Doug is the monthly columnist for New Mexico Magazine, the nation’s oldest state magazine. His typically funny column, Greener Acres, is in the running for several awards after just one year. Click here to see the latest column or to join his monthly live chat with readers.
When you are out on the Funky Butte ranch, you need to take orange spray paint & mark all the male (the ones with the yellow powder) juniper trees. Once they have quit pollinating cut them all down. This will create a bunch of good things. 1) It will help eliminate a lot of pollen and associated allergies in your general area; 2) you will be eliminating a major user of limited water resources. On average,
a 10 foot tall juniper tree will consume
between 40 and 70 gallons of water per day.
Amazing when you consider; the invasive
juniper species, left unchecked, will
have 50 or more juniper trees per acre.
If those 50 trees were an average of 25
feet tall, the daily water consumption
for the juniper trees alone, not counting
other vegetation, on that acre, would
average between 5,000 and 8,750 gallons
of water per day 365, days a year. And 3) that cut timber can be used for firewood.
i’m just sayin….in reference to an older nm mag. article…..a prayer for owen meany is also one of my absolute favorite books and one which must be read many times over.