It would be cruel and unusual to mention, @MissS , that a bit of smoke do keep the blackflies off... However the days of lighting a wee smudge for such purpose are gone. Am reduced to dashing for the door, to the solace of smoking my person with a cigarette in the basement.

With the worries of forest fire weather, I am doing my part to prevent any tree on my property from going up in smoke and joining so many others. As partly due to the age and history of the stand, and also to the blazing hot summers of the past three years, nearly every fir tree there is standing dead, many of them turned blue from a fungus the bark beetles bring when they attack.
You can see from the pics, the number of rails lying on the ground, all of them either dead or a few of them living but diseased, all Oscars (only a tuft of branches on the top, if any), which I cut this spring.
My thought about it is to use the dead wood on the ground as a way to retain moisture for those healthy trees that are still standing. I also laid them along the contours, to help prevent erosion and to build soil there for the benefit of the living trees. If I had the resources I would cover the sticks with dirt, hugel style. Maybe try a few different approaches. Moss will soon cover those sticks anyway.
All cutting has stopped for the present, while birds are nesting. I'm hoping the management plan will work, but I might be hard pressed to take care of the West as well, equipped with a mini chainsaw. Lets hope there's enough rain, not so much lightning.

@bower that's rather a sad scene. So many dead trees, no understory and no saplings coming along to be the next generation either. Do most of your woods only regenerate after a burn or are there other areas that have both mature and saplings growing? That moss is phenomenal. It makes me want to lie down on it to feel it's soft and spongy texture.

@MissS Saddest looking now, because just cleared! There are actually some patches of Balsam Fir coming up already, in areas that were a bit more open. Balsam Fir is like the weed tree and the compost tree in the boreal forest. They come up very thick, shade everything out, but then they start to die because they're competing with each other. The wood is soft and decays rapidly so when it falls to the ground it builds soil. Also, where this area has not burned in centuries, there's a buildup of fire friendly disease especially on the Fir. Witches brooms and other resinous burls are common especially where light and nutrients are poor. Not to knock the Balsam Fir, which is the sweetest smelling tree you ever saw, especially in July when the bark swells with blisters of sticky resin, simply smelling heavenly.
The other dominant conifers are spruces, and they are very resistant to decay, so the wood doesn't readily return to soil. The remaining large healthy trees in the area are White Spruce and Black Spruce and also Larch (Larix laricina) and a few Paper Birch. Birch and Larch are often left standing tall when the conifers go down, and then they can seed into the opened area.
We do have some understory trees, but they need some light so technically not an understory I guess: Dogberry (Sorbus americana), several local willows, a small Alder, Mountain Holly. Witherod was very common here at one time but they died out for unknown reason, and were absent for nearly a decade before seedlings started to appear, they are becoming common again. That is a viburnum with pretty flowers and berries. There is Pin Cherry too in open area, and Chuckley Pear (Amelanchier).

Now that there is light coming through, I also planted some companion trees - the local birch, some Red Alder/European Alder which is a fast growing tree with deep roots that does well here; some willows and maples. And some nut pines.
So we'll see if I can make it a healthy forest - by local standards.
Your forests on the continent are a different thing - much bigger trees, more diverse, for sure.

All joking aside, 17,000 people evacuated in Manitoba alone.
Persistent drought in the north, zombie fires, record heat and drought, causing this early wildfire outbreak.
https://vancouversun.com/news/wildfire- ... -happening

Raise your hand if you got someone else's share of snow, or rain, in the past six months....
Feel free to send some of it back

Sorry, keeping the rain we've had for now, nice to see green as we start June, usually going brown and slowly frying up. Keeping my fingers crossed for all in danger up there, wildfires are so erractic and dangerous. Hope you get some rain soon.

Good to see how you are managing your woods.

Would love to be able to send you some rain @bower but we have only had 139 mm/5.7 inches ourselves. Would love our friends in northern NSW to send us some, they are already 150 mm/6 inches above yearly average.

Out of curiosity, just checked Townsville, Queensland rainfall. They exceeded yearly average before end of March. Currently sitting at 2508 mm/100.3 inches/8.35 feet

We're actually having a few showers here today. Yesterday was black fly zen: quietly pruning the rose bushes in the sunshine and low 70's/23C, the RH only 50% and just a bit low for them to actually bite. Why not do the chore that always bites.
Overall there have been 91 wildfires in the province already this year, a couple of serious ones, but nothing close to the catastrophe happening out west.
Temperatures have flipped from colder than normal to warmer than normal, with forecast highs into the mid 70's, and I'm even considering planting my two tomato plants outdoors. Tomato temperatures normally wouldn't kick in until July 1, not June 1.

