I have divided the original Home page into several sections as it was getting cumbersome to copy. At this time there are Home (this Page), Archive 1, and Archive 2
2020 9-17 test save to drive 2
2020 9-2 Tuesday
It’s time to talk about lawn care. It looks like it will cool off a little this next week and it is even a little late to be thinking about what you are planning to do. The old rules of thumb need to be adjusted I think. There are certain weeds like Poa annua, (Annual Blue Grass) that come up even now and if you have not controlled the crab grass and goose grass in your lawn as well as some others, then you better get on it. Below is the reason why.
More about this later today. jmm
****************
2020 8-31 Monday
In the process of moving, I found a lot of interesting photographs. Like so many of us now, everyone uses a cell phone and we take thousands of photos, Most of us can not find a particular photo very quickly and I plan to scan lots of color slides and get them into digital order. Much of our family history ended up with me as well as my wife’s family and we have found a great number of old black and white photos.
My grandfather came here from Ireland about 1903 as a young man, and I can see from the records of his past that I have quite a few of his traits. Here is a photo of him.
The original Lennox McNeary here.
test below
2020 8-30 Sunday
Up and running again.....I have had some issues, without going into great details, we have moved after 49 years in the same home, and that created a tremendous amount of effort because of Covid, the heat and probably my age, From my point of view I now am up and running.
2020 5-19 Tuesday
Things are quite different for all of us. I, like most everyone know, have been staying home but extremely busy. We are moving and have a large collection of stuff that needs to relinquish, (disposed of is not grammatically correct.) I walk Gus most every day and observe whats growing. It looks like many neighbors have given up on their lawns. more
April 2020 4-25 Saturday
It has been a while since I have posted on the Home page, but I have made several entries on other sections of the web site. I anticipated at the beginning of this Carona Virus Pandemic that food supply chains would be upset. I have always liked growing things as much to learn from watching stuff grow as opposed to growing for our own consumption. I have a pretty small garden, and I always plant tomatoes, okra, and Serrano peppers. I planted heirloom tomatoes which I like, but the fruit producing time is usually limited to several weeks. For that reason I like Better Boy because the tomatoes are around 2 1/2 inches across and just right for a salad for my wife and me. Better Boy also will produce tomatoes until the end of the season if cared for properly. I usually plant a second crop of Better Boy around the 4th of July and will often have tomatoes until Thanksgiving Day. I also plant Celeberty just because it seems to be a good disease resistant variety that grows well around this part of North Carolina.
In both cases I buy a seed packet and plant for several years from the same seed packet. If you save your own seeds from an heirloom there will be hundreds of seeds but the small seed packet for the hybrid tomatoes will often only have 10 or 12 seeds. Maybe that packet will last for 3 or 4 years because I don’t plant too many tomatoes. Normally tomatoe seeds last for up to 10 years, and you do not have to buy new seeds every year. That would be one reason to have a good selection of heirloom seeds and plant at different times for continuous tomatoes. I always liked Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Brandywine for good heirlooms. There is lots more about growing vegetables here in Gardening
March 2020 4-3 Changing Focus
I already have a gardening page (Gardening page) but it does not address some of the details I will share. I usually did not start planting my garden until May because we always seem to have a frost in April which would zap my tomatoes. Continue on to the link at Gardening Page and Garden Tips
It will take me a little time to add to those pages.
One tip is that if you are starting from bare soil, like digging up your back yard, it will take you two years to have decent soil. If you are planting a few pots for the back yard or to place on your deck, that can work rather quickly and is a good way to get started. See Planting Lettuce for details on what I am doing this year. 2020.
March 2020 3-28 Changing Focus
We have all seen much about the Coronavirus, and it is the subject all day long on the TV news cycles. My own opinion is that we are changed forever, and the toll will be very high. So I want to shift gears and discuss something I know more details about which is the subject of Gardening. Not everyone know how to grow stuff and that is something I have always liked and know a good bit about it. If you are able to grow stuff like vegetables then if we have some fresh food shortages, then you will be more prepared. Over the years I have done a good bit of experimenting with growing vegetables in what ever space I had, which has often been very little. I will try to supply tips on some things I have learned
Here is a little back ground on me. I also suggest that you check other sites on the web about the specific things you might want to grow.
I was born in Philadelphia and my father traveled and we ended up in Charlotte when I was in the first grade. My mother was a gardener and like my dad, where around during the Great Depression. I was born when the Second World War was going on and there were Victory Gardens and scrap metal drives. As most of you know the United States mobilized very quickly for the war effort, but that is another story too. WWII finally was over and America shot ahead as a world power. some of those things that our parents learned were passed on down to us and unknown to many Americans today.
So in some of the entries for quite some time ahead, I suspect will be on growing useful plants in the garden. The world has changed forever in my opinion. Hopefully some good will come out of it and I hope that addresses Population and Climate Chang.
March 2020 3-25
It is time to address the current condition of the Coronavirus. There are many things we see in insect and plant diseases that are similar. My wife and I are taking this virus very seriously for lots of reasons. Back when we had the Y2k I thought the Internet would shut down and stocked up food, etc. I was also kidded a lot, both back then and also now for those who remember. We actually were eating ten year old macaroni.
I have relatives who are veteran doctors and we were alerted a couple of months ago about the Coronavirus and they said it was really serious problems with hospitals around the country in that they would not have enough supplies for the expected crush of patients. So if you are reading the news or watching TV I will not go over what you are seeing, but go in a little different direction.
In Nature there are constant mutations. Everything that causes them I have no idea. Fifty plus years ago I was in the Bahamas and it seemed all the dogs looked the same. But over time even with out bringing in other dogs, the dogs will start to vary in some ways.
Such is it with other animals and viruses. Mutations in the bats eventually transitioned over to people.
Bats... did you know that bats have been eaten by humans for 73,000 years. I know little about bats so if you think I am making a false statement let me know. There are many nations around the world that don’t always have enough food for the people who live there, so the indigenous people will eat and try anything. I once visited a cave in Missouri with my parents and there were bats everywhere hanging down from the ceiling. Many (maybe most) bats live in very large numbers and are protected by the fact that they live where most humans or other hunters would not want to go. Two of the good things they do is provide food for lots of people in Asia, the Phillipines, Japan, Mexico, and generally countries with moderate to hot weather. Some bats are large like the Fruit Bats, but most are small and there is not much meat on them. From reading I found that the bat taste similar to chicken and provide good flavors. Also when added spices from different parts of the world, they are consumed in lots of exotic reciepes. The bats are in such numbers that over time there are changes in their bodies and some of the cells mutate and for (as an example) in England there was a varigated moth called a Peppered moth. With parts of London becoming industrial centers, the tree trunks were black. Over time a Black Peppered moth appeared by some mutation and since the black moth was hard to see by its predators could not located them as well as the original Peppered Moth. Over time the Black Peppered Moth increased its population and the original peppered moth disappeared. As Industrial areas have cleared up over the years. The population of Black Peppered Moths has decreased, and the Peppered Moth has re-appeared.
Bats congregate in large numbers in caves, and the mutation of some genes create viruses which is where the Coronavirus developed. There are other similar viruses that have developed over the years and are closely related to the Novel Coronavirus. At some point the virus jumped over to humans and found them to be a good vector for spreading the virus around the world. It is likely that this virus was transmitted to Humans by eating the flesh of the bats.
March 2020 3-10
This winter has been strange. It has been quite wet at times, but also very dry for several weeks at a time. In my case I have been trying to reseed bare spots since the fall, but rains have come and washed the seeds away. It is now time to put down a pre-emergent for crab grass and other spring and summer weeds that are in the ground just waiting to come up.
On my street there are a lot of very nice expensive homes, and it is interesting that many, maybe most of them, seem to have given up on trying to have a decent lawn this spring. Also many of these homes were built 50 years ago and now the traffic is much more intense and fast. I see lots of driveways where homeowners and probably contractors have not been able to enter the driveway slowly enough and run over the driveway apron which pretty quickly creates a big mud hole. Some of these contractors insist on backing into a drive and most often end up damaging the grass. These larger trucks are “pushed” ahead by the surrounding fast traffic and do not slow down enough to enter the driveway without destroying the plant material.
Thus is life I suppose. Meanwhile I still do not see evidence of any cankerworm. If any of you have seen cankerworms or evidence of feeding on trees, please let me know.
at jmcneary@gmail.com
March 2020- 3-01
There has been vigerous weed growth this spring, and erosion. Photos to illustrate a little later.
March 2020- 3-01
It has been dry now for about 4 days, and will dry for another few days so the weather reports say. Light rains projected for Charlotte area. Why that is an issue for me is that unlike many lawns that the re-seeding was will done by professional lawn care companies, My lawn seeding in the fall was done by a mow and blow crew that convinced me they could do a great job. That did not happen, and my lawn had so many bare spots in it I have been constantly reseeding since fall and the weather has not cooperated. Once it cools down about October 15, the grass is slow to germinate, and we have had lots of heavy rains this winter, and the much of the seed I used has washed away. That is especially true in the back yard where good on Gus has had lots of fun chasing a tennis ball, also his big Red Ball and performing on the race track that he has created. I certainly can not blame all the skid marks he has created on the poor reseeding job. However the part of the yard that did come in thick and strong has been bothered much less. Some photos on this later also.
My yard does have a little slope to it and erosion is significant. Little erosion on the well established turf but erosion is very visible on parts of the lawn where there were voids for no seed coming up in the fall. Meanwhile I have had great control on the Poa annua that was in both the front yard and back yard. There is more detail on this subject here (Poor seeding).
February 2020- 2-28
I have Still not seen any evidence of fall cankerworms. I have observed other situations that alarm me concerning yards in my neighborhood.
February 2020- 2-18
2020 8-31 Monday
In the process of moving, I found a lot of interesting photographs. Like so many of us now, everyone uses a cell phone and we take thousands of photos, Most of us can not find a particular photo very quickly and I plan to scan lots of color slides and get them into digital order. Much of our family history ended up with me as well as my wife’s family and we have found a great number of old black and white photos.
My grandfather came here from Ireland about 1903 as a young man, and I can see from the records of his past that I have quite a few of his traits. Here is a photo of him.
GD Mcneary here.
2020 8-30 Sunday
Up and running again.....I have had some issues, without going into great details, we have moved after 49 years in the same home, and that created a tremendous amount of effort because of Covid, the heat and probably my age, From my point of view I now am up and running.
2020 5-19 Tuesday
Things are quite different for all of us. I, like most everyone know, have been staying home but extremely busy. We are moving and have a large collection of stuff that needs to relinquish, (disposed of is not grammatically correct.) I walk Gus most every day and observe whats growing. It looks like many neighbors have given up on their lawns. more
April 2020 4-25 Saturday
2020 9-2 Tuesday
It’s time to talk about lawn care. It looks like it will cool off a little this next week and it is even a little late to be thinking about what you are planning to do. The old rules of thumb need to be adjusted I think. There are certain weeds like Poa annua, (Annual Blue Grass) that come up even now and if you have not controlled the crab grass and goose grass in your lawn as well as some others, then you better get on it. Below is the reason why.
More about this later today. jmm
2020 8-31 Monday
In the process of moving, I found a lot of interesting photographs. Like so many of us now, everyone uses a cell phone and we take thousands of photos, Most of us can not find a particular photo very quickly and I plan to scan lots of color slides and get them into digital order. Much of our family history ended up with me as well as my wife’s family and we have found a great number of old black and white photos.
My grandfather came here from Ireland about 1903 as a young man, and I can see from the records of his past that I have quite a few of his traits. Here is a photo of him.
GD Mcneary here.
2020 8-31 Monday
In the process of moving, I found a lot of interesting photographs. Like so many of us now, everyone uses a cell phone and we take thousands of photos, Most of us can not find a particular photo very quickly and I plan to scan lots of color slides and get them into digital order. Much of our family history ended up with me as well as my wife’s family and we have found a great number of old black and white photos.
My grandfather came here from Ireland about 1903 as a young man, and I can see from the records of his past that I have quite a few of his traits. Here is a photo of him.
GD Mcneary here.
2020 8-30 Sunday
Up and running again.....I have had some issues, without going into great details, we have moved after 49 years in the same home, and that created a tremendous amount of effort because of Covid, the heat and probably my age, From my point of view I now am up and running.
