How sad

A 200- to 300-year-old tree along Hadrian's Wall in Britain, which in and of itself was a landmark, has been cut down, apparently by two vandals, a 16-year-old and 60-year-old.

Despair flows after England's Sycamore Gap tree is cut down. Could it regrow?

2 arrested after ‘world-renowned landmark’ tree is cut down in England

A fitting memorial

They're lovely birds

and given this information, I'm glad that my city is fairly tree-loving.

Cardinals may protect people from West Nile virus

Indeed, both the city I currently live in (Lexington, Kentucky) and my hometown (Danville, Kentucky) are both designated Tree City USA cities. Even so, we could do better.

Drunken Bullwinkle goes up tree looking for Rocky?

Here in the United States, there is the proverbial calling of the fire department to rescue a poor kittie trapped in a tree. Of course, cats can (usually) climb back down. Not so with moose. Apparently it is not terribly uncommon in Sweden for moose to eat fermented apples, get terribly barmy, and climb up the apple trees (looking for more delectable apples, no doubt.) So this man was coming home and lo!, a moose was twisted in a small apple tree. They had to cut most of the tree away to rescue the moose, then allowed it to 'sleep it off' there.

Drunk Moose Gets Stuck in Swedish Apple Tree [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

A drunk moose, intoxicated from eating too many fermented apples, was stuck in an apple tree in Sweden before being spotted by a Swedish passerby and rescued.

The moose was found by Per Johansson in Saro just south of Gothenberg in Sweden while on his commute home from work, stuck in a tree, drunk from eating apples.

Drunken moose ends up stuck in Swedish apple tree

It was a dark, windy and rainy night when Per Johansson returned from work to his home in Saro just south of Gothenburg, Sweden.

"It was raining really bad. In the wind I heard something screaming with a very dark voice," Johansson told CNN. "At first I wondered if it was the crazy neighbors, but then I heard it again and went and checked. I saw something really big up in a tree in my neighbors' yard and it was a moose. It must have been drunk after eating fermented apples and as it was reaching out for more fruit it must have slipped and fallen into the tree."

Silly moose. Squirrels often live in OAK trees, not tiny apple ones.

Thanks to YKWIA, who called me tonight with this truly blog-worthy story. :)

See, Star Trek was right....

Remember the one Next Generation episode with the planet of clones stealing genetic material from the crew of the Enterprise because after so many copies, the genetic integrity broke down, and they needed an influx? This is somewhat similar.

Trees can't live forever without sex, study shows

Certain trees are able to clone themselves, which raises the tantalising possibility that they could effectively "live forever".

But a study published in the journal PLoS Biology has dashed that hope.

Dr Dilara Ally and her team at the University of British Columbia, Canada, found that the fertility of clones declines with age.

This means that a tree cannot clone itself indefinitely; it must eventually sexually reproduce, or it will die.

The secret of eternal life has been sought by human alchemists for centuries, but certain trees were thought to have evolved the knack, through cloning.

Speaking of trees

Fight to save dying plant species

A botanist from Kew Gardens is fighting to save one of the rarest plant species in the world, the Bastard Gumwood tree.

The last tree of this species is found on the tiny South Atlantic island of St Helena, and it is dying.

Only 1 in 10,000 pollen grains have a genetic mutation that allows self-pollination to take place. The tree is covered with netting to prevent cross-pollination with a related species. And a few people go out every day to use paintbrushes to collect pollen grains and pollinate the flowers. The only way to tell if the seeds are fertile is to plant them. I wish them success.

The island of Saint Helena was once covered with unique plant species, but much has been supplanted by introduced species, and then there was the introduction of goats, which eat all sorts of vegetation.

An update to an earlier post

New England loses a big tree, and a little history: Champion tree was more than 200 years old and battled Dutch elm disease

As the tree's long-time caretaker, Frank Knight--himself over 100--put it:

"It's been a beautiful tree. I'm sorry to see it go. But nothing is forever," Knight said. "It's pretty near my turn. And it's just a fact of life that life is going to end. And that's for people, for trees, for everything. I thank the good Lord every day that we had him in his glory and beauty for so long."

