When my wife told me to stop impersonating a flamingo I had to put my foot down.

Here's a video I shot yesterday, with a caption at the top.
I wonder what goes on inside Lucky's very small brain. When he decides one or another of the six hens needs servicing he will not be deterred. The crazy thing is he'll chase her until he has succeeded, running right by the other five. I guess it shows some kind of virtue that he's not an "any hen in a flock" kind of rooster, but what is it that gets him so focused on one, but none of the others?

I'm particularly irritated by the accusations the two candidates are throwing at each other about their religious commitments. It's pretty clear to anyone familiar with Evangelicalism that for both the answer is "none." Donald knows so little about the Bible that he called it "Two Corinthians," reading what a speech writer put down on paper using the standard formula (2 Corinthians) to indicate Second Corinthians. Hillary says she's a Methodist, which is a little like saying she's a senior citizen. There's no clear definition of either, anyone can make the claim, and there's no commitment involved in either.
Why not just say you're irreligious and let it go at that? It's OK. It would put you in line with the majority of Americans.

Robin and Christine showed up at 9:00 this morning. Christine is an entomologist with the State of Oregon and every bit as nice and helpful as Robin has been, and Jennifer, too.
In the 45 minutes she was here Christine said more entomology stuff than my brain could possibly assimilate. I think I'd reached my limit in the first five minutes. She's young, really smart, and not a bug nerd. But she knows so much, and what she knows is so far out of anything I've been exposed to, that my mind was on hyper drive trying to keep up. So this synopsis is probably seriously flawed, but here's what I took away:

• There are three different kinds of beetles that attack the trees here. One of them is specific to the Douglas Fir (which isn't a true fir), and the other two attack the White Fir (which is a true fir and maybe also goes by the name Gran Fir, but maybe not). I have evidence of at least two of the three.
• Beetle poop is called frass. She showed me frass and I never would have guessed it was beetle poop. 
• When the beetles leave a tree to breed they make a perfectly round exit hole in the bark no bigger than the head of a pin. Once she showed me what they look like they were pretty easy to spot. All over.
• From the time the beetles attack a tree until the tree starts to look like it's dying is typically one year. That explains why we didn't see death in the camp when we bought this place a year ago. 
• A little tiny fungus lives on the body of these little tiny beetles (1/8" in length), and jumps from the beetle to the wood once they're both inside the tree. The fungus gives the wood beautiful streaks of light brown, beautiful IF you're looking for streaked wood, in which case you're probably making guitars or cabinets. But if you're buying 2x4's at Lowe's you'll probably avoid that kind of wood, which is why lumber mills typically avoid it. So the key is to harvest infested trees before the fungus can spread. We're talking months. (see the problem?)

There was a lot more, including the availability of sachets with pheromones that tell beetles, "don't come to this tree because there's a bunch of us beetles already in here making whoopee and we haven't got room for more or it starts to look like a frat house." 

The bottom line, I've got a bunch if infested trees, a bunch of already dead trees, and a bunch of trees nobody, including Christine, can be sure about because those guys are so little that the only certain way to know is to see their damage. Even if you see frass on the bark the tree might be able to fight off the invasion. or not. 

I've got a call into Charles, the timber guy I *hope* is going to cut down these trees. The next step is for Charles and Robin to meet here and write up an "Alternate Plan" that specifies which trees will be cut down, where they'll fall when they're dropped (as in: not in the creek!), and what will be done with the land after the trees are removed. 

My brain hurts.