2020 5-19 Tuesday
Things are quite different for all of us. I, like most everyone know, have been staying home but extremely busy. We are moving and have a large collection of stuff that needs to relinquish, (disposed of is not grammatically correct.) I walk Gus most every day and observe whats growing. It looks like many neighbors have given up on their lawns. more
***************************************
******************** 2nd copy
Version started 2020 3-12- tested 2020 3-19 xxx
Home Page 2020 Aug 31 test
I have divided the original Home page into several sections as it was getting cumbersome to copy. At this time there are Home (this Page), Archive 1, and Archive 2
2020 9-2 Tuesday
It’s time to talk about lawn care. It looks like it will cool off a little this next week and it is even a little late to be thinking about what you are planning to do. The old rules of thumb need to be adjusted I think. There are certain weeds like Poa annua, (Annual Blue Grass) that come up even now and if you have not controlled the crab grass and goose grass in your lawn as well as some others, then you better get on it. Below is the reason why.
More about this later today. jmm
2020 8-31 Monday
In the process of moving, I found a lot of interesting photographs. Like so many of us now, everyone uses a cell phone and we take thousands of photos, Most of us can not find a particular photo very quickly and I plan to scan lots of color slides and get them into digital order. Much of our family history ended up with me as well as my wife’s family and we have found a great number of old black and white photos.
My grandfather came here from Ireland about 1903 as a young man, and I can see from the records of his past that I have quite a few of his traits. Here is a photo of him.
GD McNeary here.
2020 8-30 Sunday
Up and running again.....I have had some issues, without going into great details, we have moved after 49 years in the same home, and that created a tremendous amount of effort because of Covid, the heat and probably my age, From my point of view I now am up and running.
2020 5-19 Tuesday
Things are quite different for all of us. I, like most everyone know, have been staying home but extremely busy. We are moving and have a large collection of stuff that needs to relinquish, (disposed of is not grammatically correct.) I walk Gus most every day and observe whats growing. It looks like many neighbors have given up on their lawns. more
ok
April 2020 4-25 Saturday
It has been a while since I have posted on the Home page, but I have made several entries on other sections of the web site. I anticipated at the beginning of this Carona Virus Pandemic that food supply chains would be upset. I have always liked growing things as much to learn from watching stuff grow as opposed to growing for our own consumption. I have a pretty small garden, and I always plant tomatoes, okra, and Serrano peppers. I planted heirloom tomatoes which I like, but the fruit producing time is usually limited to several weeks. For that reason I like Better Boy because the tomatoes are around 2 1/2 inches across and just right for a salad for my wife and me. Better Boy also will produce tomatoes until the end of the season if cared for properly. I usually plant a second crop of Better Boy around the 4th of July and will often have tomatoes until Thanksgiving Day. I also plant Celeberty just because it seems to be a good disease resistant variety that grows well around this part of North Carolina.
In both cases I buy a seed packet and plant for several years from the same seed packet. If you save your own seeds from an heirloom there will be hundreds of seeds but the small seed packet for the hybrid tomatoes will often only have 10 or 12 seeds. Maybe that packet will last for 3 or 4 years because I don’t plant too many tomatoes. Normally tomatoe seeds last for up to 10 years, and you do not have to buy new seeds every year. That would be one reason to have a good selection of heirloom seeds and plant at different times for continuous tomatoes. I always liked Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Brandywine for good heirlooms. There is lots more about growing vegetables here in Gardening
March 2020 4-3 Changing Focus
I already have a gardening page (Gardening page) but it does not address some of the details I will share. I usually did not start planting my garden until May because we always seem to have a frost in April which would zap my tomatoes. Continue on to the link at Gardening Page and Garden Tips
It will take me a little time to add to those pages.
One tip is that if you are starting from bare soil, like digging up your back yard, it will take you two years to have decent soil. If you are planting a few pots for the back yard or to place on your deck, that can work rather quickly and is a good way to get started. See Planting Lettuce for details on what I am doing this year. 2020.
March 2020 3-28 Changing Focus
We have all seen much about the Coronavirus, and it is the subject all day long on the TV news cycles. My own opinion is that we are changed forever, and the toll will be very high. So I want to shift gears and discuss something I know more details about which is the subject of Gardening. Not everyone know how to grow stuff and that is something I have always liked and know a good bit about it. If you are able to grow stuff like vegetables then if we have some fresh food shortages, then you will be more prepared. Over the years I have done a good bit of experimenting with growing vegetables in what ever space I had, which has often been very little. I will try to supply tips on some things I have learned
Here is a little back ground on me. I also suggest that you check other sites on the web about the specific things you might want to grow.
I was born in Philadelphia and my father traveled and we ended up in Charlotte when I was in the first grade. My mother was a gardener and like my dad, where around during the Great Depression. I was born when the Second World War was going on and there were Victory Gardens and scrap metal drives. As most of you know the United States mobilized very quickly for the war effort, but that is another story too. WWII finally was over and America shot ahead as a world power. some of those things that our parents learned were passed on down to us and unknown to many Americans today.
So in some of the entries for quite some time ahead, I suspect will be on growing useful plants in the garden. The world has changed forever in my opinion. Hopefully some good will come out of it and I hope that addresses Population and Climate Chang.
March 2020 3-25
It is time to address the current condition of the Coronavirus. There are many things we see in insect and plant diseases that are similar. My wife and I are taking this virus very seriously for lots of reasons. Back when we had the Y2k I thought the Internet would shut down and stocked up food, etc. I was also kidded a lot, both back then and also now for those who remember. We actually were eating ten year old macaroni.
I have relatives who are veteran doctors and we were alerted a couple of months ago about the Coronavirus and they said it was really serious problems with hospitals around the country in that they would not have enough supplies for the expected crush of patients. So if you are reading the news or watching TV I will not go over what you are seeing, but go in a little different direction.
In Nature there are constant mutations. Everything that causes them I have no idea. Fifty plus years ago I was in the Bahamas and it seemed all the dogs looked the same. But over time even with out bringing in other dogs, the dogs will start to vary in some ways.
Such is it with other animals and viruses. Mutations in the bats eventually transitioned over to people.
Bats... did you know that bats have been eaten by humans for 73,000 years. I know little about bats so if you think I am making a false statement let me know. There are many nations around the world that don’t always have enough food for the people who live there, so the indigenous people will eat and try anything. I once visited a cave in Missouri with my parents and there were bats everywhere hanging down from the ceiling. Many (maybe most) bats live in very large numbers and are protected by the fact that they live where most humans or other hunters would not want to go. Two of the good things they do is provide food for lots of people in Asia, the Phillipines, Japan, Mexico, and generally countries with moderate to hot weather. Some bats are large like the Fruit Bats, but most are small and there is not much meat on them. From reading I found that the bat taste similar to chicken and provide good flavors. Also when added spices from different parts of the world, they are consumed in lots of exotic reciepes. The bats are in such numbers that over time there are changes in their bodies and some of the cells mutate and for (as an example) in England there was a varigated moth called a Peppered moth. With parts of London becoming industrial centers, the tree trunks were black. Over time a Black Peppered moth appeared by some mutation and since the black moth was hard to see by its predators could not located them as well as the original Peppered Moth. Over time the Black Peppered Moth increased its population and the original peppered moth disappeared. As Industrial areas have cleared up over the years. The population of Black Peppered Moths has decreased, and the Peppered Moth has re-appeared.
Bats congregate in large numbers in caves, and the mutation of some genes create viruses which is where the Coronavirus developed. There are other similar viruses that have developed over the years and are closely related to the Novel Coronavirus. At some point the virus jumped over to humans and found them to be a good vector for spreading the virus around the world. It is likely that this virus was transmitted to Humans by eating the flesh of the bats.
March 2020 3-10
This winter has been strange. It has been quite wet at times, but also very dry for several weeks at a time. In my case I have been trying to reseed bare spots since the fall, but rains have come and washed the seeds away. It is now time to put down a pre-emergent for crab grass and other spring and summer weeds that are in the ground just waiting to come up.
On my street there are a lot of very nice expensive homes, and it is interesting that many, maybe most of them, seem to have given up on trying to have a decent lawn this spring. Also many of these homes were built 50 years ago and now the traffic is much more intense and fast. I see lots of driveways where homeowners and probably contractors have not been able to enter the driveway slowly enough and run over the driveway apron which pretty quickly creates a big mud hole. Some of these contractors insist on backing into a drive and most often end up damaging the grass. These larger trucks are “pushed” ahead by the surrounding fast traffic and do not slow down enough to enter the driveway without destroying the plant material.
Thus is life I suppose. Meanwhile I still do not see evidence of any cankerworm. If any of you have seen cankerworms or evidence of feeding on trees, please let me know.
at jmcneary@gmail.com
March 2020- 3-01
There has been vigerous weed growth this spring, and erosion. Photos to illustrate a little later.
March 2020- 3-01
It has been dry now for about 4 days, and will dry for another few days so the weather reports say. Light rains projected for Charlotte area. Why that is an issue for me is that unlike many lawns that the re-seeding was will done by professional lawn care companies, My lawn seeding in the fall was done by a mow and blow crew that convinced me they could do a great job. That did not happen, and my lawn had so many bare spots in it I have been constantly reseeding since fall and the weather has not cooperated. Once it cools down about October 15, the grass is slow to germinate, and we have had lots of heavy rains this winter, and the much of the seed I used has washed away. That is especially true in the back yard where good on Gus has had lots of fun chasing a tennis ball, also his big Red Ball and performing on the race track that he has created. I certainly can not blame all the skid marks he has created on the poor reseeding job. However the part of the yard that did come in thick and strong has been bothered much less. Some photos on this later also.
My yard does have a little slope to it and erosion is significant. Little erosion on the well established turf but erosion is very visible on parts of the lawn where there were voids for no seed coming up in the fall. Meanwhile I have had great control on the Poa annua that was in both the front yard and back yard. There is more detail on this subject here (Poor seeding).
February 2020- 2-28
I have Still not seen any evidence of fall cankerworms. I have observed other situations that alarm me concerning yards in my neighborhood.
February 2020- 2-18
April 2020 4-25 Saturday
It has been a while since I have posted on the Home page, but I have made several entries on other sections of the web site. I anticipated at the beginning of this Carona Virus Pandemic that food supply chains would be upset. I have always liked growing things as much to learn from watching stuff grow as opposed to growing for our own consumption. I have a pretty small garden, and I always plant tomatoes, okra, and Serrano peppers. I planted heirloom tomatoes which I like, but the fruit producing time is usually limited to several weeks. For that reason I like Better Boy because the tomatoes are around 2 1/2 inches across and just right for a salad for my wife and me. Better Boy also will produce tomatoes until the end of the season if cared for properly. I usually plant a second crop of Better Boy around the 4th of July and will often have tomatoes until Thanksgiving Day. I also plant Celeberty just because it seems to be a good disease resistant variety that grows well around this part of North Carolina.
In both cases I buy a seed packet and plant for several years from the same seed packet. If you save your own seeds from an heirloom there will be hundreds of seeds but the small seed packet for the hybrid tomatoes will often only have 10 or 12 seeds. Maybe that packet will last for 3 or 4 years because I don’t plant too many tomatoes. Normally tomatoe seeds last for up to 10 years, and you do not have to buy new seeds every year. That would be one reason to have a good selection of heirloom seeds and plant at different times for continuous tomatoes. I always liked Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Brandywine for good heirlooms. There is lots more about growing vegetables here in Gardening
March 2020 4-3 Changing Focus
I already have a gardening page (Gardening page) but it does not address some of the details I will share. I usually did not start planting my garden until May because we always seem to have a frost in April which would zap my tomatoes. Continue on to the link at Gardening Page and Garden Tips
It will take me a little time to add to those pages.
One tip is that if you are starting from bare soil, like digging up your back yard, it will take you two years to have decent soil. If you are planting a few pots for the back yard or to place on your deck, that can work rather quickly and is a good way to get started. See Planting Lettuce for details on what I am doing this year. 2020.
March 2020 3-28 Changing Focus
We have all seen much about the Coronavirus, and it is the subject all day long on the TV news cycles. My own opinion is that we are changed forever, and the toll will be very high. So I want to shift gears and discuss something I know more details about which is the subject of Gardening. Not everyone know how to grow stuff and that is something I have always liked and know a good bit about it. If you are able to grow stuff like vegetables then if we have some fresh food shortages, then you will be more prepared. Over the years I have done a good bit of experimenting with growing vegetables in what ever space I had, which has often been very little. I will try to supply tips on some things I have learned
Here is a little back ground on me. I also suggest that you check other sites on the web about the specific things you might want to grow.
I was born in Philadelphia and my father traveled and we ended up in Charlotte when I was in the first grade. My mother was a gardener and like my dad, where around during the Great Depression. I was born when the Second World War was going on and there were Victory Gardens and scrap metal drives. As most of you know the United States mobilized very quickly for the war effort, but that is another story too. WWII finally was over and America shot ahead as a world power. some of those things that our parents learned were passed on down to us and unknown to many Americans today.