It survived the odds for so long, and grew majestic and strong, sheltering many a person and witnessing much of history in Yarmouth, Maine. I'm sure they will miss the grand old tree very much. But some essence will continue in the wood, and a part of Herbie will live on in various new forms.

RIP Herbie the Tree

240-year-old elm tree ‘Herbie’ to get the chop: 101-year-old man has cared for sick ‘friend’ for more than half a century

A true landmark in Yarmouth, Maine, is scheduled to be cut down on January 18th. The 240-year-old tree, which is 110 feet high, has been nurtured through 14 bouts of Dutch Elm disease by Frank Knight for many years. But he's 101 and unable to care for the tree any longer, and the decision was made to finally take the old tree down. Knight said that he always thought he'd be outlived by the tree, and he's sorry to see it go, but as he put it: 'Nothing is forever. I don't want anybody to grieve when I go. Just be glad I could do what I did while I was here.'

So here's to Herbie, and here's to Knight, who kept the magnificent elm alive for over five decades. The wood from the tree will be used in a variety of ways, and the town hopes to raise $200,000 for a tree fund that, among other things, will allow them to plant disease-resistant elms which someday might equal Herbie's grandeur. I wish them well.

A very geeky Christmas exercise

that is fun nonetheless:

Web platform: Twitter controlled Christmas tree (from the people at Dangerous Prototypes [don't you love that name?])

Live video of the tree:
Webcam chat at Ustream

From the website, how to do it:

To choose the color of our tree, just send a color to @tweet_tree on Twitter.

@tweet_tree red, green, purple, green, p, g, r, b

@tweet_tree understands red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Send one color, or combination of colors to morph through. Separate multiple colors with a comma. Only the first letter of the color matters, r,o,y,g,b, & p, are acceptable color commands.

@tweet_tree red, *ff0000, green, *00ff00, blue, *0000ff

You can also blend custom colors using 24bit hexadecimal color codes. Here’s a color picking tool to help you choose values. Send the value as *rrggbb, where rr=red, gg=green, and bb=blue. We used the * designator because the more common # is already used for Twitter hash tags.

Tackling poverty and environmental issues

Meeting India's tree planting guru

An Indian civil servant, SM Raju, has come up with a novel way of providing employment to millions of poor in the eastern state of Bihar.

His campaign to encourage people to plant trees effectively addresses two burning issues of the world: global warming and shrinking job opportunities.

Evidence of Mr Raju's success could clearly be seen on 30 August, when he organised 300,000 villagers from over 7,500 villages in northern Bihar to engage in a mass tree planting ceremony.

In doing so the agriculture graduate from Bangalore has provided "sustainable employment" to people living below the poverty line in Bihar.

Defensive parking

First it was the ice storm; now we're encountering strong winds (up to 50 mph, with gusts up to 60 mph) and storms that have the potential to knock down trees weakened from the ice and create more power outages (and there are still people without power from the ice storm here in the state). It hasn't been too bad in Lexington today, although we had hail, but it sounds like a path equal to the highest destruction during the ice bore the brunt of today's storms, with tornado warnings, although as far as I know, none touched down.

During all of this, it's been very important to park and drive thoughtfully, avoiding trees, especially large ones. There are a couple of decent-sized trees that overhang my parking lot, for example, or the mature trees in the Chevy Chase area, where I often drive getting a friend from work. Today instead of parking in a driveway I parked in front of the next house. That house had already lost its tree in the ice storm, so there was nothing to fall. It sounded better than my car getting hit by a tree or being trapped in the driveway.

Oh, well, at least we had several nice days of warmer temperatures and a little sun but at least no rain. Today a cold front came through, so I don't know if temps will stay mild or not.

I'm ready for some boring weather.

Well, it looks like we dodged the rest of the storm

It's just been normal rain--no sleet or snow so far. Of course, it could change over this morning or in the afternoon, but for now, things are slushy but workable. Still, we're not out of the woods yet. The trees are overladen, so there's plenty of chance to lose limbs or power. And the water! It's running in channels between the slush and collecting on roads. Here are some pictures from this morning:


(This pine has lost several branches.)


