Burning one for 4-2(0) || Wednesday, April 02, 2008

A few weeks ago we decided to make an impromptu trip to Cades Cove one day after Bailey and I got out of school. The past several times we've gone, we've seen more Ohians than animals, but this time we lucked out. First of all, I've always wanted to see a controlled burn. Periodically in the Cove and other areas in the park forestry people conduct a prescribed burn to both clear brush and perform a role in the life cycle of the forest. For example... cool random factoid... Usually when you see masses of dead trees in the national park, it's usually the result of an exotic species of fungus, bug, etc. that has decimated that trees population (think American chestnut, fir trees, hemlocks). When you see a huge mass of dead pine tree, however, the culprit is usually a totally native tree beetle that feeds on the insides of the pine tree. You can usually tell because if you pick up some of the bark off one of the dead trees, there will like little lines burrowed in on the underside of the bark from where the beetles ate and traveled. Well, it turns out that pine trees require fire in their life cycle to germinate the seeds. SO, the theory goes, pine beetles live in harmony with the pine trees, until the beetle population starts to get too big. Once it starts to get too big, they start to kill a lot of pines (more beetles = need for more food). The pine trees die, fall over, and dry out. Now, instead of being a pine tree, it is dry fuel for an impending fire. With each tree that dies, the possibility of a fire increases. Eventually, there will be a fire, the dead trees will burn, the living trees will burn some, the seeds will germinate and begin to grow, and the beetle population will be burned back into check. Good stuff, this whole balance of nature thing.

The catch is... in millions of years of evolution, the pine trees never had anyone to protect them from fire. Enter the park service. With protection and the prevention/early distinguishing of fires, all the dead pines pile up. And pile up, and pile up. And pine beetles reproduce and kill more trees. And they pile up, etc. Long story short, now they have controlled burns to help simulate the life cycle.

ANYWAY, there was a controlled burn on Sparks lane. The road was closed so we couldn't get too close, but neat none the less.

Also, we saw 77 deer and about a dozen or so wild turkeys.

Halfway around the loop we stopped for a picnic at the Cable Mill. After the picnic, Bailey drove back about the last 3 miles of the loop road (which made Jodie nervous, mainly because I didn't hit the brakes whenever Bailey would steer us off the road. Ahh... the stuff of memories. "Andy... Andy.. ANDYWE'REGOINGTORUNOFFTHEROADANDHITTHAT
TREEOCRAPWEREOFFTHEROADTHERESTHETREE"

Needless to say, Myers enjoyed it. Have some pictures--