Reply to Jenny. News. Forests here. Heat & Humans
Dear Jenny,
It is cool and cloudy here. Probably about 22 Centigrade, (72 Fahrenheit.) Wehave had quite a bit of rain. Ants are a problem in and around houses as theyseek sheltered homes for themselves.
Ben is in quite a bit of pain, especially while walking. It seems he has
sciatica. He went to a therapist and will go again next week. She is verybusy. Maybe she is busy because of the somewhat unseasonable weather. He
finished the second tax deadline and still has a lot of business coming in, sohe is bravely soldiering on. I massage the spot in his back where there isa lump with a German salve which helps such problems, and we apply ice, as
recommended by he therapist, but the problem hasn't begun to recede yet.
I also have had a problem. Thank goodness I have strong bones or I would havebroken my toe when I strongly slammed it into the wood around the doorway asI hurried from one room to another in my bare feet. That was a good lesson!
Now I wear plastic garden shoes that can protect from such a heavy impact. Alltoes were blackened and the bruising and swelling covered two thirds of my foot.
The smallest toe was very bad, but it is slowly getting better.
These three things are a problem here for us because we can't address the vastamount of spring growth on our half acre lot as we should. This is quite important, not just for appearance's sake, but also for fire control.
There is a problem with our forests. They are vast, and nature usually cleans
them out by naturally burning smaller, lower fires caused by lightning. Sinceour society puts out fires as soon as they are spotted a great deal of undergrowth has grown up that gets tinder dry in the desert summer sun. On top of this,
there is an uncontrollable beetle that is killing our millions uponmillions of pine forests en masse. They turn red as they die. Later they turn grey. These dying or newly dead trees are being cut for lumber as fast as possible, but there is a glut, as you can image, with ALL of them dying. It is a climate change tragedy as our Canadian boreal forests are some of the mighty lungs of
the Earth. The beetles are not controlled any longer by die-off dueto prolonged winter cold.
These vast dying forests make intensive forest fires a looming danger, so we need to take certain kinds of precautions to try to protect our homes. That's why
this spring we replaced our old cedar shake roof with a new one of fibreglass.
It turned out that there were some rather big holes in the old one and birds were having a happy time inside our attic! But not longer.
Try to arrange to have some kind of cooling available to you if the heat growsmore intense. Be sure that all of you drink enough water. There are deaths coming from heat exhaustion again, as there were last year. People, especially
elderly people who live in apartments in cities are not prepared for this. Wehave to have our own resources. I know you and your family are not elderly, but
it is still important to know how to take care of yourselves during extreme heat. Maybe look it up on the Web. By the way, due to some of these things I haven't finished with the book I mentioned yet.
Love, Mary
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