So in some of the entries for quite some time ahead, I suspect will be on growing useful plants in the garden. The world has changed forever in my opinion. Hopefully some good will come out of it and I hope that addresses Population and Climate Chang.
March 2020 3-25
It is time to address the current condition of the Coronavirus. There are many things we see in insect and plant diseases that are similar. My wife and I are taking this virus very seriously for lots of reasons. Back when we had the Y2k I thought the Internet would shut down and stocked up food, etc. I was also kidded a lot, both back then and also now for those who remember. We actually were eating ten year old macaroni.
I have relatives who are veteran doctors and we were alerted a couple of months ago about the Coronavirus and they said it was really serious problems with hospitals around the country in that they would not have enough supplies for the expected crush of patients. So if you are reading the news or watching TV I will not go over what you are seeing, but go in a little different direction.
In Nature there are constant mutations. Everything that causes them I have no idea. Fifty plus years ago I was in the Bahamas and it seemed all the dogs looked the same. But over time even with out bringing in other dogs, the dogs will start to vary in some ways.
Such is it with other animals and viruses. Mutations in the bats eventually transitioned over to people.
Bats... did you know that bats have been eaten by humans for 73,000 years. I know little about bats so if you think I am making a false statement let me know. There are many nations around the world that don’t always have enough food for the people who live there, so the indigenous people will eat and try anything. I once visited a cave in Missouri with my parents and there were bats everywhere hanging down from the ceiling. Many (maybe most) bats live in very large numbers and are protected by the fact that they live where most humans or other hunters would not want to go. Two of the good things they do is provide food for lots of people in Asia, the Phillipines, Japan, Mexico, and generally countries with moderate to hot weather. Some bats are large like the Fruit Bats, but most are small and there is not much meat on them. From reading I found that the bat taste similar to chicken and provide good flavors. Also when added spices from different parts of the world, they are consumed in lots of exotic reciepes. The bats are in such numbers that over time there are changes in their bodies and some of the cells mutate and for (as an example) in England there was a varigated moth called a Peppered moth. With parts of London becoming industrial centers, the tree trunks were black. Over time a Black Peppered moth appeared by some mutation and since the black moth was hard to see by its predators could not located them as well as the original Peppered Moth. Over time the Black Peppered Moth increased its population and the original peppered moth disappeared. As Industrial areas have cleared up over the years. The population of Black Peppered Moths has decreased, and the Peppered Moth has re-appeared.
Bats congregate in large numbers in caves, and the mutation of some genes create viruses which is where the Coronavirus developed. There are other similar viruses that have developed over the years and are closely related to the Novel Coronavirus. At some point the virus jumped over to humans and found them to be a good vector for spreading the virus around the world. It is likely that this virus was transmitted to Humans by eating the flesh of the bats.
March 2020 3-10
This winter has been strange. It has been quite wet at times, but also very dry for several weeks at a time. In my case I have been trying to reseed bare spots since the fall, but rains have come and washed the seeds away. It is now time to put down a pre-emergent for crab grass and other spring and summer weeds that are in the ground just waiting to come up.
On my street there are a lot of very nice expensive homes, and it is interesting that many, maybe most of them, seem to have given up on trying to have a decent lawn this spring. Also many of these homes were built 50 years ago and now the traffic is much more intense and fast. I see lots of driveways where homeowners and probably contractors have not been able to enter the driveway slowly enough and run over the driveway apron which pretty quickly creates a big mud hole. Some of these contractors insist on backing into a drive and most often end up damaging the grass. These larger trucks are “pushed” ahead by the surrounding fast traffic and do not slow down enough to enter the driveway without destroying the plant material.
Thus is life I suppose. Meanwhile I still do not see evidence of any cankerworm. If any of you have seen cankerworms or evidence of feeding on trees, please let me know.
at jmcneary@gmail.com
March 2020- 3-01
There has been vigerous weed growth this spring, and erosion. Photos to illustrate a little later.
March 2020- 3-01
It has been dry now for about 4 days, and will dry for another few days so the weather reports say. Light rains projected for Charlotte area. Why that is an issue for me is that unlike many lawns that the re-seeding was will done by professional lawn care companies, My lawn seeding in the fall was done by a mow and blow crew that convinced me they could do a great job. That did not happen, and my lawn had so many bare spots in it I have been constantly reseeding since fall and the weather has not cooperated. Once it cools down about October 15, the grass is slow to germinate, and we have had lots of heavy rains this winter, and the much of the seed I used has washed away. That is especially true in the back yard where good on Gus has had lots of fun chasing a tennis ball, also his big Red Ball and performing on the race track that he has created. I certainly can not blame all the skid marks he has created on the poor reseeding job. However the part of the yard that did come in thick and strong has been bothered much less. Some photos on this later also.
My yard does have a little slope to it and erosion is significant. Little erosion on the well established turf but erosion is very visible on parts of the lawn where there were voids for no seed coming up in the fall. Meanwhile I have had great control on the Poa annua that was in both the front yard and back yard. There is more detail on this subject here (Poor seeding).
February 2020- 2-28 test mark
I have Still not seen any evidence of fall cankerworms. I have observed other situations that alarm me concerning yards in my neighborhood.
February 2020- 2-18
Still no sign of the cankerworms crawling up the tree. I am seeing an awfully lot of Poa annua. I think some people have just given up on controlling the Poa annua. This is one of the most invasive weeds in the World. It actually has been found in Antarctic. It is possible to control Poa so you might want to take a look at my Poa annua page. That link is still in progress because I have a good bit of information to add.
February 2020 2-13
Here we have more rain following the tradition of last Thursday. It is really wet and I left my generator so I could get it operational quickly. With constant rain the soil gets soft and that is when a many trees are likely to uproot. We happen to be in a part of town where we have lots of trees and the power lines are are on poles. This last storm we had 4 large trees down on our street that uprooted and we were without power from Thursday until early Sunday morning. Still I feel lucky because we have a generator which we purchased many years ago because the basement flooded about 4 feet deep and really created a mess. Yesterday a Duke Energy employee was in our yard checking a transformer and said that within the city limits of Charlotte there were 6000 customers without power over the weekend. Many of them did not have a generator. And of course there are many people homeless or otherwise with poor living circumstances who have to endure nasty weather all the time. We count our blessings.
February 2020 2-9 Ok I changed the way I do dates. when the year is first it allow for automatic alpabitising. I have lots of photos and this way the sequence of the photos displayed works very will.
There are two events that I want to write about that are seasonal and I will not try to do that now. 1. February is the year that the cankerworms stop climbing the trees and lay their eggs. So far I have not seen a single fall cankerworm which is what I predicted. Details were posted earlier in Where did
all the cankerworms go. More on the cankerworms later.
2. Poa annua is blooming and making seed right now. This is one of the worst weeds in the world and grows even in the Antarctic. See Poa annua.
February 2020 2-8 Welcome Back. If you have not noticed I have not been on line for since more today. (today is February 6 when this was written)
Well I did not make it back on the 6th of February.
As it turns out I just got my computer working, and along comes the big storm. We had No power for four days, the basement was flooded because I had to change the in-line gas filter in my Generator. By the time I got the new in-line filter installed, the basement was flooded up to about 2 plus inches. It took a few hours for the sump pump to get the water out, but it was still seeping in quickly and filling the sump.
I got the original pump about 30 years ago when we had a similar rain and the entire basement filled up to about 4 feet and ruined a lot of stuff. Fortunately, I was to get some of my tree crew to help me get all the soaked stuff out of the basement and into the yard for disposal. I learned my lesson and got a generator at the shortly after. It seemed every time I tried to use the generator I couldn’t get it started. If you have gotten this far, then the lesson I learned is that even if you are using unethanol gasoline the inline gas filter can still get clogged. By the time I got the generator running the water had risen about two inches.
More details about my generator here.
Big gap any activity since I was hit by Windows 10 with an Update that really played havoc with my computer. At the same time had just loaded AVG Secure VPN and was a mistake because I had to pay a computer expert for a couple of hours to figure out all that was wrong. I plan to write about that little episode on AVG Secure VPN. Cost me a lot time and money.
September 11, 2019
We are in almost drought conditions here in Charlotte. Shallow rooted plants like azaleas are suffering. Water has become very costly, and I try to conserve where I can. I have an irrigation system, and that is good except it is easy to run up the water bill.
It actually is time to plant grass for the coming fall season, but it is too hot. It is 93 today and the ground is dried out with cracks. I need to do the job right this year and because of the poor winter for growing grass, almost everyone’s lawn is suffering. To make bad matter worse the willow oaks are shedding some leaves to compensate for lack of water and one of the secrets to getting a good lawn is to get the seed to germinate before the leaves fall and choke all the new grass. My big problem which has gotten bigger is Poa annua (Annual Blue Grass). This is the grass that germinates in the fall and thrives in the spring. It also is the has bright green grass that has the low white seed heads which are below the mower blades.
The soil temperature in my backyard measured at 4 inches deep early this morning was 79 degrees Poa annua germinates at 70 degrees. I was not measuring soil temperature at the time, but I have seen Poa annua in late August so was it actually germinating before the soil temp dropped to 70 degrees.
Photo below.
I have an entire page on Poa annua and I believe I know how to control it. Click here for details on Poa annua Annual Blue Grass.
September 6, 2019
Looks like I was wrong about the flooding from Florence. During Florence, the storm hung around for several days and dropped a lot of rain. In todays case Dorian did not stay around very long.
September 5, 2019
Hurricane season is upon us with Dorian bearing now on the Carolina Coast. We here in Charlotte probably will not feel much of an effect except for some moderate winds and I suppose some rain. Last year on October 12th (2018) Hurricane Florence struck the coast and we got about 6 inches of rain. Coastal North Carolina got hammered and flooding was extensive. I made a comment that those who were flooded if they could afford to should consider moving to higher ground and we could expect a similar flood within the next five years. Here we are less than a year and it is possible coastal NC will have major flooding.
I will be following this on my Hurrican Page and Hurricane Dorian.
August 16, 2019
One of the things that keeps me busy that I am doing a downsizing project right now that is fixing up a 57 year old sailboat which my wife and raced for many years. It is under a large willow oak in the back yard. Lately I have seen a lot of frass on the deck. If you don’t know what frass is, it is caterpilller droppings which are what discolors your car if it is parked under a tree during past cankerworm seasons.
Y-1200 Charleston harbor quite a few years ago.
Y- Flyer almost ready for painting
How does this pertain to caterpillar frass during the middle of the summer? It is extremely messy with all the stuff dropping from the willow oak: imature acorns, small twigs, larger branches, a birds egg or two, and caterpillar Frass. The deck is white and the frass stains it quickly. This particular frass is not coming from a Fall Cankerworm, but some other type of caterpillar. Here is a photo of the caterpillar that making my job more difficult.
Unamed summer caterpillar Caterpiller does not pro-legs like the cankerworm. Pro legs are about the equal number of legs in the front and back which is why we call it an inch worm as it grips the surface up front and then pulls the back legs up behind the front legs.
August 13, 2019
I have been remiss. I have had quite a few projects going on and it has been very hard to keep up with all the things I am supposed to do. I have been retired for some time now and wonder how I ever ran a business. Now I have a lot more jobs, just different priorities.
Here are a few things I plan to post a little later:
Update on where did the cankerworms go. I think I know the answer and have written about it for other venues and will post it before you have to stock up on supplies for this fall. There will be so few cankerworms this fall, you will not need to band your trees in the Charlotte Area Read the Document Here.
I also feel the need to discuss climate change because it is so serious, and I have seen lots of evidence over my 80 plus years.
May 11, 2019 Saturday
I usually try to enter information at least every three weeks. I am off track for personal reasons and have just been too busy. A lot has happened in that it has been a wet spring and plants look good in general, but in my yard it has been too wet. I have always had a varigated liriopea lining my driveway from the sidewalk to the apron of the drive at the curb. Photo below. This doesn’t get much water or for that matter any water from my irrigation and seems to do quite well. 2nd photo below shows the opposite side of the drive which get irrigation, plus rainfall, plus is down hill seepage. The liriope here ends up with a lot more water, in fact much too much water and has acquired a disease. Crown rot seems to be the most likely culprit. I have noticed that the leaves seem to stick together two or three at a time.
Photo 1 Photo taken of the Liriopea that is at the bottom of a gradual slope. We had a very wet winter and this area was constantly wet. This was compounded by the fact that I have irrigation for my lawn. Back in the spring, like April 2019 it all died out. Interestingly enough I found out that just cut back off on water and it might recover. It did. I believe I have a photo of this same area when the liriopea was just gone. Now that it is mid to late summer it seems to have made a recovery.
