Burrowing In and Digging Out
Eastern Red Cedar and Winter Resilience
If I didn’t have this warm-enough home, drafty and dirty as it is, I suppose I’d go find an Eastern red cedar to huddle under. For the past few days, snow-cover has been consistent and deep here. The wagons and wheelbarrows I typically use for hauling feed, water, hay, mulch and firewood have been replaced by my trusty five-foot plastic toboggan. Our west-facing slope has become an altogether different landscape within a couple days: a quilt of deep drifts and banks threaded together by slick, packed down sled-trails and the sparse, meandering tracks of coyotes and foxes, quickly fading beneath the driving snow.
Oaks, still holding onto their umbre foliage stand sleeping at the edges of draws, and the nude forms of elm, mulberry, honey locust and persimmon appear diminutive at best, creaking in the blowing ice. But the Eastern red cedars (Juniperus virginiana), while perhaps a bit twisted and hunched by their thick white coats, still straddle the winter landscape with some command. I pass by several specimens, sled in tow, as I make my rounds. The females (Eastern red cedar is dioecious) bear fruit (technically “cones”) we commonly refer to as Juniper berries. They have a strong, spicy, aromatic zest that I’ve been incorporating into my hams and pancetta, but the typical human palate can only handle a wee bit, unlike the Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum).
These birds exclusively eat berries, and in midwestern winters juniper berries are most abundant. Most fruit eating birds regurgitate their seeds, but the Cedar Waxwing does not. These seeds, having passed through the entire bird’s digestive system, stand a much higher chance of germination, and thus, new generations of Eastern red cedar are propagated by the waxwings, that will go on to feed their own progeny.
Wildlife relationships aside, the Eastern red cedar is, admittedly, a somewhat problematic tree. It not only hosts Cedar Waxwings, but Cedar Apple Rust, an economically significant fungus which affects apples. Around here, it seems, fireblight and borers kill our apple trees faster than the rust does, so I’m not personally concerned about it. In the fire-dominated landscape of native tallgrass prairie, cedars are vulnerable, their tissues laced with highly-flammable volatile compounds, and their low branches formed like ladders which allow grass fire to creep into the canopy. But when fire leaves these native ecosystems, cedars thrive. They are highly competitive C4 plants (see my archived article Grasses that our Saving our Asses for more) that crop up in poor soils, tolerate drought, shade out grasses, and, frankly, take up a lot of space. Their spreading nature tends to decrease prairie plant populations more quickly than other woody species due to their wide stance.
In prairie landscapes undisturbed by fire (that is, prairie transitioning toward woodland around here), where cedar accounts for 10% of groundcover, the population of native birds decreases significantly. In areas where cedar accounts for 30% or more groundcover, many native birds and small mammals simply cease to take residence. Eastern red cedar is considered invasive outside of its native range. The problematic nature of Eastern red cedar within its native range is directly related to the lack of fire. I think this is something we ought to bear in mind when we, as humans, attempt to place value on different species: in this instance it isn’t the Eastern red cedar that is a “bad tree” in and of itself. The overspreading of Eastern red cedar, due to the lack of fire in prairie ecosystems, is the problem. This lack of fire is primarily due to suburbanization within these grasslands, with all the subsequent roadbuilding and agricultural fields, which act as firebreaks for the types of high-impact, low-intensity fires that would keep open areas clear and cedars where they belong in this ecosystem… along field edges, and draws. The Eastern red cedar is very much a tree belonging to the edge.
And so, in our own experimental system of ecologically appropriate agriculture, cedars have a complicated and nuanced role. Wielding fire for land management purposes as we sometimes do has not always been successful. Under proper conditions and with good timing, we can keep broad swaths of tallgrass prairie open with controlled burns. As a cooperative land trust, and occasionally enlisting in aid from our local volunteer fire department, we attempt to cycle fire through these prairie restoration fields every 3-5 years. Field margins, with their typically more humid microclimates, or north-facing slopes have been difficult to burn hot enough. Furthermore, some of our agricultural areas have sensitive infrastructure and tree plantings which render widespread burning impossible. When humans make year round settlement in the prairie, as we have been doing for a while now in this country, it would seem that native habitat and plant populations are extinguished, alongside the once-common wildfires that have shaped the ecosystem.
On much of the land here that has not been adequately burnt, we have patchy colonies of Eastern red cedar. Sometimes we manually cut them down, but after some years of observation, I’ve come to see their “value” in this altered landscape. The wide, low-slung branches and dense foliage offer shelter from these deep, drifting winter snows. Oftentimes a “cave” will form on the leeward side of these trees during blizzards, and animal life both wild and domesticated can find shelter there. The mouths of these caves are often speckled with juniper berry-colored droppings. If any thatch lies below the spreading cedar branches, it may be bare of snow and insulative for resting animals against the cold earth. And furthermore, the dark green foliage of the cedar absorbs life giving winter sun, creating a warmer microclimate out in the fierce wind and deathly cold.
