2009 Louisville Ice Storm

Yet another storm to blog about in about four months. This time freezing rain is the culprit. Much of the damage came from trees breaking due to the extra weight of a quarter inch of ice. Add even a slight breeze, and the downed powerlines have created the largest outage in Kentucky history. From the limited area that I have viewed, Birch trees have been a major victim as have Pear, Cherry, and Mulberry trees. Birch trees typically have an arching shape so I believe it captured more of the freezing rain/ice and just arched even more. Another plant that had difficulty in the last ice storm some years ago was the Eastern Red Cedar. Though a weedy plant, the central boughs looked bad for years to come.

Environmental Film Festival

Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival

February 7, 2009

The Clifton Center

6-10pm

$15 film screening

$30 reception & film screening

Sponsored by the Kentucky Waterways Alliance

Ecological Challenge, not global warming

I'm quite tired of hearing about "global warming". Aren't you? My main reason for the burn out, is it doesn't describe the situation. It seems like an oxymoron like "Good Grief".

I believe Ecological Challenge is a better phrase and a better description. Why? Because it gets to the heart of the matter. The globe, the earth itself, doesn't care if things get warmer or change. But the lifeforms do! And yes, the only constant in geologic timeframe is change itself. The problem is all of the environmental variables are changing at one time. The give and take between all of the non-living and living systems aren't regulating themselves effectively or quickly enough. So there is a new ecological balance to be struck.

For me there is no going back to some pre-industrial eutopia, but rather a question of how do we set out to a new future balance. And if this is truly a crisis, then we admit defeat. Rather I hope we all see our current state as an Ecological Challenge unlike any other.

Evergreen mulch

The city's Christmas Tree recycling program officially ended today. They encourage folks to pick up the mulch from the ground up trees. By the looks of what I saw at Hubbards Lane, there is plenty to pick up. From the photo you can see that it is not finely ground. We'll see how it performs as mulch over the season. More on the City of Louisville's program can be found on their website.

It is preferred to have an acid-based mulch for our area due to the clayey, limestone soil we have. Acid can brake down the ions in the clay to make more nutrients available (and the soil more tilable). And the acid can balance out the pH in our alkaline soils.