I Promise I Will Move Firewood.

[Arbonaut]

Have you heard the AM radio campaign which dictates that the European Emerald Ash Borer Beetle is destroying trees at a rate faster than we can quarantine them? And if you cut wood and move it, especially across county lines, the beetle spreads!?
I will concede that the beetle far precedes man in existence, but do you expect me to believe they are so intelligent as to know what county they are in-while frozen stiff as a larvae?
If you want to get rid of some bug, BURN IT! I have seen larvae under the bark of deciduous logs for decades, and one thing is for sure; when they are quarantined inside my 200,000 BTU Heatmor until vaporized, they will infest far less of your precious forest than if you can have the EAB Outreach Officer (I'm not making that up) force people to provide the beetle a habitat to mature and reproduce in by leaving the wood where it is.

 

[wdchuck]

Television and large billboards regarding the movement of firewood for years in these parts.

 

[Rob1276]

Have you heard the AM radio campaign which dictates that the European Emerald Ash Borer Beetle is destroying trees at a rate faster than we can quarantine them? And if you cut wood and move it, especially across county lines, the beetle spreads!?
I will concede that the beetle far precedes man in existence, but do you expect me to believe they are so intelligent as to know what county they are in-while frozen stiff as a larvae?
If you want to get rid of some bug, BURN IT! I have seen larvae under the bark of deciduous logs for decades, and one thing is for sure; when they are quarantined inside my 200,000 BTU Heatmor until vaporized, they will infest far less of your precious forest than if you can have the EAB Outreach Officer (I'm not making that up) force people to provide the beetle a habitat to mature and reproduce in by leaving the wood where it is.

I agree burn the buggers what good is it doing leaving the wood sit and them spread. Or taking it to a landfill where they just gonna spread from there

 

[Preston]

This reminds me a story my preacher told about ranchers out west in a meeting with the DNR about coyotes killing sheep. The woman running the meeting from DNR said after hours of comment she thought the best way to control the situation was to catch the coyote and neuter them. This old farmer stood up and said, mam' with all due respect these coyotes ain't raping our damn sheep, they're killing um. Same logic. Do what works to rid yourself of predators. :msp_smile:

 

[Chris-PA]

I don't see the need for the attitude. Pretty obviously burning them kills them, I doubt anyone is arguing that. But is there no possibility that a few may escape from the wood you move - a log you miss, one that falls off the load, etc.? People are the reason all these invasive species are here. Many can spread on their own, but trucks move them faster. It's really pretty simple.

Having said that, the attempts to quarantine ANY of this stuff, plant or animal, are mostly doomed. What stops it are predators and climate zones where it cannot survive - and those are changing. Still, I can't blame people for being upset and wanting to try to do something, even though what they're doing won't work. I look around my area and try to picture it without the ashes and the oaks, covered in oriental bittersweet and probably soon kudzu, with Japanese knotweed and stiltgrass filling in everything - the sudden oak death and the kudzu aren't here yet, but I don't see what will stop it. Once there were chestnuts. It's a serious bummer, but we'll have to adapt because it's too late to stop it now.

 

[Arbonaut]

Burn The Beetle

Dear Resigned to Fate,

My attitude is known in many places as, "Gung Ho." In others it is called DO something. For centuries in the Illinois woods, Man has assumed the role of predator. Notwithstanding those facts, is there any question some of the natural predators from the forest also visit my woodpile? Do my actions of exposing radial ends and some debarking make the frozen larvae more vulnerable to attack? Just ask the Illinois State Bird the Cardinal who proliferates in my region how the exotic European Emerald Ash Borer Beetle larvae tastes.
If a few of these highly evolved beetle larvae can fall out the back of my Dodge on a frozen Illinois road in the weather I cut firewood in, and they can make their way back to infest your forest, they deserve to live. Time spent blaming people who act in their role in the natural cycle is better spent whacking and stacking some deadfall or some tops the loggers left behind.
Did you know that another invasive species, the opossum is not native to North America? It came from South America on loads of banana boats. I enjoy bananas, but with no particular love for invasive varmints, please implore the Opossum Outreach Agent and stop banana importation! Stop the possum in its tracks.

