Forestry publications tell me that there are about 200 species of insects that prey on Ponderosa Pine.  The woodpeckers that are successfully debarking a Ponderosa south of the house, and a couple of Western Larch to the north, have convinced me that some sort of bark beetle has successfully reproduced and left grubs working under the bark.

The NRCS publication on Ponderosa Pine is available at this link PONDEROSA PINE.Western larch is a Canadian publication that can be accessed with a click.

Idaho has a publication on bark beetles at Come spring, bark beetles may attack trees damaged in winter storms – Department of Lands

“Bark beetles are a group of insects that spend almost their entire life beneath the bark of trees. They tunnel in the moist inner bark, lay eggs and these develop into larvae or grubs. The tunneling kills trees by girdling them (cuts off the supply of nutrients). Adults emerge later to infest other trees in late spring or early summer. For more information, please see the IDL bark beetle fact sheet.”  

With the work around a new house, the dense timber that is just now being thinned, and last year’s hot, dry summer, the trees are stressed – and obviously, the insects are moving in on the stressed trees.  Fortunately, the little sawmill is ready (well, it will need the Spring leveling) to turn these stressed trees into lumber, and there is always the option of firewood.

Last week’s article showing the dawn of Naval aviation 8 years before Dad was born made me realize – I can show the ships, and their ages, that he served on in the second World War.  The first two were coal burners, both launched in the 1890s, both having served in the Spanish American War, in World War I and in World War II.

As the US entered World War II, he was a First Class Petty Officer on the Hannibal.  I’ve selected this photo, because Hannibal had been a tender for submarine chaser during the first World War.  Dad’s time on the Hannibal in the late 1930’s prepared him for his career, largely because, as a survey ship in the Caribbean, Hannibal still had a YP (Yard Patrol) boat attached. 

The YP boat was, essentially, a scaled down ship, where a petty officer could develop all the requisite skills for a deck officer – the next photo is a YP boat, but not the one where Dad learned shiphandling.

Hannibal was launched in March, 1898, as the Joseph Holland,  and purchased by the US Navy in April, 1898, then renamed Hannibal.

These sub chasers were of the class that Hannibal tended – after World War I, they went to the Coast Guard for duty enforcing prohibition and intercepting rum runners.  By the time Dad was surveying in the Caribbean, the remaining boat was reclassified YP – and, unlike the Hannibal, was powered by an internal combustion engine.

The Hannibal was pulled back from survey duties  and set up to degauss (demagnetize) both Navy and Civilian ships to make them less susceptible to mines (which had magnetic triggers).  While the ship kept that duty, Dad was sent to Dover, as the ship’s Chief Petty Officer and Boatswain.

Renamed Dover when Dad reported aboard, this ocean going gunboat had an impressive service record.  She had steamed to Eastern Peru, traveling up the Amazon.  When World War I was declared, she was a river gunboat in China – when ships of belligerent nations were ordered to be interned, Wilmington steamed to the Philippines, to take up her place with the fleet.  She was the smallest ship to sail round the world with Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet.  She was commissioned in 1897.

With the coming of World War II, she steamed out of the Great Lakes and down to Louisiana, to be used as a gunnery training ship for junior reserve officers who were assigned gunnery duties on merchant ships crossing the Atlantic.  Bill Shelley, Lincoln County’s long-time SCS District Conservationist, came to Dover for his training in gunnery.  The conversations I heard as a kid were about “the little ship.”  The next photo shows how she looked when Dad and Bill served aboard “the little ship.”

After his one year spent as a chief petty officer, Dad was promoted to Warrant Officer and transferred to the seaplane tender Kenneth Whiting, and moved to the Pacific Fleet.

It was quite a change, moving from ships launched in 1897 and 1898 to brand new ship, burning oil instead of coal, launched in December 1943.  Dad said that only three of the ship’s officers had been to sea before when he reported for duty – which is even more impressive when I read that the ship’s complement was 113 officers and 964 enlisted.  

In June, 1946, the Whiting participated in Operation Crossroads – where a pair of atomic bombs were tested at Bikini.  Whiting, as a seaplane tender without seaplanes had berths available for the nuclear scientists observing the tests.  Dad described the protective gear issued to him – a pair of sunglasses.

The Korean Conflict provided two more ships for his career – first the Japanese Koan Maru, launched in 1937 as the world’s first air conditioned ship.  As the only US Navy officer aboard this leased transport, Dad had the finest quarters of his career . . . his own suite.  The Maru had operated as a transport through World War II for the Imperial Japanese Navy.

