Invasives, Aliens, Stowaways

Invasives, aliens and stowaways, immigrants, all things foreign…weeds, snails, insects and carp fish. When it comes to immigrants we don’t complain about German brown trout or bees or apple trees or the horse, or cats. We do complain about the English sparrow and Canadian thistle; complain about purple loosestrife, canary grass, though not technically alien because it is an American tropical plant. Corn on the North American continent is a similar alien, kudzu too, as is the fire ant, near shore aliens. We don’t consider crop types as invasive strains because we’d pretty well starve without them, wheat, rye, barley, corn, rice…the northern tier without the influx of agricultural botanicals is not an ample pantry. You can only eat so many hickory nuts, and I have tried acorn flour, leaves something to be desired.

Personally, I’m bummed out with news of the Emerald Ash Borer appearance in Ozaukee/Washington counties, now LaCrosse, Green Lake. Thinking maybe if we were clean and reverent we might escape the Emerald Borer along with 75 million ash trees. I have a fondness for ash, was ash that fulfilled the vacancy of the beloved American elm. Not as statuesque, only half as tall but fast growing, highly competitive for space, tolerant of the water table, ash filled in the holes in the canopy with both gusto and urgency. I like trees with gusto, a jig-rigging tree capable of repairing the landscape in the generation since Dutch Elm Disease. Now to hear the death knell for ash, white ash, red ash, black ash.

Was a time when I built canoes because I loved their shape, loved the way they took to water. Cedar strip canoes glued and fiberglassed, my brother Gary and I raced down the Buena Vista, the only time since the Grant brothers who in 1870 took a canoe across the marsh to the Wakely Inn, whisky was involved and the way thought impenetrable. I believe every landscape should harbor some definition, some attempt at the impenetrable. To keep things sane. A stretch of every I-system and belt-line that reverts occasionally to miles of dirt. The encumbrance to impose on landscape so that alien invasion is less likely.

It is by inertia we think making the world smaller is the better idea. WalMart’s philosophy of life, that if it can be done cheaper in Borneo that’s what they do, in order to save the consumer a nickel on a toothbrush. It is entirely possible to posit that most of the negative things as happened to our culture and world in the last generation are the result of the WalMart approach. Exporting jobs, importing cheap underwear, the deconstruction of every town center, the unbridled zeal for sprawl, auto shopping, auto everything, a service workforce replacing a manufacturing work force. WalMart didn’t invent the SUV just made it more likely. Yes they did free up some of the household income that was spent on a bigger house, bigger lawn, a poor-mileage vehicle, this to get to the shopping center.

Ever notice the lifetimes of modern entertainment devices? Washers and dryers can be expected to last a generation or even a lifetime. My father-in-law took great pride in nursing one such washing machine three generations. The current life of computers and TVs is probably the sub-decade range. I would not mind fantastic gigabyte computers if they performed something besides a more enhanced video game. I predict there will be a species of us one day completely allied with the electronic circuit; their archenemy will be the tribal half of the human species derogatorily called earthies. There will be wars, eventually separate countries; they shall not interbreed except in novels.

For the gunwales of our canoes we used ash, same for our canoe paddles; ash from the low woods where the elms once ruled. I am not ready for that devastation again, that skeleton woods, the loss of another great tree and its forest. An ash paddle has a responsive flux, feels lever-like, the clasp cut broad, the blade thin and wide. Oak is too heavy for paddles, spruce too fragile, the best is ash, well varnished.

As to fire, ash burns green, this what old timers say. Not far off the truth, ash easy to split as chocolate cake, straight grained and steady heat. I think to sue WalMart.