Ode to the Mountain Pine Beetle

Oh, mountain pine beetle

the ignoble Dendroctonus ponderosae

which killeth every one

of the noble Pinus ponderosa

Poor ponderosa pine.

Oh, mountain pine beetle

the trees you kill

the forests you clear

were living beings too. . .

but you've really improved the view!

Oh, mountain pine beetle

your path of destruction

has left trees dead

and hillsides brown. . .

but you really brought my golf score down!

Oh, mountain pine beetle

nothing can stop you

not cold nor heat

nor mountains steep. . .

but you've sure made firewood cheap!

Okay, despite the foregoing, we haven't totally flipped our lid up here.  We don't sing or dance on subway cars or anything like that.  Well, not often, anyways.

Katy and I recently spent four days at the Simpson family cabin in Grand County, Colorado.  (Thanks, dad & Aunt Debi, by the way!)  Every moment spent there was wonderful, as always, but it was heartbreaking to see the destruction being caused by the mountain pine beetle.

For those of you who don't frequent the mountains of Colorado, the past few years have seen a plague of these beetles, which, according to one article I read, will likely kill every Ponderosa pine tree in the state of Colorado when all is said and done.  That's sad, both because it's by far the predominant tree in Grand County and because it was my elementary school mascot. . .yep, a tree was our mascot.  Go trees!

And, while the mountain pine beetle is certainly no joking matter, given what it has done to the scenery and the danger it causes by leaving hundreds of thousands of acres of standing firewood, it really did improve the view from the rock overlooks on the hillsides across from the cabin.  And, I'm certain it shaved about ten strokes off my round at the Grand Lake Golf Course, which was formerly a dense forest peppered with little strips of fairway, but now looks and plays like a links course.

We'll post more about our trip to Colorado a bit later, but this is a start. . .

With love,

Katy and Erik