I had to fix the creek at the cabin.
Okay, that’s not entirely accurate.
The creek is fully functional, and the fish are fine. Rather, at some point
during the summer months, a strong wind shoved a dead-standing fir to the
ground alongside the creek, blocking the way for anyone (me, specifically)
wishing to walk beside it and pitch random sticks, rocks, or pinecones into the
water.
Montana being Montana, the weather
obliged me yesterday with a cool, snowy day—exactly the kind I enjoy for
cutting rounds with my chainsaw. So I lugged my saw down to the creek and
powered through a section of the fallen tree. As I cut, the reason for the
tree’s death became clear: beetle kill. Each round exposed the gray-blue
staining left by the fungus the beetles carry in when they bore for lunch.
It’s the fungus, not the beetles,
that chokes the trees to death.
After an hour or so, I had segmented
about fifteen feet of the trunk, providing a clear path for walking. I lugged
the rounds—the largest measuring sixteen inches across—to my truck and hauled
them home for splitting.
—Mitchell Hegman
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