Photo #1
Photo number 2 below is from the left front yard where there is considerable slope. Any water if from rain, just flows down on to the grass and there is drip irrigation in the bed to the left of the green bush (Snowball Viburnam) with a large hosta called Blue Angle in front of it next to the sidewalk. Mostly the Liriopea here just thrives and has been here for 30 years of so. The message here is find out the cause of the problem and do not be too hasty to change things.
Photo # 2
So if you have this issue, just do not overwater. My plan is to dig up all of these dying or almost dead liriope and with the dirt dispose of it. I then will sterlize the shovel so try to rid the bed of infected soil. I will then replant with fresh soil that will be at a higher elevation and hopefully will be able to survive.
April 7, 2019 Sunday
Below are comments about the Boxwood Leaf Miner. I did not mention that English Boxwoods also get the Leaf Miner but I believe it is a different species. The leaf miner that grows in the leaves of the English Boxwood does not do the damage to the English Boxwood that the leaf miner in the American Boxwood does to the American boxwood. After several years of infestation, the American Boxwood will look rather ratty. I can spot an Amercan Boxwood from 50 feet away that has a heavy infestation of the American Boxwood Leaf Miner. I suspect that I should identify these insects with their Latin names, but I have noticed that when I have made previous statements about going back and fixing something, I often don’t get around to it.
April 6, 2019 Saturday
Today I saw lots of orange knat like flies flying everywhere. These are the adult of the Boxwood Leaf Miner. If you have American Boxwood these insects can do a lot of damage. We used to spray the day we first saw them flying around the Boxwoods. A more modern way to control them is to use a systemic insecticide that is broadcast on the ground, is drawn up into the leaves and kills the insects. BWLM lays eggs in the leaf of the boxwood plant. After several weeks one can see tiny spots on the new growth, and as the season progresses, the eggs hatch and will cause a small bump on the leaf. Eventually that bump swells into a orange larvae and a window forms on the leaf. If the head of the larvae turns black they either are hatching or will be hatching shortly.
April 1, 2019 We should be seeing cankerworms feeding on foliage and crawling down trunks soon or already, ONLY IF THEY HAVE HATCHED AT ALL. IN THE CHARLOTTE AREA THERE ARE NO CANKERWORMS THIS SPRING. I ACTUALLY FOUND THREE SINCE THANKSGIVING; WHEREAS IN THE PAST IN MY OWN YARD I HAVE SEEN OVER 5000 FALL CANKERWORMS ON ONE LARGE WILLOW OAK TREE IN MY YARD.
More about this later, and why it happened.
March 21, 2019 Thursday
This is the time of year when the cankerworms usually hatch up in the tops of the trees. Potentially each female insect can lay 250 or more. Once spring starts and the cankerworms start to hatch, It is then about ten more days before they start feeding in the trees, especially willow oaks. This year I think there will be a very small outbreak in Charlotte and probably a much greater area . I will write about this soon and follow up. I have a good idea why they have not shown up this season.
I have only seen 3 female cankerworms this year. Two were in one willow oak street tree and one was in another similar tree. I suspect there will some insects that make it to maturity, but my prediction is virtually none will become a problem. If you start seeing feeding on new foliage, please let me know. Concord was several years later than Charlotte getting the cankerworms so I am curious about them and also Gastonia and other surrounding towns.
March 5, 2019 TuesdayI got a message from a person in another part of Charlotte who has had thousands of female cankerworms on his large willow oak in years past. He said that he has not seen a single cankerworm this season. Usually they hatch and emerge in late March and start feeding in early April. I will elaborate on this on the cankerworm page a little later.
More coming see link below about Poa annua and trivialis
March 4, 2019 Monday
It looks like we had our week of warm weather in February was in the first part of the month. It has been so rainy landscapers and homeowners have not been able to get much done outside. I do see a lot of weeds coming up and out of control of Poa annua. Today I plan to photograph some Poa trivialis that is taking over some lawns on Maryland Avenue.
February 22, 2019 Friday
A little change today... of course it is still really wet, but I have noticed that there is a lot erosion being created in my yard. We have a slight degree of slope and in the past when we have been lucky enough to have a pretty good stand of grass. I have noticed that a good stand of grass is a good filter and keeps the water from turning muddy. We have had new construction next door for over two years and with nothing to filter the mud, we always saw muddy water flow down our front walk from up stream.
We also have a new dog that is young and a very fast runner. He goes wide open and has about three routes through the back yard. Its fun to watch him “chase” but he he has skid marks all through the back yard. We never got a good lawn installed this past fall like so many other people, and when it rains, nothing but muddy water would flow down the driveway.
Now I have seen serious erosion. Photo coming soon. now feb 24.
February 21, 2019 Thursday
Still very wet, rain into next week.
February 17, 2019 Sunday (late afternoon)
We were having someone over for supper, and I was upstairs getting ready. I looked out the upstairs window and saw a large deer in the vacant lot next to where we live. This is not totally
unusual, because we are just a few hundred yards from Sugar Creek and most of us realize that animals will follow streams up into residential areas. I would have to shoot my photo through the screen which will mess up the photo so I decided to hustle down stairs and out the door not toally dressed for company, but ok for spending a few minutes to try to get a picture of a deer.
The deer was out of sight so I waded through the wet grass hoping that the deer was in the upper left corner of the property where there were some large cedar trees. And there he was staring eye ball to eye ball. It was getting pretty dark and the pictures are far from perfect, but its not every day I have a visit from the Deer.
A short time later I realized there were two deer, and we stared at each other for some time and then since it was getting darker and darker I left before they did.
February 17, 2019 Sunday
Does the lack of fall cankerworms mean that they are gone permanently. If you have not experienced an infestation of Cankerworms then read the article below which is something I published on this web site in 2008 (eleven years ago) Here are a few details about what typically happens in the spring.
In the spring of 2008 about the last of March, I noticed very small green worms on the black tar paper on the trunk of the willow oak in my front yard. Upon close examination I realized that they were baby fall cankerworms. They were about 1/8th of an inch long had hatched from the eggs that were laid on the tar paper. Typically, the wingless females crawl to the top of the tree and lay their eggs in the upper parts of the tree so they can be near the new foliage when it comes out in the spring.
Because we trap the wingless female insects in the fall, the male is attracted to them by pheromones. In desperation some of the females mate and lay their eggs on the tar paper. I have counted as many as 300 eggs in one cluster, but I suspect that the average egg cluster is about 200 eggs. 200 eggs times the number of cankerworms that climb up the tree get to be astronomical numbers quickly. This year I captured 1,363 female insects. Potentially, that is 272,600caterpillars munching away in the top of the tree.
Some years ago, I captured over 5000 female canker worms in one season and a city tree not far away captured in excess of 8000 cankerworms. Do the math.
Also, by this time of year the sticky stuff on your traps will have dried out, gathered dust, collected leaves, and in general not been capable of capturing the cankerworm caterpillar. What happens now is that the new young-cankerworms will start feeding on the trees very soon since the willow oak leaves are opening now. When they have eaten all the tender leaves and buds they will parachute down the tree on silk-like threads or crawl down the trunk. Those small cankerworm caterpillars that land on the grass or blow in from other trees will have a natural tendency to crawl upward. They crawl upward by the thousands during a year where there is a lot of cankerworm activity. Those cankerworms that crawl down the trunk will get to the ground and crawl to another tree or even a telephone pole and go to the top of that. No one said they were smart, they are just programed that way.
If you went to the trouble and expense of installing traps take a few minutes to refurbish them.
March 25, 2009
jack mcneary
February 17, 2019 Sunday
It has turned blustry and cold. I have not heard a peep from anyone about cankerworms.
February 14, 2019
I did not expect to see so few cankerworms this season. I went back into the old records on this site and brought up some information about what it was like in 2007-2008. It was really difficult dealing with the cankerworms then, and I suppose we are lucky that nature has slowed them down. I believe the winter last year 2017-2019, when it was very cold for ten days or so that it really killed the population. I think that is what we are seeing now, and that has carried over this year and we are seeing hardly any cankerworms so far. (February 17, 2019.
Below is a quote from April of 2008
quote here Got to find it again.
February 13, 2019
I have looked a the cankerworm traps on a dozen or so street trees here and see hardly any cankerworms. Earlier, I found 1 on one tree and two on another Willow Oak. These were all City street trees. Usually in the past they have stopped their migration by the middle of February. I think we will have a light infestation here. Let me Know is you see signs of cankerworm activity.
February 7, 2019 Thrsday
Today, it is supposed to go to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That is really hot for us especially this time of of year.
February 6, 2019 Wednesday
Besides writing about trees all the time, there other things that I observe in nature. One of them is the status of my lawn and other people’s lawn. In recent years, I have been keeping an eye on the lawn weeds that cause problems. Poa Annua” Annual Blue Grass” has been causing me lots of trouble over the years. This is the grass that puts out a very short stem with a white seed head on top of the stem. The seed head is below the lawn mowers blades and reseeds in the early spring typically. Well it is not early Spring and I saw some Poa seeding in my driveway over eight weeks ago.
Directly below is a mature Poa annua or Annual Blue Grass. The next photo came from a crack between the pavers of my drive. I took this photo in December 16, 2018 This was a shady part of the drive way that does not get much sun which surprised me. Controlling Poa annua is difficult and I have written more about that here.
Poa annua From Driveway Photo taken on December 16, 2018. (very early seed production)
February 5, 2019 TuesdayIt certainly was a pretty day today. I always predict a week in February that makes you think it is Spring. I did see two cankerworms of separate Willow Oaks today. I expected more.
- February 4, 2019 Monday
Today is one of those great days in the middle of the winter (around here). I say prayers for the people who live farther North who are suffering and dying because of the severe weather extremes. It was 35 degrees F. early this morning and at 5:00 PM it is 66 in my back yard. This is one of those days I would like to be fly fishing for trout. The reason for mentioning all of this is that for as lo![]() ng as I can recall, I have always said there “Is one week in February every year that will be a day when you think it is Summer.” It has been warm here for the best part of a week and I hope by the end of February we will see more warm weather. I will be fishing if it does warm up again.
February 2, 2019 Saturday
It has been dry for several days and fairly cold. We have had freezing weather too. So far, I have still not seen any other cankerworms since January 28th 2019. Many of the trees I look at are street trees and covered with many leaves, so it is hard to see the cankerworms when I am walking with Gus. Gus is a big boy (62 plus pounds) part Lab and part Schnauzer.
Christmas Photo of Gus.
February 1, 2019 Friday
I have looked for more cankerworms for several days and found none. If you blow up the photo below the cankerworm is in the approximate center of the page where the plastic makes an angle. It is on the metal staple. We have had enough cold days to bring the cankerworms out. My own opinion is that we will have few cankerworms this season, much like last year. I am sure there are spots where there will be outbreaks, but in the Greater Charlotte on city and private trees, we will have low counts.
January 28, 2019 Monday
I saw my first cankerworm this afternoon at the 1500 block of Queens Road West.
It is supposed to be 22 degrees on Tuesday Jan 29, 2019. Got my cankerworm trap up and finished on Sunday. The photo directly below was taken several years ago. I took the second photo on January 28th and it is more of less the center of the photo a couple of inches up from the bottom of the trap. the black plastic is crimped and the female cankerworm is at the bend in the plastic where the metal staple is.
January 27 also Below is a Willow oak with two bands. I photographed it and said there were several things wrong with it. The first is that leaves all over the black trap have covered it so the cankerworms can not go up the trunk without getting stuck.
Next, the black band is on top of the Bug Barrier Trap and destroyed it. Neither works. One good thing about the tree is that has an excellent root flare. I suspect the homeowner put up the bug barrier band and paid good money to do so.
January 27, 2019 Sunday
This is a photo from the other side of the street. It shows how much the black band is up on top of the Bug Barrier trap. When I first took this photo I did not immediately see the problem. Neither trap works. Later I came back and took another photo from the side opposite this photo.
January 27, 2019 Sunday
If anyone has seen cankerworms moving up the trees, please let me know. When I first started keeping track of them, we were putting up traps about the 25th of November which was Thanksgiving. Over the years the dates have become later and later. Here it is the 27th of January and I just put up the tarpaper for my trap. I have looked at city trees and trees on private property and not seen any evidence of female cankerworm. I took photos yesterday of some observations and have posted them onthe cankerworm page for 2018-2019 which is linked here and also on the left sidebar. If you have not read much about our problem which has been pretty local in nature, then take a look at the cankerworm page for 2007 and 2008.
