Friday, September 8, 2017

The Narrative Image: PARANOIA on the TRIPLE FALLS TRAIL

The Narrative Image: PARANOIA on the TRIPLE FALLS TRAIL
if you can use a good chuckle or maybe slightly irreverent rolling on the floor laughter this is a good read!  Beware of snowmen who lock gates and throw boulders...

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Big Tree and Spirit





Pondering the death of the famous Trout Lake big tree; still standing mind you, giant of its kind and now home and food source for countless forms of life.  Nothing lasts forever on the material plane, everything is always changing. New trees are born, grow and give their gifts to the world. The old pass away having imparted their wisdom; going henceforth to the afterlife for their full rewards. I wonder what the afterlife is like for trees. All of this physical creation is spirit based just as we humans are. Of this I am certain. Were plants and animals given free agency as well as mankind? Is that the source of evolution?
There are those who say they believe in the creation theory which denies the evolution theory. I say the two work hand-in-hand, all was created using the process of evolution. Science is important and valuable in our evolution but it is not the full answer. Religion is important but does not have the full answer. Looking at those together I believe many mysteries can be solved or at least better understood.  Humans are only part of this equation we call Earth, and the more we learn it seems the more we don't know for sure. 




Wikipedia provides some details regarding this old growth pine:   
The Big Tree (also known as the Trout Lake Big Tree) was a massive Ponderosa pine tree in old growth pine and fir forest in southern Washington state, at the southern base of Mount Adams. It is managed by the Mount Adams Ranger District of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The tree is 202 feet (62 m) tall with a diameter of 7 feet (210 cm),and was one of the largest known ponderosa pine trees in the world. It had been stressed by attacks from mountain pine beetles, and its death in 2015 was confirmed the following year.
     (link to above article: Wikipedia: Big Tree (Washington) )


     An article in The Columbian in November 2016 had some good info about the old tree also, written By Dameon Pesanti, Columbian staff writer
Published: November 25, 2016, 6:00 AM
"A mammoth conifer, the Big Tree contained about 22,000 board feet of lumber — enough wood to frame almost one and a half 2,400-square-foot homes.
Although it was one of the oldest and tallest trees of its kind, and for decades the centerpiece of an interpretive site for travelers headed to Mount Adams, the Big Tree died with little fanfare last year. Jon Nakae, a silviculturist in the Mount Adams Ranger District, wrote it an obituary, but stopped short of publishing it for fear of making light of a particularly sensitive section of local newspapers.
No one from the U.S. Forest Service is quite sure of the tree’s age. The web page devoted to the Big Tree pegged it at about 370, but Nakae thinks it’s likely much older.
“It’s probably well over 500 years, gauging by the size,” he said.
The most accurate way to know its age would be counting its rings, but Nakae said he doesn’t have a core sampling tool long enough to get all the way through the Big Tree’s trunk. To make matters worse, parts of the tree’s interior are rotten, which hampers counting tree rings. The Forest Service could cut it down to know exactly how old it was, but Forest Service officials said it’s worth more standing.
Using those age estimations as bookends, the Big Tree had barely taken root when Martin Luther nailed his “95 Theses” to the door of a Catholic church, thereby launching the Protestant Revolution in 1517. Or maybe it began growing roughly two years after the Ming Dynasty of China came to an end in 1644.
It survived an untold number of forest fires and the estimated magnitude 9 Cascadia earthquake of 1700.
Much like the Europeans that started colonizing the Eastern United States when the Big Tree sprouted, ponderosa pines are pioneers. They’re among the first vegetation to return after a forest fire because they do well in direct sunlight and prefer dry weather conditions.
Ponderosas generally are considered by federal officials and academics to be the most widely distributed pine in North America. They’re typically found in the Intermountain West rather than on the west side of the Cascade Mountains. Ponderosas prefer drier, warmer conditions rather than the humid forests of coastal areas.
The Trout Lake area that the Big Tree grew in was probably near the end of the ponderosa’s tolerant range. But the Big Tree may have benefitted from growing relatively close to the coast.
“Its location may have been beneficial because it got more moisture than its eastern counterparts,” said Kevin Zobrist, associate professor of forestry at Washington State University.
According to the book “Champion Trees of Washington,” published in 1996, the Big Tree was 22 feet around and 213 feet tall, though Nakae said it was 202 feet tall in 2015.
The Big Tree wasn’t the biggest known ponderosa alive on Earth, but it might have been the tallest. A ponderosa on the Yakama Indian Reservation, which also recently died, was shorter but considerably stouter and thus the biggest ponderosa in Washington state.
At more than 500 years old, nearly 29 feet around and 162 feet tall, the world’s largest known living ponderosa named Big Red sits in Oregon’s La Pine State Park. Its girth made it bigger, but the Big Tree towered over it by about 40 feet."