I'm not posting a link because the article is full of filler garbage we already know and repeats it's self several times.
In a nutshell HEB in Austin Texas has had the throw out food in a couple of places due to the loss of power from the big storm the other evening.
What a total waste.

The storm i drove into was so bad I couldn't see the road to pull off the road.
There was hardly anyone in front of me.
They soon went out of sight.
I had slowed down to 35 40 mph and had my flashers on.
I was scared to death someone was going to crash into me.
I wasn't even for sure if I was going to run off the road and hit walls of water at times it was raining so hard.
The lightning flashing constantly.
Pitch black outside.
My worries weren't founded because looking in my rear view mirror there was a long line of cars backed up in single file behind me with flashers on.
Somehow I ended up being the leader of the pack heading up 130 toll.
This went on from the airport to toll road 45.
That's several miles.
I think I was passed once the whole way.
Speed limit is normally 80 mph.
That was one hell of a storm.
I must have driven right smack in the middle of it lengthways.

May it rained 22/31 in Ny and it was heavy and when it rained it seemed like all night and day. Hopefully June will treat us a little better.

Summer is finally here. Our first day in the 80's, however there is some good with some bad, an Air Quality Advisory has been issued for all of Wisconsin. Smoke will be following behind a cold front which will be bringing us some rain this afternoon.

Today the high is 81 and Wednesday 84. Finally some summer temps. My tomato plants really need this. No more 45 deg night time temps. I can plant my pepper plants in 4-5 more days. Yahoo !

extreme thunderstorms were forecast for my district for tomorrow.
Hail with diameters of 2 - 3 inches + possibility for wind speeds of up to 60 mph. Right now it looks like I might get lucky but it's too soon to say that for sure.
I'll probably move the potted plants into the barn tomorrow...

Tropical. Juicy. No rain, plenty of sun, sea breezes. Slight potential for storms coming from the northwest overnight. These storms fire up along the dry line out around Abilene and roll along to the east and south. Sometimes they make it this far and other times they fizzle out before getting here. Standard early June weather hereabouts that’s been consistently happening my entire life.

karstopography wrote: ↑Tue Jun 03, 2025 6:36 pm Tropical. Juicy. No rain, plenty of sun, sea breezes. Slight potential for storms coming from the northwest overnight. These storms fire up along the dry line out around Abilene and roll along to the east and south. Sometimes they make it this far and other times they fizzle out before getting here. Standard early June weather hereabouts that’s been consistently happening my entire life.

Mine too while living in Texas from Crane San Angelo San Saba and so on.
I like Crane weather the best.

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 03, 2025 6:42 pm

karstopography wrote: ↑Tue Jun 03, 2025 6:36 pm Tropical. Juicy. No rain, plenty of sun, sea breezes. Slight potential for storms coming from the northwest overnight. These storms fire up along the dry line out around Abilene and roll along to the east and south. Sometimes they make it this far and other times they fizzle out before getting here. Standard early June weather hereabouts that’s been consistently happening my entire life.

Mine too while living in Texas from Crane San Angelo San Saba and so on.
I like Crane weather the best.

San Angelo has always seemed like a nice town every time I’ve driven through it.

San Angelo is a nice town with a university an Air Force training center farming ranching and the oil field.
3 nice lakes to fish in.
I met my dear departed wife when she was going to ASU.
It used to have the best steak house in the nation as far as I'm concerned.
Oh and I was married in San Angelo.

1.6"/4.06cm of of much needed rain yesterday and overnight; first substantial precipitation in nearly five (5) weeks.

Methinks @MissS got that, or more.

The Gotch

Today is forecast to be the hottest day of the year, so far - 88° - then maybe 90° tomorrow. I got the house down to 66° overnight, then closed it up early, so time will tell if I can hold off one more day, before I turn on the AC - might have to do it just for the humidity, which is also going up. Not looking forward to the heat, but my peppers like it! Fortunately, I got most of the things done in the garden in the last couple of days, so I won't be out there long in these hot days. Late Friday is supposed to be the break, with some possible rain.

Yesterday was not bad, at only 82°, though later on the haze from those Canadian wildfires was noticeable - another reason to stay in these next few days. Of course, not the entire days!

I guess we're part of the same heatwave, pepperhead. Today forecast high of 26C/79F and humidex 32C/90F, and tomorrow 24C/75F humidex 27C. UV index 9 on both days so it'll be bright and scorching to boot. Our normal high would be 15C and it looks like some normals are ahead next week. Good news for me since I have a lot of work to do in the garden.