 

[ray benson]

Not a big deal. If you cut wood in a quaratined county, keep it in that county.
Illinois - http://www.agr.state.il.us/eab/data/200811057750.pdf

 

[8433jeff]

The same people here (the DNR) asking you not to move firewood, and fining you if you do and get caught, are doing nothing about the standing dead and dying trees under their management, along state trails and in the state park near here, and on state land preserved for hunting and wildlife. Except put up traps and then try to convince the locals the beetles are not there.

 

[Chris-PA]

Dear Resigned to Fate,

My attitude is known in many places as, "Gung Ho." In others it is called DO something. For centuries in the Illinois woods, Man has assumed the role of predator. Notwithstanding those facts, is there any question some of the natural predators from the forest also visit my woodpile? Do my actions of exposing radial ends and some debarking make the frozen larvae more vulnerable to attack? Just ask the Illinois State Bird the Cardinal who proliferates in my region how the exotic European Emerald Ash Borer Beetle larvae tastes.
If a few of these highly evolved beetle larvae can fall out the back of my Dodge on a frozen Illinois road in the weather I cut firewood in, and they can make their way back to infest your forest, they deserve to live. Time spent blaming people who act in their role in the natural cycle is better spent whacking and stacking some deadfall or some tops the loggers left behind.
Did you know that another invasive species, the opossum is not native to North America? It came from South America on loads of banana boats. I enjoy bananas, but with no particular love for invasive varmints, please implore the Opossum Outreach Agent and stop banana importation! Stop the possum in its tracks.

When you introduce an invasive species native ones do not automatically become predators. Sometimes nothing eats them, and the time scales involved until something does can be very very long. Clearly in the case of EAB if anything is feeding on them it is not sufficient to keep them in check. But hey, the Ashes here are dying even without the EAB from combined stresses on the local ecosystems.

As I said, trying to quarantine this stuff is largely futile. People are upset because they see the changes happening and they don't like it, but they don't understand that these changes were locked in a long time ago, they're only now seeing the end result. It's understandable that they would want to try to fix it, but it is too late. There are a lot more changes coming that have not really shown up yet in an obvious fashion, but it's too late to stop those too. If you look around when you're out in the woods you can see some of them, but most folks don't go out in the woods or aren't interested when they do. I see some of them and I'm not happy about it at all, which gives me some sympathy for other people who are upset about it, and it sure doesn't make me want to help it happen. What tires me is people who will take no responsibility for their actions nor accept any limitations on their actions.

 

[Arbonaut]

Ashes Dying without EAB

Warrior, I'm pleased you have sympathy for those who are upset. I don't know who they are, but some one needs to feel sorry for them. My only regret since I've posted this thread is that I've come across the first guy I've met who looks around in the woods and is not happy about it at all. You are welcome to move farther inland. We'd be glad to have you and maybe the change of scenery would be more health inducing. Surrounding oneself with those who harness the power of a positive attitude would relieve the fatigue, I'm told.

 

[deerlakejens]

Myopic minds are amazing!
Did you know that another invasive species, the opossum is not native to North America? It came from South America on loads of banana boats. I enjoy bananas, but with no particular love for invasive varmints, please implore the Opossum Outreach Agent and stop banana importation! Stop the possum in its tracks." Don't know if this was supposed to be a joke or just the spreading of misinformation?
In N. WI, we get a lot of folks driving up from Ill. or southern WI for a camping vacation and they often bring their own firewood. Sometimes they don't burn it all and it gets left behind for the next trip. If it contains EAB, they just increased the pests travel range by maybe 300 miles. Having a "ban" won't stop the guy that knows more than the rest of us from continuing his practice and spreading invasive species but it does slow it down when the general public stops.