(It is pretty, though, the ice on the trees.)


(This isn't a small creek--it's water sitting on the snow in front of my apartment.)



Also, it's supposed to get down to 18 degrees tonight, so naturally all this water is going to freeze. Tomorrow should be really fun. :)

I'm up early

I've showered/brushed my teeth, gotten dressed, taken my medicine, made my bed, did the dishes, gathered up the trash from the kitchen and bathroom, and taken some pictures off my camera and put them on the computer, all with two hours left before I have to be at work, so I'm going to do some yoga and work on notes as well.

Last night I did some holiday decorating. I strung lights in the window (normal, multi-coloured ones, replacing the white icicle ones that no longer lit. I can now close my curtains in the living room. I couldn't before because the string had caught on the mechanism. Here is a before and after shot of the tree, which is a Norfolk Virginia pine in a pot:



and decorated:



If you look carefully, you'll notice a few top branches removed, because I tried in vain to get my tree topper on it (so I hung it from the window--it's the star). I did tie the removed bits to my equal-armed reed cross that hangs on the door. The tree looked like Charlie Brown's tree with the topper on it, bent over (okay, it still does, a little bit). But it's a live tree that hopefully I'll be able to keep alive for a few years, as long as I remember to water it, because they like moist soil. That's two plants in the house right now--the other being a Christmas cactus I'm trying to get to bloom. My mom says the secret isn't so much dark and cool environment like you normally see but putting an apple slice with a bag over the plant to release ethene gas. I'll have to try it. It's kind of nice not to have cats so I can have plants without worrying about them being eaten.

(Just in case you're wondering, yes I am pagan, but so is the so-called Christmas tree. Ancient pagans in northern Europe brought in evergreens, after all. And in many cultures light is important at this time of the year to symbolise the return of the sun.)

Last night, in fact, was my night to give an offering to my Patroness. I put out two halves of a pomegranate, with spring water poured over it, then honey, then lavender petals sprinkled over that. I had taken a cleansing bath beforehand with sea salt in it. I do this every month at the time of my menstruation, and have for, oh, I don't know, maybe 15 years.

Okay, that's enough for now. It's time for notes!

What would Aristotle do?

The lines are blurring between animal, vegetable, and mineral with transgenic creations. Witness the latest, poplars with rabbit genes to help pull poisons for the environment. It's a good cause of course, and years from field testing, but what happens when these products make it out into the world? How will they affect wild and cultivated varieties? Do you really want to eat food that's been tinkered with?

Mutants or saviors? Rabbit genes create trees that eat poisons

And let's not forget spider goats and glowing bunnies (the latter of which died young and never really glowed with the colour or intensity of published photographs, which were enhanced by an artist--and only the body would have glowed, not the hair, which is dead tissue).

Thanks to YKWIA, who over the years has regaled me with stories of spider goats, glowing bunnies, and now bunny trees.

One of the reasons my last name is Rowan

You Are A Rowan Tree

You are full of charm and cheer. You light up a room. And while you crave attention, you do it without ego. You are an interesting mix of contradictions - and very unpredictable. You are both dependent and independent, calm and restless. You are passionate, emotional, gregarious, and (at times) unforgiving.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Mind you, it's probably all a crock, but there you have it. When I changed my name I didn't care for most of my maternal surnames (Craig, Lamb, Roach, Reardon, among others), but I have for some time been drawn to the rowan tree with its rich folklore (it's supposed to be a powerful amulet of protection). So, I went with Rowan. [As to why I changed my name, I was divesting myself of my father's name, since we were estranged. Also, I never cared for the name Broadbent]. Since I was changing the last name, I went for broke and changed the whole thing from Lisa Kay Broadbent to Elisabeth Eilir Aranea Rowan. That way I'm still Lisa (short for Elisabeth). But online I use Eilir Rowan, which is terribly Pagan (Eilir means spring, rebirth, or butterfly in Welsh, and Alban Eilir is one name for the vernal equinox that Pagans celebrate as a holiday).