Since the posting on January 21st, below, there has been a good cold snap of three days , not necessarily in a row where it has been 27 degrees or below. The cankerworms should start moving up the trees pretty soon. I expect a small infestation this year.
January 21, 2019 Monday
This morning it was 24 degrees at my home and we are expected to see even colder weather on Tuesday. I have seen no cankerworms this fall. If you have spotted any, please let me know at jmcneary@gmail.com
January 11, 2019 Friday
I suppose I should put up my cankerworm traps, but I am confident that we will not see them before we have some good cold days. I had ice on the bird bath yesterday and today.
Important: Below is a photo that shows three important things about the tree. 1. The cankerworm trap is filled with leaves most likely delivered to the trap with a leaf blower. The homeowner recognizes that, and 2. Places a Bug Barrier trap above the city trap which should capture the cankerworms which overrun the city trap.
3. These comments are about the willow oak described above on January 27, 2019. Lastly, this willow oak has a wonderful root flair. The planting strip is wide enough to allow the tree to expand its roots and develop good anchorage at least on the home side. You can see that because the whiteish colored walk way was probably lifted by the tree roots so they (the roots) extend under the cement slab and into the yard. The roots that go to the street and curb usually will not penetrate the road bed because there is not much water there, little oxygen, heavy dense clay soil, and in general an inhospitable place for tree roots to grow.
There is much more to this story (observation ) about this willow oak. I will carry that over to the Cankerworm page. (it will be later, today is 1-22-2019 very busy for someone who is retired.) This same tree is detailed on 1-27-2019
jack
This is the photo from the back side of the willow oak mentioned above. In the center of the tree it is very obvious that the black trap is over the top of the Bug Barrier Trap. Dumb and thoughtless Home Link to Jan 27th 2019
January 10, 2019 Thursday
I have been looking to see signs of the cankerworms and so far have seen nothing. This does not surprise me because we need some cold weather to bring them up the trunks. In general if we have 3 days of below freezing weather they will come up the tree trunks. At least the leaves are gone from almost all the trees except those that keep them through the winter. I have a Pin Oak, not a willow oak that leaves its leaves on much longer than the willow oaks.
January 10, 2019 Thursday
I have been looking to see signs of the cankerworms and so far have seen nothing. This does not surprise me because we need some cold weather to bring them up the trunks. In general if we have 3 days of below freezing weather they will come up the tree trunks. At least the leaves are gone from almost all the trees except those that keep them through the winter. I have a Pin Oak, not a willow oak that retains its leaves on much longer than the willow oaks.
It is excessively wet, and we have quite a lot of rain for the last few weeks. Even Lake Carolina which is our name for the old basement at next door’s vacant lot. It is full. here is a photo.
Lake Caroline spring several years ago after a lot of rain. The Mallard ducks left several weeks later but enjoyed it while they were there. I think their normal home is on Sugar Creek in Freedom Park.
The photo below is Lake Caroline when it was frozen this January
December 18, 2018 Tuesday
Today as I was driving up Queens Road West, I saw banded trees, both private and public street trees with Tanglefoot on them. Many of these traps were loaded with willow oak leaves. Many trees have not dropped all their leaves, and the city has not blown the leaves off the median yet. If the trap is covered with leaves the female cankerworms will walk right over the trap.
Last year the insects did not start going up the tree trunks until later. I will check the exact date later.
December 9, 2018 Sunday
A word of caution about the snow, ice, sleet storm we are getting today and tomorrow. Trees normally have lost their foliage by this time of the year, and many trees are still in full leave. A wet snow or ice on leaves creates a tremendous load on the root system. Many of our large trees have a root system confined in a small space, and a canopy that under ideal circumstances spreads in the air to as much as 3 times the drip zone. (photo of Drip zone) Where I live, our planting strip between the sidewalk and the street is 11 feet wide. This is a lot greater than most trees have because we live on a thoroughfare. Some of the planting strips in Charlotte are 3 to 4 feet in width, and no where near 11 feet wide. What this ends up looking like is an upside down lollipop for a root system, tall trunk, and considerable foliage. To make bad matters worse,
we have lots of willow oaks and they are particularly susceptible to root rot. Inonotus happened in particular. Link here for Weeping Conk ... Inonotus draydeus
November 1 through December 3, 2018 Monday
Several things to catch up on .... lots of things have happened.
I heard someone say that it was time to get the cankerworm traps up now. I radically disagree for several reasons. The first is that many trees are still loaded with leaves and your traps
will be covered up with falling or it not that and you have the Bug Barrier trap where the leaves are protected from falling leaves, leaf blowers will do a thorough job blowing leave up under the trap.
The last point is that the season last year was radically off. In the Myers Park area some large trees did not capture any or very few cankerworms. As I have suggested in the past do not put
up traps until you are sure you will have an infestation. link here later
Fall colors have been great. This photo was in Dilworth near Worthington.
This is one of my favorite maple trees I always try to photograph very fall. In the fall as the sun is going down, it can be gorgeous. This year we have had so much rain and the falling leaves and the setting sun did not cooperate. Still, it is a pretty photo.
Great fall colors
The conks for the common mushroom we see growing at the base of our large willow oaks is called Inonotus draydeus. The common name is weeping conk. You can see from the Photo below what the weeping is referring to.
From a little distance the smaller conk (fungus) on the right in the proceeding photo which shows the “bleeding” better. Interestingly These Weeping Conks came out almost exactly one month later than in previous years. We have had a lot of rain this season but drought has been mixed in with, and we all know the weather has been strange.
October 30,2018 Tuesday
I found some photos of a willow oak I was watching in Freedom Park from 2013. It was September of 2013 when the mushrooms started showing and growing. three photos are shown below click here Inonotus
October 17, 2018
While looking at a tree on Queens Road West, I observed Mushrooms at the base of a street tree. This was the Inonotus dryadeus. I think it is very late in the season to see this as we usually see the mushrooms in September. I will check past dates on photos... read below.
(out of focus removed and will not take the time to replace it.
Here are a series of photos of Inonotus dryadeus that were taken in 2013. Note the dates. It would be interesting to check the weather preceding the time these mushrooms became visible. It is also interesting to see how fast the mushroom grew. The tree in question was a very large willow oak at the entrance to Freedom Park off East Blvd. The tree also had several large dead limbs in it that were covered with Hypoxalon Canker.
This first photo was taken on September 17 2013 and the one below it on October 21 2013. The point being that there is a month difference when they appeared. Note also that there is the blackened remains of the the conk that was left from the previous year, and that is where the new mushrooms are growing.
Inonotus dryadeus September 17 2013
Inonotus dryadus Photographed Oct 21, 2013 only 34 days apart.
November 09, 2013 Note the two mushrooms are now touching.
October 13, 2018 Saturday
I lost some data on this computer when we had a short electrical problem due to Hurricane Michael. I have been around Dilworth, Myers Park and part of Eastover looking for uprooted trees. I have records on Hurricane Hugo and a little on Florence and now Michael. I will be posting more. Yesterday I was in Dilworth and there were 246 people on one grid with no power. I am sure there are places where the situation is worse, but still it is serious.
I will post more about these storms, uprooted trees, root rot. Check out Hurricanes on this site.
September 27, 2018 Thursday
This morning at about 8:00 the electrical power went out in our home, and 151 other people along Queens Road West and Maryland Avenue. This is the Fifth time in the month of September that the power has gone out in our home. One of those times was the day Hurricane Florence knocked it out. I looked at two trees that came down on Queens Road West. Each one fell on homes and did a great deal of damage. If you want to read more about Florence click here.
I suspected that another tree had uprooted because the feed back from Duke Energy was that it would be out until 3:00 and then later 1:00, and the two power poles had been damaged (cross ties damaged) or were down. It actually came back by around 9:00.
As it turned out a large limb had fallen from a Sweetgum Tree. Below is the fruit of the tree called a sweetgum ball.
This time of year the sweetgum balls are maturing and are actually quite heavy. When you get a branch that is loaded with the fruit (sweetgum balls) the limb will often fall. This is not an uncommon problem. Out west they have something they call Sudden Limb Drop. That refers to the limbs of eucalyptus trees. I recall a case where a limb of an eucalyptus dropped from a tree in a park or a parking lot and killed a child who was eating an ice cream cone.
If you have a sweetgum tree, then you should have it checked to see if a similar situation exist. One way to do this on your own would be to look back at the history of the tree to see if such unforseen limbs have dropped suddenly for no apparent reason in the past.
The photo below which is not very sharp in focus came from the sweetgum debris that was still under the tree that took out the power line on the morning of September 27th.
September 17, 2018 Monday The day after hurricane Florence arrived in Charlotte.
We were lucky for a lot of reasons. Some outlined on My Generator Page. More important is what I saw today which concerns safety and why trees fall. I always get annoyed when I watch TV or see photos in the news papers that show up-rooted trees that have obvious decay in the roots. I looked at several situations over the last few days and took many photos of decay in trees that fell. I also have many photos of uprooted trees and their decay that caused them to fall in my archives and decided that after Florence, it is time to share that information.
Why should I do this. I was a Consulting Arborist (member and past President of the American Society of Consulting Arborist.) I also ran a local tree service called McNeary’s Arborists Inc. in Charlotte North Carolina for 42 years. I have seen a lot over the years as a professional Arborist and observed many storms over the years including Hurricane Hugo in September 22, 1989 and Florence September 15th and 16th when it arrived in Charlotte NC. (added information and now Hurricane Michal October 11, 2018 one day after it struck Mexico Beach in Florida with winds of 155 mph.)
We read about seeing the uprooted Trees on TV and the flooding and other damage to the entire State of North Carolina. I certainly have empathy for those in dire situations, but I want to address why most of the trees blow over. We only had about 45 mph winds in Charlotte, probably some gust higher, but not the kind that should uproot healthy trees.
I propose to outline this on three pages on this site. Example of individual trees that blew over. Example 1 Queens Road West. ... cause root rot ..... Florence
Example 2 Queens Road West ... cause root rot ,,,,,, Florence
Example 3 Malvern Road ... Probable root rot or other root issues ..... Florence
A look at Hurricane Hugo
September 16, 2018 Sunday
Florence has passed for the time being in Charlotte, but it looks like another blast will hit later tonight. At noon today, I captured exactly 6 inches of water in my rain gauge. I used a 5 gallon pail with straight sides and a brick to hold it down in the wind. Once it had several inches of water I removed the brick. Later at about 3:30 after another reading there was 6 and 3/8's inches. Some areas close by got 10 inches or more. I was able to get my generator going at about 3:30 am, after the power went out at 2:30. I kept the generator running because the sump pump was filling and running pretty frequently. My concern was to protect a freezer with food. Equally as important, the basement has a lot of stuff like tools, storage containers, old dog toys and children's’ used but still functional toys. Moving all of that to higher ground would have been very difficult. The water was coming in fast. There was about a one inch hole in the side of the sump opening and the pump was spewing a solid stream of water about three inches long. By the time I got the pump working water was beginning to spread over the basement floor. I learned a lot about my generator from 2:30 AM until 7:00 AM Read more on Tips on Running a Gasoline Generator during a storm. My Generator Page
September 12, 2018
The path of Florence has changed dramatically and I believe Charlotte is in a position now 8:30 AM to get a lot more rain than I thought. The eye of the storm is being pushed south and looks like it will really batter the entire coast. Things will change and I will post more.
For whatever it is worth I have always been fascinated hurricanes because before TV and the Internet, I was born in the middle of the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. My parents lived in Boston at the time and fled to Philadelphia Pa to escape. They did not escape all of it. There was not much in the papers because Hitler invaded (got to look this one up) at the same time so
September 11, 2018
Since my last entry on August 6th, I have noticed a lot of things I should have posted. Today of course is infamous, and we all who were around at that time remember where we were when the Trade Towers were attacked. Say some prayers for our country. The only other time that I remember so vividly was when President Kennedy was shot which was November 22, 1963. At that time, I was a 1st Lieutenant in the Air Force stationed in Istanbul Turkey.
Significantly, today is shaping up to be a memorable day in that Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the coast of North Carolina and will probably strike somewhere near Wilmington NC. The surrounding states for the east coast will probably see storm surges, heavy rains and flooding.
We (in Charlotte) are 179 miles from Wilmington NC and 177 miles from Charleston SC which is where Hurricane Hugo made landfall slightly north of Charleston. McClellanville had serious damage and some of the stories there were really amazing.
Those of you who might be on the coast watch out for flooding and the Storm Surge.