As the Korean conflict moved along, Dad went to his last ship – the USS General Breckenridge – transporting soldiers to and from Japan and Korea.  A smaller crew than Whiting, but designed to transport around 4,000 soldiers.  Launched late in World War II, the war ended with Breckenridge in the middle of the Atlantic on her first trip. 

Noah Rothman’s article at commentary.org brought my thoughts back to the 1970’s when I researched the possibility of ranching fallow deer.  Rothman wrote about whitetail deer in New Jersey: “In Western New Jersey, a population-dense state with an equally high concentration of whitetail deer, the problem is an increasingly urgent one. “Sustainable levels of deer should be 5 to 15 individuals per square mile,” one local arboretum fretted in 2021. “New Jersey averages 112 per square mile, with some areas as high as 270.”

He goes on to describe deer as “positively delicious” and then describes how the retail market for venison: “But you can’t buy deer meat at your local grocer or often even at upscale food purveyors. This NPR reporter found venison loin selling for a staggering $40 per pound. And about 85 percent of all deer meat sold in American restaurants is imported from New Zealand.”

That took me back to the seventies – when I looked into the idea of raising fallow deer commercially.  The price per pound was lower back then, but so was the cost of fuel.  I pencil-whipped it out – distribution would have required a van with refrigeration, much like the folks who come from the west coast with frozen fish.  And fallow deer have been a domestic animal since the days of Julius Caesar:

“When kept in parks or enclosures, Fallow Deer can become remarkably tame and are generally undisturbed by the presence of people. However, this belies the secretive and timid ways of wild living animals.”

https://worlddeer.org/fallow-deer/

What wasn’t there to like – recreating the research trail is far easier now with the net available than it was in Trego in the seventies:

“For thirty years I’ve been raising fallow deer,” says Bob Strange as he gazes across an open pasture filled with the creatures.

Fallow deer are medium-sized deer, which typically weigh less than 200 pounds. Known for their large, webbed antlers, the bucks can be quite popular for hunting. These creatures can vary in color, ranging from black, brown and white, and most keep their spots forever. These unique characteristics are what drew Strange to raising them.

“I just really liked the looks of them,” Strange says, “so I figured I’d try it out.”

Thirty years ago, his herd started with three. Today, he now raises nearly 200 fallow deer near Mount Ayr, Iowa. During the summer, his herd doubles, as fawns are born between June and July. Strange typically sells the animals for hunting purposes, and sometimes for meat.

“I pretty much just sell them to anyone who wants one,” says Strange.

Fallow deer are fairly easy to care for. They do not contract disease as easy as whitetail deer, and don’t require large amounts of food. Strange raises his on pasture, hay, and corn.”

https://www.agriculture.com/family/living-the-country-life/raising-fallow-deer

I ran across some photos of the first plane landing on a Navy warship – eight years before Dad was born.  Since his WWII service on the seaplane tender Kenneth Whiting left him as one of the Warrant Boatswain’s closely connected with Naval Aviation, and I can’t share the photos with him, I’m sharing them here.

Wrapped around Ely’s upper torso are bicycle inner tubes – his flotation device in case he had to ditch.

The seaplane that has been lifted onto the Whiting in World War II gives a perspective to over 40 years of development in Naval Aviation.  The ship’s records show that Commander Lyons was the Whiting’s first captain.  Dad was her first bos’n.

This winter seems a good time to check on the value of a woodshed in keeping firewood dry.  I’ve made it in far enough that I can sample wood that has been in the shed since last April, and I still have some firewood stacked out to dry from late fall – tarped, but not so well protected from the elements.

Now the half-dozen blocks that I’ve moved inside the house might as well have done their time in a dry kiln – my harbor freight moisture meter checks them out at 5 or 6% moisture.

The wood that is half-way back in the woodshed, protected from rain since April, is  checking out at 11 or 12% moisture –  the data suggests that a woodshed with three walls does a lot to keep the firewood dry – atmospheric humidity doesn’t seem to be causing much change inside the wood as rain does.  All this wood did have the benefit of being undercover through a hot, dry summer, and having a couple rows of wood between it and the outside during the rains we did get.

In stacks outside – all set up between October and the end of November, things aren’t quite so dry.

The books say that firewood moisture should be between 15 and 20%.  From that perspective, the outside stacks are still pretty good . . . but it is kind of a luxury to start the fire with the really dry wood that comes from the woodshed.