Year round, we find that almost all of our livestock, poultry, swine, goats and cows, benefit from some cedar in their paddocks. Chickens take cover from aerial predators below the dense branches and scratch and dust in the bare earth below. Pigs rest in their shade, on hot, sunny days, as do the goats, who will occasionally browse the cedars. They do not do this often, which leads me to suspect that they may be self-medicating for parasites. The strong scented branches have a minor insect repellent effect, and our cows appreciate the occasional fragrant scratching posts that crop up across the pastures come fly season. The wood is rot-resistant, moth-proof, springy enough for making a bow, and well-suited to pencil production. Most of all, it seems, our working dogs love the shelter of cedars. I always do my best to include at least one in each paddock they work in.
In holding both the problematic and helpful nature of Eastern red cedar here in Northeast Missouri, it should be of note that they spread primarily by small seeds, dropped by birds. While it might seem a clear “middle ground” solution is to keep some cedars within the boundaries of human habitat and work hard to maintain effective burns in our wild spaces, the excessive cedar population makes for an abundant seed bank. A hot prairie fire is partly contingent on a suitable bank of dry thatch, which takes a couple of years to develop. Oftentimes, in a slow, cold fire, this thatch layer will burn away without getting hot enough to immolate woody perennials, like Easter red cedar (not to mention autumn olive). In other words, the time before the next fire is reset, and seedling trees of pioneer species, like Easter red cedar, are poised to compete, dropped in the fields by birds from the infinite berries available nearby. If the area remains under burnt for a couple of cycles, the population of cedars can become dense enough to alter the humidity of the field, as they tend to slow down winds and hold air low on the fields.
Seeing our chickens take shelter beneath the snow-laden bows, scratching at dirt and debris in the single-digit cold does stir my appreciation for these important, if misplaced native trees. I have not come to any conclusions, yet, regarding how best to handle Eastern red cedar in the long term, here on our land, let alone elsewhere. But the prairie is an ecosystem driven by sudden, wide-spread, high impact events, and a wait and see mentality may not serve it, or us, very well.
The stalks and seeds of prairie grasses are well-pressed beneath a foot of snow, and so, I’m compelled to feed wild birds between storms. Some millet and a few scraps of fresh hog fat hung up in the thorny limbs of Osage orange will suffice in lieu of the commercial stuff. A mix of wet snow and sleet overnight gave way to fat flakes this morning, and as a deep trough of low pressure makes its way across the area, the rapidly accumulating particles are growing finer and finer. This is our second considerable snow event of the winter, the first one occurring a few days back, coming in as I was sawing through yet another hog carcass. The first storm yielded deep and heavy stuff… the sort of snow that breaks branches and snaps power lines.
Being off-grid, on a particularly small solar-electric system has its moments of forced humility. I will never again enjoy microwave popcorn, or sit in air-conditioning in my own home on sweltering summer days. But when the power goes out for everybody else, I can get fairly smug. When the roads are out, which they often are in winter, we are positioned to go at least a couple weeks without any need for travel. While the turnip and mustard greens are finally frost-killed, we have mounds of sweet potatoes, piles of squash, hanging hams and wheels of cheese and at least five pounds of salt at all times. Most importantly, I think, we have a fine relationship with our neighbors, who own and operate the type of equipment that can come dig us out, eventually.
Winter is isolating. For the most part, I’m fine with that. A day or two, or a week, of being an island encased in ice hasn’t lost its appeal yet. But isolation doesn’t lend itself toward long-term resilience.
Our cows stand out in the newly arrived arctic air mass, taking turns blocking the howling wind for each other as they nose through the ice-rimed sides of their hay bale for nourishment. Down in their winter shelters, the pigs pile up on each other, nestled in hay and cornstalk lined nests. The goats huddle together as they belch out grassy puffs of steam, and even the poultry cling tight to each other. The ducks are exhibiting one of their unique abilities, known as countercurrent heat exchange. Along the duck's leg there are two pathways for blood which lie quite near each other: the venous pathway which brings blood to the heart, and the arterial pathway, which moves it out away towards the foot. These streams of blood exchange heat as they pump, warming the venous blood as it returns to the heart, and cooling the flow of arterial blood to the foot. The ducks perform this action one foot at a time, which is why they often stand on one foot while tucking the other deep into their downy undercarriages to thaw out.