Hurricane Hugo A Night of Terror in McClellanville
25 years ago, a night of terror in McClellanville: ‘We came over here to drown’
By JASON RYAN - Special to The State
September 20, 2014 06:26 PM
It was a last-minute decision, made as Hurricane Hugo churned off the South Carolina coast, poised to come ashore.
Twenty-five years ago today, on Sept. 21, 1989, Elizabeth Young had been at home in McClellanville, watching the evening news, when a reporter urged — one final time — local residents to head to a public shelter, especially if they lived in a one-story home.
Hearing the plea once again, Young changed her mind about staying put in the face of a powerful hurricane. Grabbing her pregnant daughter and two young grandsons, she headed off to nearby Lincoln High School, joining a few hundred other local residents preparing to wait out the Category 4 storm.
Hurricane Hugo already had torn through the Caribbean, causing two dozen deaths. Now, having traveled northeast across the Gulf Stream, it was ready to make landfall again, just north of Charleston.
Though it had weakened since leaving the Caribbean, Hugo – the first major hurricane to strike South Carolina in 30 years – still had sustained winds of 135 mph. As the eye of the storm passed over Sullivan’s Island on the north side of Charleston Harbor just shy of midnight, Hugo’s fiercest winds assaulted McClellanville, a small fishing village of 400 residents another 40 miles north.
Many of those seeking shelter at Lincoln High took refuge in the school’s large cafeteria, where there was also a stage.
Young, who worked as a secretary at the school, camped out with her family in the home economics classroom, enjoying biscuits and coffee prepared by a friend. Anticipating a long night, Young had brought along a bag of books, and arts and crafts supplies to help pass the time.
Some time before midnight, the power went out at the school, leaving the shelter in darkness. A half hour or so later, Young reached down to the floor to retrieve something from her bag. To her surprise, her fingers touched water. The school, Young and the others realized, had started to flood.
The water rose quickly.
Within minutes it was above ankles, then knees, then waists, with no sign of stopping.
In the cafeteria, some nervous residents stood atop tables to escape the rising water. Others took to the elevated stage.
In the home economics room, a man in a wheelchair was hoisted onto a table, too. Young placed her two grandsons even higher, atop a refrigerator, hoping they would be safe. No one could be sure, however, since the water kept rising in the darkness.
What’s more, there was no obvious escape from the building. The floodwater seeping into the building sealed shut every door. It was a scene from a horror movie: Hundreds of people trapped in dark rooms that kept filling and filling with water.
About this time Young regretted leaving her home to seek shelter at the school. So did the other McClellanville residents trapped at Lincoln High. As one friend in the home economics room said as the water continued to rise, “Miss Young, we came over here to drown.” ‘We were totally trapped’
Related stories from The State in Columbia SC
Readers’ memories of Hurricane Hugo: stuck on a submarine
A mile away in the center of town, the storm surge had taken others by surprise as well.
Rutledge Leland, McClellanville's mayor since 1976, had decided to brave the storm by hunkering down at home with his wife and two children.
Close to midnight, he said, Hugo’s winds had died down, only to be replaced by the sound of his dogs scratching on the exterior door. Leland had tied them up outside, under a carport, and was curious why they seemed agitated when it was so calm. Opening the door, Leland was astonished to see his pooches in water up to their necks.
He let the dogs inside and, noticing the water continue to rise and seep into the house, soon moved with his family to the second floor.
His wife stood sentinel at the top of the stairs, watching the water rise step by step by step. Within what seemed like 15 minutes, says Leland, the floodwater was 6 feet deep on the first floor.
In homes across McClellanville, nervous residents were climbing to higher ground.
For some, that meant jumping on furniture. For others, it meant climbing into attics, or upon roofs, especially when the furniture they had been perched upon started bobbing around their water-filled homes.
All watched the floodwater with alarm, praying it would stop rising, if not recede altogether.
Back at Lincoln High, people went into a full-blown panic as the water continued to rise.
Some people sloshed through the halls, desperate to find an exit not sealed by water, the only light provided by flashlights and hallway emergency lights that remained illuminated. They could find no way out, and failed to break through Plexiglas windows when they banged them with a fire extinguisher.
Inside the cafeteria, people cried and prayed as they crowded onto tables and the stage, lifting children high to keep their heads above the water, now 6 feet high.
Some tired of being overcrowded and elected to swim around in the water, clinging to buoyant belongings.
Emergency personnel stationed at the shelter were alarmed by the danger posed by the floodwater.
As paramedic George Metts wrote later: “The enormity of our situation was staggering. We were totally trapped. The tidal surge had risen so rapidly that we had no time to call for help. My walkie-talkie had gotten wet earlier and now it had fallen into the inky darkness. We were on our own. The water was still rising and those that could were packed like sardines on the stage.”
A few men managed to climb out a window and climb to the school’s roof. They had escaped the floodwater but were now buffeted by ferocious winds and flying debris, including terracotta shingles being ripped from the school’s roof. Nonetheless, the men were glad to be outside the school. They feared that they might be the only survivors, that everyone below was doomed.
Fortunately, the water stopped rising.
Perhaps two or three hours after the floodwater penetrated Lincoln High School, it began to seep out, the storm having moved inland, toward Columbia and Sumter.
Daylight soon came, and people exited the building to inspect Hugo’s toll.
Having narrowly survived drowning within the school, they were in for another shock – McClellanville was in shambles.
‘Your world turned upside down in six hours’
At daylight, Mayor Leland began surveying the damage.
The first floor of his home was caked in inches of mud, his belongings waterlogged.
Outside, a 90-foot steel barge had obliterated his dock after coming loose in the storm. Boats of all sizes had come ashore, crashing into buildings and trees throughout town before the water receded, leaving the boats high and semi-dry.
Hurricane Hugo had moved homes off their foundations, and torn walls off others. Cars had floated every which way, too, some deposited on top of each other.
Perhaps most eerily, residents encountered coffins in the street and throughout town. The hurricane and tidal surge had washed the coffins out of their graves in a nearby cemetery.
Trees, formerly flush with a summer’s worth of new growth, had been stripped bare of leaves by Hugo’s winds. Limbs and trunks had snapped and been scattered. The damage was overwhelming.
“You just cannot imagine what it’s like to have your world turned upside down in six hours,” says Leland, who today, at 70, is still McClellanville's mayor. “Everything you’ve done in life is just on restart.”
Leland tallied the destruction in basic terms.
His house was ruined.
His seafood business, located just down the street, was ruined.
McClellanville, it seemed, was ruined.
But he and his family, at least, were alive.
Every McClellanville resident, in fact, had survived the storm.
But that information would not be known for some time, as residents emerged from their homes without telephone service or transportation, all their cars having been stuck underwater and most of the roads made impassable.
The absence of information was agonizing.
Sheila Powell, now the director of the South Santee Senior and Community Center in McClellanville, was living in Las Vegas when Hurricane Hugo roared through her hometown. She watched news reports of the storm damage from out West and was frustrated when she could not reach any family members to check on their safety. Two months later, at Thanksgiving, she made her first visit back home since the storm.
Powell was stunned.
“That was something I don’t care to ever see again,” says Powell, now 54. “It definitely tore up the entire town.”
‘Every time something starts twirling’
McClellanville was not alone in its suffering.
Downtown Charleston and the surrounding metropolitan area and islands also severely were damaged. Hugo wreaked havoc, too, as it spun up into the Midlands and through Charlotte and beyond.
Within South Carolina, at least 26 people were killed by the storm. More than 26,000 homes were destroyed or heavily damaged, and 1.4 million people were left without power. Hugo caused an estimated $5 billion to $8 billion in damage in the Palmetto State.
But tiny McClellanville was perhaps hit the hardest.
Cosmetically, it bounced back rather quickly, looking familiar again within a few years. Debris was removed. Trees sprouted new leaves. Houses were repaired and cleaned.
Other damage, however, was not so easily sorted out.
Many residents suffered economically through lost income and damages not covered by insurance. In a town clobbered by a 16-foot storm surge, few people had flood insurance.
Then, there was the loss of all the things that could not be replaced, including family Bibles and photographs. And the inconvenience of fixing leaky roofs, enduring the stench of rotting sea animals, and having students sent to temporary schools.
Some residents became annoyed with the delivery of government help following the storm, judging it too slow to come or insufficient. Yet South Carolina’s recovery from Hugo lacked the finger-pointing and dysfunction found years later in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina walloped New Orleans.
People in McClellanville do not complain much about Hugo these days. Instead, they remember the generosity of the many strangers who donated needed supplies to residents or volunteered for cleanup and rebuilding efforts.
“One thing I’ll always remember is the kindness of people around the country,” says Young, the former secretary at Lincoln High School, now 77.
Since Hugo, there have been significant improvements in weather forecasting, building codes and communication technology, including cellphones and personal computers. Together, they suggest coastal residents would be better prepared for another major hurricane.
Local leaders say, too, that, many improvements have been made to emergency planning in coastal South Carolina.
Most notably, evacuation routes have been made more efficient, and there is a greater sense of cooperation between local agencies and governments, especially in coordinating storm preparation plans and responses.
In Charleston County today, most storm shelters are concentrated inland at schools in North Charleston. Should a big storm strike again, that’s where McClellanville’s residents would seek refuge.
Never again would residents be sent to a flood-prone area.
It turned out that a mistake had been made when Lincoln High was designated a storm shelter. The school, just a quarter-mile from the Intracoastal Waterway, was wrongly thought to stand at a much higher elevation.
These days, it is clean and dry, bearing no sign of the calamity and near-tragedy that occurred 25 years ago — with one exception.
Right outside the cafeteria is a plaque, mounted slightly above eye level, marking the high-water line of the storm surge.
The plaque is one of the few visible testaments to Hurricane Hugo.
Since that ferocious night the storm came through, McClellanville has reverted to the sleepy, small-town existence its residents cherish. Hugo has become a somewhat distant memory, its details no longer so sharply recalled or as avidly discussed.
Instead, Hugo has become part of history. But, like the coffins the storm caused to come out of the ground, it has the ability to suddenly resurface. For Leland and many others residents, Hugo has a tendency to pop back into minds “every time something starts twirling in the ocean.”
“'Til we’re all gone,” says the mayor, “it will still be on our minds.”
Credit to The State and JASON RYAN
August 6, 2018
I mentioned in July that I would count the number of recently planted trees along Queens Road West. From Selwyn Avenue, to Kings Drive there were nine (9) dead trees that I counted and continuing on Kings drive to Morehead, there were ten (10) that died. That is a lot of trees and several years ago in 2015 we had a similar drought and problem with excessive dead trees.
August 5, 2018
Things have really changed in the last few weeks in that we have had a lot of rain. Actually, the rain has been spotty and did not land in my yard as much as several other places. From observations, and what I read this is a cycle that will continue. All these weather situations are related. Excessive heat (in places all over the world) has become an issue. that makes forest fires a real threat as they are now and have been in our western states. The California Car five as of today has burned more than 80,000 acres and is only ??? contained. Serious fires leave open ground that can not absorb rain water, and that creates flash floods and situations for landslides and rock slides, and not the least major and minor dam failure... as an example the Oraville over-topping in California in early February 2017. Check this link to how unprepared anyone was for the almost horrific disaster that would have released all the water from the tallest dam at 795 feet in the United States. This would have been a major, major, disaster for California and the entire US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQxVmKnBgvc
If you find the Oraville Dam an invigorating episode, then check out the the total collapse of the Teton Dam in June 5th 1973. There is a book called That Day in June written by the survivors which is quite interesting.
Next was the near disaster of the Glen Canyon Dam some 20 years after Lady Bird Johnson dedicated it on September 22, 1966. The dam was was actually started in 1956 and during the early spring of 1983, it came close to a total failure and breakdown. An interesting fact is that a magazine called High Country News published a magazine (still in existence) about the near collapse. The chief electrical engineer who designed and installed the power plant for the dam lived ??? which was the town constructed for the workers and their families during the construction process. His son T J Wolf was a teenager at the time and loved the dam and Lake Powell. As an adult 20 years later, he worked for High Country News and his perspective of the damage to the spillways and the near collapse is absolutely amazing. Near Collapse of the Glen Canyon Dam
In China about two years after the Teton Dam Collapsed, the Chinese Government hid for 15 years the destruction of the dam and the death of about 171,000 (some estimates said 300,000) people from the Banqoi Dam on May 8, 1975. Building dams was very popular over the years but the best locations for dams are gone and consequently with climate change making a difference we will continue to major dams collapse. Check the link below for some serious information
https://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/the-forgotten-legacy-of-the-banqiao-dam-collapse-7821
More on this later
A rather interesting article about the weather in northern China.... more
July 12, 2018
The drought continues with possible thunder storms on July 17th. This is serious for all plant material. We have had more days over 90 degrees every summer for quite a few years. What is not obvious is that the soil moisture dries out as the summer progresses. Depending what happens later in July, August, and September, and maybe October, the soil probably will continue to dry. So far we have not seen problems with the major tree canopy. Shallow rooted trees have and will continue to suffer and die. We will start to see deterioration of major trees if the weather continues as it has.