My new harmonica came with some sort of songs and tablature that I can’t read – fortunately, the website listed 江苏天鹅乐器有限公司 – and when I type it in, google offers to translate from Chinese.   So my latest harmonica – a Swan Tremolo harp in C and G is a Red Chinese import.

I’m not particularly surprised – tremolo harps are more an Asian thing than American – the standard we measure against is the old Marine Band and the Chrometta – my grandmother got me into the Chromettas

and I don’t know who it was that turned me on to Marine Bands and Blues harps

Still, years ago, I found out that I like the Tremolo harp.  The Swan Both Sides flips over to shift from the key of C to G . . . and I’ve been using a standard single-sided Tremolo harp (well, a couple of them, really) for over 20 years.  This article at harmonicatunes.com  describes using them . . . and I still need the standard harmonicas for blues.

The Tremolo Harmonica

“In recent years I’ve become part of the Asian harmonica scene, due to a Chinese harmonica lesson website I launched in 2006 with a Chinese partner. While the site has over 70000 members, most Asians don’t play 10 hole harmonica, the subject of my lessons. Instead, many play the Tremolo.

I was initially unimpressed with the Tremolo. I’ve changed my mind.

The Tremolo has either 21 or 24 holes. The comb has a divider down the middle which doubles the number of holes. The Tremolo is actually two harmonicas, tuned slightly apart and played in unison. The beating which occurs between the notes creates the Tremolo sound, not unlike a piano accordian. It’s an acquired taste, I’m starting to like it.

This double reed layout means that two notes are played at once. It also means that notes can’t be bent (actually, single tremolo notes can be bent a little, not the double ones however). Unlike the diatonic, each hole has one note only, either a blow or a draw. This takes getting used to, applying air at the wrong place means no sound. Also, no bending limits options for blues.

However the Tremolo is great for tunes. It’s also (kind of) laid out like a diatonic, as the diagram shows. The top holes in the diagram are the blow ones, and make a C chord, just like a diatonic. Each note is doubled, so the space in the diagram above the first hole D has another D reed, the space below the second hole C has another C and so on.”

From “Harmonica World” Oct-Nov 2010

Foy the rest of the article, click the link above . . . but if I haven’t turned you on to the tremolo harp already,  the challenges are:

“The problem is that the draw notes change position. The diagram shows higher draw notes to the left of the blow notes in the bottom octave. The middle octave has the higher notes one space to the right of the lower ones. In the top octave the higher notes are 3 spaces to the right of the adjacent lower notes.

Hard to remember, hard to play. At least for me. Initially I kept missing notes in the bottom and top octaves, especially the top. However, the feel of the two reed plates working (almost) together is nice.”

Personally, I like the tremolo harp – and I don’t mind buying an instrument from China.

Do car seats prevent the birth of children? In the case of car seat laws, the statistics suggest that they do. This is a case where the law of unintended consequences applies.

The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people—and especially of government—always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended. Economists and other social scientists have heeded its power for centuries; for just as long, politicians and popular opinion have largely ignored it.”

The Library of Economics and Liberty

Car seat laws are relatively recent; It was only in 1986 that all 50 US states required car seats. Over time, the age and size requirements for car seats has gone up. Jordan Nickerson of the University of Washington and David Solomon argue that car seat laws have prevented 145,000 births since 1980.

How? One possible explanation is that it is very difficult to find a car that will fit three car seats in the backseat, and purchasing a new car can be cost prohibitive (having a child isn’t exactly inexpensive in the first place). Certainly Nickerson and Solomon make a good case for it- they found that the likelihood of having a third child in any given year was .73% lower (small- but significant considering that the baseline likelihood is only 9.36%) for women that already had 2 children in car seats.

Small percentage- but cast it over all of the women considering having a third child in the US during a given year, and the number looks larger. Their study estimates that in 2017 car seat laws saved 57 lives and prevented the birth of 8,000.

In Montana, car seats (child restraint systems- so booster seats included) are required if a child is under the age of 6 and less than 60 lbs. Montana does not require children ride in the backseat. So even in Montana, the argument that women are likely delay (or opt against entirely) a third child until having one doesn’t require three children in car seats has face validity.

Whether or not Nickerson and Solomon are right about the reason (and their research looks fairly solid to me), they are certainly correct in observing the decline in birth rate and fertility in the United States, though car seat laws are probably only one among many contributing factors.