I myself, just wear a lot of pants. Three pairs of them, making for six total pants. This snow is quite oppressive and exhausting to move through at times, and I find that I warm up relatively quickly during my multiple sled trips out across the pastures and through the barnyards. Still, it's just five degrees out, and I may feel a bit different when temps dive into the negatives, starting tonight. I’m just happy I don’t have a comb, like some of the chickens we keep.
The comb, also known as the floppy thing on a chicken’s head, serves a similar but different purpose as the countercurrent heat exchanging feet of ducks. Large combs are more prevalent in Mediterranean breeds of chicken, as a way to cope with extreme heat. Blood is pumped into the comb and cooled by the ambient air. But this helpful appendage is extremely vulnerable to frostbite. Heavier set, cold weather breeds of chicken will have much smaller combs. In fact there’s a whole array of comb styles out there. We’ve found that the pea-comb is best suited to polar vortexes such as the one we are currently trapped in, but naturally, these birds have a hard time adjusting to the summer heat, and often drop in egg production. I suppose a definition of resilience is having an array of diverse strategies backing up your community’s means of survival, so we haven’t settled on one comb type in our flock. Chicken combs are most prone to frost-bite in under-ventilated shelters, because it allows condensation to form and freeze, which may run counter-intuitively to what we might think jungle fowl require to survive these cold spells.
Even with ample cedar tree shelters and biological heat exchangers, I do tend to worry about our animals in this weather. And sitting still to write suddenly drops my temperature, which is why I take frequent trips to check on everyone, replenish frozen water, and collect eggs before they freeze. We have a few large, stainless-steel pails kept on top of the woodstove, full of hot water and blackstrap molasses to keep our livestock’s body temps up and provide a jolt of vitamins and energy in the depleting cold. I cut the feed with extra corn, choosing energy over production, and sprout buckets of oats for some softer, easy to digest nutrition. With the roads choked with snow and neighbors staying in at all costs, we haven’t sold much milk recently, and so I bring it down by the warm kettle for everyone.
With the isolation of hazardous weather comes the joy of bird feeding, and while I don’t seem to attract anything particularly rare, I feel like I’m doing my part in helping my avian neighbors, particularly when I remain too busy and exhausted to venture further out and shovel pathways in public spaces. It would appear that another main marker of resilience is having a solid, reciprocal relationship with neighbors, anchored by mutualized survival. In other words, no one’s coming to dig you out if you proclaim to be self-sufficient.
I have a fair bit of work ahead of me here, but I do intend to burrow into something myself, at least when I’m not busy digging my way out. It might even be one of these reliable old cedars.
The barnyard water supply is mostly frozen and inaccessible now, save for a few barrels in the hoop house that I can chop through and dipper out from for a couple days. I will need to beat new sled tracks through the shifting dunes and drifts of snow that blow across the gravel road, unchecked by any significant wind block, so that I can make it to our nearest frost-free spigot. The water needs for four cows are significant, and it will probably take at least two or three sled trips out and back per day to keep them adequately watered, let alone the goats. If the spigot freezes, which it sometimes will, we can often thaw it with a few kettles of boiling water, but sometimes that doesn’t even work, and we need to trek further out. Sometimes, I think I can’t do this work for many more winters if we can’t get a closer pond, but regardless I am so far weirdly cheerful this early into this weather system. We’ll see where I’m at in a week.
Sled by sled we will work through the freeze to keep everyone alive. Moving through the snow tends to leave me sore and creaky by dinner time, but the night is long a full of rest. And in the morning, we will put on extra pants, if we aren’t still wearing all of them to bed, and do it again, I suppose. It will be well before the roosters rise and scream their reassurance that they are, in fact, alive, and I suppose I will continue doing this, for as long as necessary, because our survival is so intertwined with theirs. The sled tracks will grow firm, slick, and fast as we compress the drifts of blowing powder, prairie seeds pressed beneath, and in a few weeks we’ll be starting tomatoes and standing in muck. But until then, writing this all down has given me little more than a cold ass and a desire to stay connected, deep in the isolation of winter, even if it’s just a connection with frost bit chickens and snow-slumped cedars.
Coldly, but very much alive,
BB
PS: The weather is keeping me quite busy, and oftentimes my trusty pen freezes out in the field, where my best ideas come to me. Nevertheless, I have a few fun pieces in the works for supporting readers, including a ‘Winter Resilience Audit’ that ties to this piece and our current conditions. For those of y’all who have an annual subscription, I will be ordering in print copies of the Almanac’s first year soon. My hope is to reach out to everyone individually to confirm your interest, but you can also contact me anytime if you feel strongly one way or the other about receiving your copy soon. Stay alive, y’all.
Thanks, Ben for writing this enjoyable piece. Stay warm and safe.