I plan to count the dead newly planted trees on Queens Road West, and check with Charlotte Landscaping to see the percentage of replacements needed for the city as a whole. Why do this? We need to get a handle on what we as individuals can do to help protect the trees. To my knowledge the average citizen does not know how to evaluate if a large shade tree needs water. If we do not address this issue it could very costly in dollars and loss of trees.
July 11, 2018.
Here is the more coming referred to from the July 4th.. We had a long period of almost no rain. When it is 90 degrees outside, any rain gets used up quickly. The heat evaporate it, and the rain often runs off rather than allowing the water to seep into the ground. If you have grass or other vegetation, more of the rain will go into the ground. All these floods we see on TV are partly because the world had lots of roofs, roads and parking lots, and hard surfaces in general.
It has been 11 days since we had the July 3rd rain of 3 to 4 inches. I have a small vegetable garden with drip irrigation on 4 tomato plants. They are doing fine but the ground near them is quite hard. I used a pointed solid steel bar about 1 inch in diameter and 5 feet long to punch some holes in the ground to support a bamboo tripod to grow cucumbers on later in the fall, and could only get the bar in the soil about 1 inch. We really need more rain.
July 4, 2018. Boy, that rain was quick 3 to four inches of rain last night.
That does not mean the drought is over. more coming
July 4, 2018 Alert. We are in the middle of a severe drought.
I have been gone for a time, and this web site is a little behind. I came back after 13 days on the west coast, and there had been only one light rain shower while I was gone. I have been back since June 20, 2018, and it is super dry. I am fortunate to have an irrigation system so my plants look pretty good considering how dry it has been. I use drip irrigation on my landscaping, but even that has not been enough. So far the larger shade trees look good, but we still have lots of summer to go. Most of July, August, and September will be dry before it starts to cool down.
Plants like shallow rooted azaleas are in bad shape and will likely die if they have started to wilt severely. I have a hedge of Laural along the edge of the driveway which has been there for 20 plus years. A few of the plants were wilting three days ago See Photo below, and I watered them down hard. The badly wilted branches will not come back but might put out some buds on the stems.
In the summer of 2015, we also had a bad drought very similar and lost many newly planted trees. There are at least 10 new willow oaks planted this spring along Queens Road West which are dead. Rather than repeat what I wrote in 2015, check this link. (July 12, 2018 Some of the Photos on this link are missing because I posted this information in 2016. Maybe they went out of business?)
June 1, 2018
Hot and muggy, and we did have a pretty hard rain last night. Clear and sunny today probably have storms this afternoon. Serious damage from flooding on the Natahalla River where I like to fly fish and I expect several other rivers in the mountains have seen lots of flooding. The town of Asheville really was flooded badly and more heavy rains expected. All of this reminds me of the fact that I think climate change is real. Our 25 and 100 year floods have now become 500 and 1000 floods. There is so much documentation about this, it is really not necessary to repeat all the facts. I will choose some and report
May 29,2018
Lots of rain should be on its way from Tropical storm Alberto??. A storm does not become a hurricane until the wind speed reaches 72 miles per hour. Any storm including a Tropical Depression can deliver lots of water When ever there is 3 inches of more of rain, there will be flooding to one degree or another. If the drainage area is large and one gets 3 to 8 inches of rain the results can be devastating. I live about 40 feet above Sugar Creek that runs through Freedom Park. I measured the difference with an anemometer which tells the exact feet above sea level. I do not think we are at great risk because the flood plain around the creek where we are is quite wide. If one is anticipating buying a home, it is always a good idea to check out the flood potential. What used to be 100 year flood comes often and a 1000 year flood can happen. We who live in the Charlotte area were lucky that the flood in 2016?????? that clobbered South Carolina, just missed the lower part of Charlotte. In fact I 77 down close to the South Carolina border was flooded. Keep your eyes open and have an emergency plan.
May 15,2018
April 30,2018
April 18, 2018 I expected to see cankerworms today but did not. They should be out, but we had a very weak infestation in this area (Myers Park). If anyone out there has information, let me know. I went fishing over a long weekend and could have missed the hatch. BTW I always enjoy the mountains this time of year. The green spring foliage was on the lower mountains but not at any higher elevation. it was interesting how much more green was visible on the way home four days later.
April 11, 2018
Spring is here... Several days ago (April 6, 2018) I happened to stumble upon a short article I wrote back in April of 2000 which is 18 years ago. To me this has been a rough winter, but plants are starting to bloom on exactly the same schedule. I thought our weird winter would slow things down. I would say that azaleas were out in full bloom yesterday, April 10th.
Take a look:
April 4, 2000
Every year I wonder where we are in the spring as compared to last year or the year before. Below are a few things happening right now which gives us an idea as to what will happen next year also.
Trees flower about 3 to 4 weeks earlier here in Charlotte, then they do up north in areas such as Rochester New York. Washington is about 3 weeks behind.
To day the boxwood leaf miner came out. I have seen the little orange fly emerge as early as the last day of March and as late as the 15th of April. Most azaleas are in full bloom or will be in a day or three. Daffodils are mostly gone, only the latest varieties are still hanging around.
Willow oaks in full leaf although some of the young trees in cooler areas only are partially out. The tassels of the willow oak are falling but have not reached their peak. They are a real mess and pollen from the oaks and pines will coat everything soon.
Sweet gum pollen will turn ponds dark coffee color. We actually spray them soon to keep the sweetgum balls from forming. This works well if you are interested. It beats cutting down the trees and the balls are really a pain.
I will continue to post as plants come into leaf.
I observed the azaleas in my own yard starting to flower and even took a few photos which I will post here.
March 29, 2018
It feels like spring out there today.... finally. So far we have missed the rains and tornadoes that are racing in from the Midwest. I did miss the nasty weather of a freeze, rain, and snow that was here a couple of weeks ago. I was fortunate to be in South Africa where is was early fall, nice weather, but a severe drought in Cape Town. Here is what one of the large reservoirs looked like from the Air. Part of the issue for Capetown is that they have had double influx of people in the last several years and that has put a real strain on infrastructure.
Lake near Capetown with very low (photo water_0029).
map above.
March 28, 2018
I am back from a little time off and have reached a turning point in that I have a different focus on life. Maintaining a business property takes work. There are taxes, property to be maintained and unexpected things that happen because of weather or other unforeseen things. I plan to maintain these pages and keep my Observations to continue to add content to the site.
March 3, 2018
I guess we need to get back to the business of dealing with things that did not get sold at my sale. We got rid of a lot of small things, but some of the larger items are still here. I am moving stuff from the property as the new owner takes over soon. I intend to remove the photos of what is gone which means that if the photo is still there, so is the item available. Give me a couple of weeks to get that done as I have other priorities.
February 23, 2018
Since the timing of the cankerworm seems to be on schedule I think we can assume that the emergence will be late March or early April. The eggs are laid in the top of the trees and after the first cankerworms hatch, they will be green and about 1/16th of an inch long. It used to be that you could see small cankerworms on the Tanglefoot trap, but since there are so few females, I have seen very few egg cases on the trunk. We will have to hear from others in areas where there were heavier infestations. So much for now..
February 18, 2018 I have not seen any cankerworm for a week. I think they are done for the season. Since I have not heard anyone come up with a better thought as to why there have been dramatically fewer cankerworms, here is mine. We had a drought just before the big freeze. It was below freezing at sometime during each day for 10 days or more.
I saw plants die this year that have not before. At my office I have had three separate ten gallon containers with three types of water lilies in them. They have lived happily for 15 years in those three containers and all of them froze oout this season. The cold might have been the critical factor but the drought could have added to it by weakening the cankerworms just below the surface of the ground.
February 11, Sunday 0 cws today total cws for the year 46. .
December 19, 2017 Tuesday
I got a call today from the North West Charlotte that 4 cankerworms were spotted on a “pin” oak tree. I suspect that the tree was a willow oak in that the long leaves of the willow oak often confuse people who have heard of the Pin Oak which has deeply indented leaves and has a more traditional oak leaf shape. The pin oak also has the bad habit of keeping its leaves on most of the winter. In other words you will have to rake leaves all winter long.
I put up my trap last night with no Tanglefoot on it. see more
December 17, 2017 Sunday
Looks like we will get a little rain over the next few days. We need it, as we are in a drought which is not good for trees and shrubs going into dormancy.
December 13, 2017 Wednesday
Yesterday, the cities contract crew banded about 1/2 of the city trees along Queens Road West. This morning about 10:30 am I took this photo. It was windy and this is not the entire trap, but here within 24 hours there are a significant number of leaves in the trap. Please note that there are a lot of leaves on the ground and invariably the city will send out a bunch of leaf blowers in a few days and really blow the leaves up on the trap.
On the way back down the road, I saw that a lawn care crew was just finishing up cleaning a rather large yard, There were three men with blowers and they did a really good job of getting the lawn clear of leaves. You can see them in the background in this first photo below. The cankerworm trap is ruined. see below
Hold off a few days from putting up your cankerworm traps and watch out for the leaf blowers.
It’s not just leaves, it is dust and other debris that clogs up the glue on the trap. Look closely and you will see what I mean. These traps have to stay on the trees until mid April ...4 months.
December 12,2017 Tuesday
Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get the traps up. I see city traps with tanglefoot full of leaves already. In much of Charlotte, the trees still have lots of leaves. There are more details on the cankerworm page. The cold front should arrive tomorrow and that has delayed the real cold that we need to bring them out to crawl up the trunk. more on cankerworms
December 10, 2017 Sunday
The temperature only dropped to 28 last night; I expected 26. I started thinking about the cold weather coming and all the other things I needed to do this Christmas Season. About 3:00 Am after a good sleep I woke up and realized I had not protected several outside faucets. One in the back yard is a copper pipe that stands up from the ground about 24 inches. If it freezes and burst, it is a pain to fix. Fortunately, I know a little about soldering copper, and if I were to not take care of this I know I would have a broken pipe.
At the same time I have 3 hoses in the front and back yard each of which has a spray nozzle. If they are drained they are not affected by the cold, but if there is water inside them they will break. I gathered the faucets up also and went back to bed and slept
December 6, 2017
The leaves are flying from the trees, and with the coming cold front and wind, I think most of the trees will be rid of their leaves soon. If you are doing the banding yourself you should put the bands up now, but do not put Tanglefoot or other sticky material on the band. (see more on banding).
When I used to rake my yard, I realized that it would take about 100 leaf bags to clean up all the leaves. It did not matter if I raked leaves once a week during the leaf falling time, or if I raked once a month, or waited until the end of the season, it always took about 100 bags. I have fewer willow oaks now, but my neighbors might not. All of these leaves came from one yard.
Sixty Three ( 63) Bags of leaves from one residential yard on QRW.
December 2, 2017 Saturday
It will several more days before we see female cankerworms start climbing the trees. The 10 day
forecase for Charlotte shows us getting into the 25 and 28 degree range by Saturday December 9th. Shortly after that I would expect to see some activity. There are certain areas around Charlotte that are not as affected by the heat of the city, and they might experience colder temperatures sooner than we do. I have several people who report when they see cankerworm activity and that is a big help to all of us. I still see lots of trees loaded with leaves.
Big Willow Oak
I photographed this large willow yesterday (Friday Dec first), and as you can see there are many leaves to still fall. At the same time a light wind was blowing leaves out of the trees, and we are expecting rain soon. If that is the the case then certainly on large trees the leaves will fall, and it would be ok to put up traps I is ok to put the band on the tree now, but do not put the sticky material on until we 3 good cold days.
Personally I would wait a few days to put Tanglefoot on because I always put a very thin 1/2 inch band on my lone large tree and will not put up the remaining tanglefoot until I see modest activity.
I also recognize that lots of people hire tree companies to put up the Bug Barrier trap and the way it is made to shield the glue this trap can be put up earlier than the traditional Tanglefoot trap. There are other reasons I don't care for the Bug Barrier trap and you can read about that here.
November 3, 2017 Thursday Thanksgiving Day
It is close to the cankerworm migration up the trees. I read an article a couple of days ago in the Charlotte Observer that this week and next were the appropriate time to band trees for cankerworm.