 

[Arbonaut]

The Long View

If nobody has any common sense any more, then what is being referred to is something besides common sense. And if nobody has it, neither do you or I. I apologize if this is grammatically inexplicable, but I'm laughing too darn hard. My point is valid. Do some research on opossums. The guy who has the Ash trees dying out there that don't have EAB infestation can get some trail cams, might be Polar Bears coming down there at night and uprooting all those. With these drastic climate patterns, they are looking for somewhere to live besides Alaska. I'm glad I've already got twenty five cords of Oak and Hedge and this is Saturday. I've got all day to get nearsighted.

 

[Hddnis]

At the end of the story no amount of government money (yours) or restrictions (on us) will either stop slow the spread of EAB, or any other pest. It is all about having a government job and having a budget (of your money). Sadly the time and money wasted only delays finding a real solution.




Mr. HE

 

[Chris-PA]

Warrior, I'm pleased you have sympathy for those who are upset. I don't know who they are, but some one needs to feel sorry for them. My only regret since I've posted this thread is that I've come across the first guy I've met who looks around in the woods and is not happy about it at all. You are welcome to move farther inland. We'd be glad to have you and maybe the change of scenery would be more health inducing. Surrounding oneself with those who harness the power of a positive attitude would relieve the fatigue, I'm told.

Honestly, I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say, but it seems like there's a big chip on your shoulder. I seriously doubt the woodlands in Illinois are in any better shape than in PA. My ancestors have been kicking around this part of PA for some 260 years; it's my home and I'll be staying.

Some seem to feel that looking around and seeing the world for what it is, warts and all, is stressful. Quite the opposite. The power of positive thinking is for idiots who think the world will give them what they want if they wish hard enough, and the bad things will go away if they ignore them. The world doesn't give a hoot about you or what you want - positive thinking doesn't do anything, positive actions can. People who believe in fantasies end up with very stressful lives. I love being out in the woods, it's my favorite place and I'm happy to be there, but that doesn't mean I don't see what's wrong. So I spend time trying to re-establish native species in an attempt to create a healthier woods. It ain't much, but it's better than positive thinking.

 

[Arbonaut]

From Theory to Practice

Let's look at positive attitude, since this is my thread.
When some one suggests you surround yourself with those who harness the power of positive attitude, generating and using positive thought process may be implied. But you aren't actually being asked to think-only to expose yourself to someone who does.
Take it from Webster. Here is a copy.

Attitude: 1. the position or posture assumed by the body in connection with an action, feeling, mood, etc.

Chopping, splitting and burning wood: Positive Attitude.

Lying on the railroad tracks or attempting to debate those in the productive sector: Negative Attitude.

When I go to the trouble of making my thoughts public, I go in the most literal sense. Nothing ambiguous at Woodcutter TV. Look back at Webster's "attitude" above. The implication is the difference between dreamers and doers. In translating the colloquial nature of thought to written language, a little is lost allegorically, that's why I say what I mean. And I can do it without the risk of sounding quaint and for sure without name calling.

If some one can do something for 265 years, great. If they want to leave Ash logs laying in the forest, awesome. The productive sector will close in on the debris and convert it to something useful-Wood Heat.

 

[Preston]

Is it really global warming?

 

[8433jeff]

Is it really global warming?

Yes. Hide the children and the wives. Learn to swim.

 

[Clarkbug]

Woodcutter, Im pretty sure you are missing the point of a ban....

The idea is not to go get wood from far away and move it to where the EAB doesnt live yet. If you already have it where you are, dont take it somewhere else. No one is saying not to go get it out of the woods. By all means cut it down and split it up and if there are any beetles in there that get eaten in the process, great.

And what the heck do possums have to do with anything? Last I checked there isnt a ban on moving bananas across state lines, or possums for that matter. Doesnt mean you have to like them one way or another, but its sort of like comparing a chansaw to a tuba. They both make noise, but thats about where the similarities end.

 

[Arbonaut]

It Is Simple.

You are right. Why complicate matters. I was wrong. From now on, I'll take advice from you guys. Thanks.

 

[Chris-PA]

You are right. Why complicate matters. I was wrong. From now on, I'll take advice from you guys. Thanks.

I want to apologize for my last reply in this thread. I just re-read it and I sounded like an ass. I still have no idea what you were trying to say, so I should have simply let it go. Will try to do better.