of beans and pasta.\u00a0 But they’re not nearly as good as 5 gallon buckets for sitting on (too low), or carrying tools in the garden cart, or using for mounting blocks or storing 25 pounds of flour .)<\/p>\n

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But the grass seeds in this mix won’t germinate in fall, only in spring\/summer so only the forbs matter now.\u00a0 Meanwhile what really matters is the seedstock *in* the soil, and the root depth of the perennial grasses there when the fire burned their tops off, and the remaining leaves and rootlets of the trees that aren’t killed outright.\u00a0 We had nothing to do with those but hope, because we had no way to water them except rainfall.\u00a0 The trees and shrubs turned various dead brown and gray shades, where they weren’t black.\u00a0 Some still had green at the very top, or on the far side, but they looked bad.<\/p>\n

By today, it was clear that a lot of the grass was still alive, and so were some of the forbs (I didn’t take a picture of the tiny forb cotyledons, the first pair of leaves that come out of the seed, because I was busy planting and as I got tireder my hands got shakier.<\/p>\n

Here’s one view of the existing grasses.\u00a0 The coverage isn’t even and there are still large bare patches, but overall the field looks green….ish.\u00a0 Bright greenish.\u00a0 98% of the green is grass sprouts, some already four inches tall, and each coming out of the burned crown (and using the roots) of a former clump of grass.\u00a0 They’re not all alike.\u00a0 In the distance the yellowish green is broomweed (undesirable, on the whole) which didn’t get burned, and which “poisons” the grass that tries to grow under it.\u00a0 It smells like citronella.\u00a0 The blacker the ground, the hotter the fire was right there.\u00a0 The forbs are just starting to poke through.\u00a0 The forb seeds we planted today should sprout after the rain that’s due the rest of the week.<\/p>\n

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But what about the trees, those grand old Live Oaks and one Post Oak just over the north boundary fence?\u00a0\u00a0 Slower to bounce back than the perennial grasses, the oaks took their own sweet time pushing nutrients\u00a0 and water up from the ground and out to their limbs.\u00a0\u00a0 Some buds were burnt, many twigs were scorched, along with the deadleaves.\u00a0 But….<\/p>\n

This happened.\"\" and this happened<\/p>\n

\"\"and then this…<\/p>\n

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And this…because live oaks drop leaves in late winter\/spring (depending on individuals & weather) and then bloom…this last young oak is putting out florets that will allow it to spread its pollen on the wind, as Oaks do, and have offspring.\u00a0 So *there*, fire, says the young oak.\u00a0 Ha.\u00a0 I am an Oak; I live centuries, you live but a short time…New buds, from new sites on twigs, bundles of leaves folded tight and floral parts about to expand.\u00a0 The ground under the oaks is covered with the tan leaves killed by the fire, more dropping with every wind, but “Aten’t Dead Yet.”<\/p>\n

One may be dying (no sign of green yet from it) and another is grievously scorched, but I’m grateful for their toughness as well as their shade and the habitat they provide for other creatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What you’re told, in the management books, is that after a planned fire, everything comes back just fine.\u00a0 Wild fires tend to be hotter, get out of control faster, and do more damage because they occur in the hottest weather when fire departments hope to goodness no fires start.\u00a0\u00a0 There are enthusiasts for “prescribed fires.”\u00a0 Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,16,22],"tags":[52,17,51],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-80-acres","category-life-beyond-writing","category-science","tag-80acres","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}