I take issue with that because the willow oaks are loaded with leaves. We need a good rain, and wind to rid the trees of leaves. Back when cankerworms first became a problem after Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the timing for putting up cankerworm traps was about Thanksgiving. Each year it seems to start later and now is later in December. See this link
It takes a good Hard Freeze to get the cankerworms crawling. What that means is that it needs to be 27 degrees F. or cooler for about 3 days in a row to get the female canker worms moving.
If you band too soon you will have a lot of leaves captured in the Tanglefoot. If you use other products that protect the sticky stuff you are probably ok. The wind will tend to blow leaves under the Bug Barrier trap. Actually the other day I heard about 6 leaf blowers all making tremendous noise at the same time. There were 3 going two houses down from me and a like number up the street. I had to put on a head phone like ear protectors just to work in the yard.
Leaf blowers are really bad about blowing up leaves on to the cankerworm traps. It might be the operator who is careless, but in general if you put up a trap too early, the leaf blowers will ruin the trap.
Every year I watch the city band trees on the median of Queens Road West. A day or so later, the city or their contractor comes by and blows up so many leaves that the traps are covered. I will post a photo here later.
- November 18, 2017 Saturday
I am up and running at last. Just in time for the fall cankerworms it appears. Presently I am in Rochester New York. It is amazing how different the trees are here. It is especially obvious as we drive along the highway. I have been interested in the oak trees. They are in the process of turning from their fall colors to a blend of just brown. Conspicuously, the white oak are just brown, A few Scarlet oaks have retained their fall color. The Scarlet oak is one we don’t often see in the Charlotte area. Mostly we have willow oaks, white oaks, some Northern red oaks, water oaks, Southern Red oak ( this one’s leaf looks like a candle flame). Lesser seen are the chestnut oak and some mossy cup oaks that probably came from seeds brought down by a Dr. Tilley a dentist I think in about the 1930’s. There are some of these original trees on 7th Street, and I went by and got some great examples of their acorns. Photo here....soon. The name is Querscus macrocarpa which means large cap. I planted several of these over the years and one is on the property at Lake Norman Yacht Club. It is now about 50 feet tall and producing acorns for the past 10 yearsor so. More on acorns later.
- November 14, 2017 Tuesday (viewing on inspiron shows up on web most old potos on board . Still have to merge text from dec 6th to end of the year. Recover all photos and copy to Assets.
- November 06, 2017 Monday
In case you landed here today, notice that it is exactly 11 months since I have been able to update this site. It is far from done, but I will explain later.
As you can see there is an overlap here. The data below is information I saved. The total number of canerworoms for the
February 22,2017
As of February 17th, I have not seen any more female cankerworms. I do have some eggs on the trap where the male cankerworms were attracted to the stuck females. We can expect these eggs and the eggs up in the trees to hatch in late March. Keep your eyes opened and you will see small green worms on the traps. Ten days later you should see some defoliation.
February 17, 2017 Friday 3cw in TF today Total 248cw post later
February 16, 2017 Thursday 3cw in TF today Total 245cw post later
February 15, 2017 Wednesday 2cw in TF today Total 242cw post later
February 14, 2017 Tuesday 3cw in TF today Total 240cw post later
February 13, 2017 Monday 3cw in TF today Total 237cw post later
February 12, 2017 Sunday 4cw in TF today Total 234cw post later
February 11, 2017 Saturday 8cw in TF today Total 227cw post later
February 10, 2017 Friday 4cw in TF today Total 219cw
February 9, 2017 Thrusday 3cw in TF today Total 215cw
February 8, 2017 Wednesday 4cw in TF today Total 208cw
February 7, 2017 Tuesday 3cw in TF today Total 204cw
February 6, 2017 Monday 14cw in TF today Total 201cw
This was a surprise to me.
February 5, 2017 Sunday 5cw in TF today Total 187cw
Go down and look at the Feb 3 comparison from total count for four months. Note that this year almost to the end of the cankerworm migration I have counted 187 cws and in 2006 there were 5941 cankerworms trapped. There will be a few more cws added in the remainder of the month, but not many. That is almost 32 times more cws in 2006 than in 2017.
February 4, 2017 Saturday 3cw in TF today Total 182cw
Again all insects were from the shady side of the tree. It also is pretty cold, below freezing.
February 3, 2017 Friday 4cw in TF today Total 179cw
I did not it add to my message yesterday but today did go back through my records to 2006 which was the most cankerworms I counted. Here is the breakdown....
November 2006 = 26 female cankerworms trapped
December 2006 = 1987
January 2006 = 3901
February 2006 = 27
Total = 5941
February 2, 2017 Thursday 00cw in TF today Total 175cw
I will write more about this later today. I want to make some comparisons to previous years. I find what we have seen this year in terms of the overall migration to be very abnormal.
Today with 175 total cankerworms, how does this compare with earlier seasons. In 2016 in early February, I had trapped
February 1, 2017 Wednesday 4cw in TF today Total 175cw
Early February last year (2016) we had over 700 cankerworms on the same tree and trap. in early February of 2015 the total of cankerworms trapped was
January 31, 2017 Tuesday 7cw in TF today Total 171cw
Only 7 cankerworms today, that is a surprise. On the last of January in
January 30, 2017 Wednesday 20cw in TF today Total 164cw
II have not checked my trap since January 25th. I expected that there would be about 30 cankerworms a day. The actual count was 20 cws and 150 would have been the number if my guess had been correct. I also have noticed that the cankerworms have been coming up from the back side of the tree in this case, the shady side of the tree. In the past that has been an indication that the migration was slowing down.
January 25, 2017 Wednesday 32cw in TF today Total 144cw
This is beginning to look normal but arrival of female cankerworms about a month late. I am getting reports that the cws are out everywhere.
January 24, 2017 Tuesday 34cw in TF today Total 112 cw
January 23, 2017 Monday 2cw in TF today Total 78 cw
January 22, 2017 Sunday 4cw in TF today Total 76 cw
Heavy rain last night My rain gauge which is glass froze and broke a week ago. I was a little late gluing it back together last night. It had been raining several hours when I replaced it and it registered 3.5 inches of rain early this morning.
January 21, 2017 Saturday 9cw in TF today Total 72 cw
Finally another normal day for cankerworm movement. I counted 9 female cankerworms on the trap today. I looked back over some historical figures. In past years as the migration started, we would see days like this: 3,5,2,4,6,8 and then a few days up to 24. One year on Christmas day, there were 100 cankerworms captured. A few trees had 5000, to 8,000 insects for the entire season read more
January 20, 2017 Friday 13cw in TF today Total 63 cw
It rained a little bit last night but not enough to wet the bark and I trapped 13 female cankerworms. This seems to be more toward normal movement. Still we have seen a very late start to the cankerwom migration.
Also of interest, is that most of the city trees I have seen are showing few cankerworms. I suspect that in certain parts of the town the numbers will much larger.
January 19, 2017 Thursday 8cw in TF today Total 50 cw
Well, finally what I would consider a normal day. Seeing 8 female cankerworms on the trap was a good sign. Since I know they are moving in other parts of the city, I think we will see more favorable days ahead.
January 18, 2017 Wednesday 0cw in TF today Total 42 cw
Today there were no cankerworms on the trunk of my tree which surprised me since I thought they were moving upward on Tuesday the 17th. I also checked the two street trees in front of my home and there were no cws on the first street tree and possibly one on the second tree. I mashed it so there would be no carryover from today.
January 17, 2017 Tuesday 4cw in TF today Total 42 cw
January 16, 2017 Monday 0cw in TF today Total 38 cw This year by January 17th (2016 / 2017 we had caught 38 female cankerworms
Last year 2015 / 2016 at this time, (January 17, 2015) I had trapped 655 cws.
In 2015/ 2016 the number of female cankerworms that were trapped were cws
January 16, 2017 Monday 0cw in TF today Total 38 cw
At least today I have found that some other parts of the county are having a good bit of cankerworm activity. The Highland Creek area as well as Concord are having a good bit of activity. Concord has been pretty bad for several years. Mint Hill was spotty last year and I don’t know how that is doing this season.
January 15, 2017 Sunday 0cw in TF today Total 38 cw
No cankerworms today. I am mistified.
January 14, 2017 Saturday 0cw in TF today Total 38 cw
No Cankerworms today
January 13, 2017 Friday 2cw in TF today Total 38
Small number of cankerworms today and pretty warm too
January 12, 2017 Thursday 6cw in TF today Total 36 cw
I have had a number of cankerworms get through the Red & Tacky so I will stop separating the two types of sticky material. Note that my total of 36 is not much different from the count I made on another large willow oak across the street yesterday. I counted approximately 40 because it was hard to see under the trap.
January 11, 2017 Wednesday 7cw in TF today, 2cw in RT Total 30 cw
The ice and snow are mostly gone, and there are cankerworms on the trap. I did not have time to count them, but will do so later this morning.
I attended the CIA (Charlotte Arborist Association) meeting last night and the general consensuses is that the cankerworms either have not started en mass yet except in a few isolated cases. One person mentioned that a trap directly across the street from me in an individual’s yard was loaded with female cankerwormsl I hustled across the street about 8:00 and did count approximately 40 female cankerworms in the trap. This was a Bug Barrier trap, and it is hard to count the numbers because they are on the inside of the trap and hard to see.
Why the difference from the norm? I really don’t have the answer, but this is a healthy willow oak that is growing in a bed of English Ivy. Maybe the ivy insulates the ground from freezing and the worms started moving sooner that those trees that are on bare soil more or less void of any mulch.
I will explore this later.
January 10, 2017 Tuesday 2cw in TF today, 1cw in RT Total 21 cw
January 9, 2017 Monday 0cw in TF today, 0cw in RT Total 18 cw
Same as yesterday with ice and snow. It is clearing from the grass.
January 8, 2017 Sunday 0 cw in TF today, 0cw in RT Total 18 cw
Snow and Ice
January 7, 2017 cw in TF today, 0cw in RT Total 18 cw
January 6, 2017 6cw in TF today, 1cw in RT Total 18 cw
Today it is in low 30 €™s and not suposed to get much warmer. This has been a strange seson, and I have had several comments about how late the season is this year.
Below is an email I got from Jeff Peppard. Jeff was the one who used the Red & Tacky (RT an abbreviation I plan to use more in the future).
Jack,
I haven't seen any females as of 01-05-17 after thousands last year. Could we possibly have effected the life cycle or just not cold enough this year yet.
Also, I explained last year that the females are too weak to get through the "red n tacky" grease. They don't get stuck like Tanglefoot. They merely get the grease on their legs and fall to the ground. I literally had thousands on my oak fall last year.
Strange season so far, but I'll hunt them buggers down.
Thanks,
Jeff Peppard
January 5, 2017 2cw in TF today, 1cw in RT Total cw 11
I realize that I will need to put up more Red & Tacky because it is pretty thin.
January 4, 2017 2 cw today Total 8 cw
January 3, 2017 0 cw today Total 6 cw
cankerworm bu 2We had 2 inches of rain here last night and the cankerworms did not care to come out and climb the trees.
I did discover some insects that I have seen many times. They are colored exactly the same as the lichen on the tree trunk. I looked them up and that is what the two photos below are. It turns out the a Lacewing larvae. The cover them selves with dried bits and pieces of the
lichen for camouflage. The move about and search for small insects like aphids etc. The two links below are very informative and have some excellent photos plus a lot more detail than I have provided.http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/2010/11/lacewing-uses-lichen-camouflage.html
http://www.zenthroughalens.com/search?q=lichen
Blog above identifies this as a camofloged lacewing larvae.
January 2, 2017 5 cw today Total 6 cw
It might seem strange that there have only been six cankerworms so far this year. I do not know why. There is speculation that it might be to the severe drought that we had during the summer of 2016. The official record for Charlotte was 40 days without rain, but at my home I went for another 20. The storm that brought rain to parts of Charlotte after 40 days just happen to skirt my home.
It would be logical to assume that the dryness killed lots of cankerworms that breed in the ground, but I don €™t think that has anything to do with the late start. Here is why, I happen to have an irrigation system for my yard and I also try to be conservative with water for the grass but I did keep things going through the drought and the cankerworms are just as slow in my yard as they are on the street trees in front of my house.
January 1, 2017 0 cw Total 1 cw
Lots of rain last night and the bugs don €™t like rain or snow.
December 31, 2017 1 cw Total 1 cw
To read information prior to December 31, 2017 click this link Archive 1
should go to Archive 2 I feel that there is some information missing so will make another Archive for the missing material July 7 2018
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