According to news reports, the most serious hazard in Texas this week is an epic blizzard of cedar pollen, produced by the tiny orange cones on male trees. (The female trees produce blue berries, used as a flavoring in gin and in meat cookery, especially venison.) "Cedar" is the local name for these shrubby evergreen trees, which are found all over the Hill Country: more properly, they are Ashe junipers. But whatever you call them, they can make you uncomfortable, if you happen to be allergic. To hear the way the media and the medical industry tells the story, you'd think that this suffering is universal, but it isn't. Bill and I are among the many Texans who live with these trees without ill effects.
In our part of Burnet County, the weekend's rainfall (a little over a half-inch in our rain gauge) washed most of the pollen out of the air, but until then, the trees were "smoking"--the only way to describe the orange pollen the junipers produce on a windy day. The trees are also known for producing nearly rot-proof wood that is useful for fenceposts: here at MeadowKnoll, we have several miles of fence that was put in back in the days when "cedar choppers" cut the trees for this purpose. Junipers were also cut for charcoal, which was used in heating and cooking in the days before the dams on the Highland Lakes began to produce the electricity that completely changed the way people lived in this area. And--to offset their unhappy effect on humans--the trees contribute a great deal to the environment. They've gotten a bad rap, as Pam Price points out in "Give Cedars a Break", and while there's no denying the discomfort they can cause some peole in December and January, they're an important part of the Hill County ecological system, Humans have a bad habit: we want to get rid of the parts of nature that bother us, get in our way of our real estate developments, or cost us money. To my way of thinking, junipers, like other "nuisance" plants and animals, deserve respect, not destruction. If you're allergic to cat dander, you don't advocate killing all the cats. Do you?
Book report. Speaking of cats: Cat's Claw is going well--about 40,000 words, out of around 85,000 for the book. Sheila is an interesting character: there's a lot more to her than I suspected. That's one reason I enjoy writing series books. No matter how much you think you know about the ensemble that appears throughout the series, there's always something new to learn.
Garden report. I have my seeds and my spring garden plan. All I need to do now is to take enough time from the writing to get the seeds started under lights. Tomatoes and peppers, maybe this week, also a couple of rows of early carrots. The seed potatoes (Reddale and Yukon Gold, from Wood Prairie Farm in Maine) are sprouting, getting ready to go into the ground on Valentine's Day.
Reading note. God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. ~John Muir
