Coal and Jam
During this hot week of work, we finally cleared the entire north slope of our pine thinning study area. Our medium-density plot has been thinned so that it is low density, and the high-density plot has been thinned to medium pine density. We anticipate that the grasses on the former medium-density plot will flourish now that more sunlight is available; however, there is likely too much pine debris covering the ground for much grass to grow. As the pine needles decompose, the grasses will be able to utilize the soil and newly available sunlight to grow adequate forage for cattle. We have begun work on the south slope, returning to clipping grass with scissors in order to obtain forage weight samples. In addition, I have been working in our garage to sort existing samples into grasses, forbs, and shrubs, and weighing each category separately. It is tedious work, and I am constantly being accosted by small prickers. Prairie roses are particularly aggressive.
LaVonne is a fantastic cook. I’ve only had one lunch at her house, and it was a spread to rival Thanksgiving: burgers, chips, salsa, pasta salad, regular salad, and cookies. We had a jar of her apple jelly in the fridge for less than a week (because we ate it). I had asked LaVonne if I could help her make jam at some point during the summer, and a particularly hot afternoon this week offered me my chance. I used an old-fashioned corer and peeler on several apples, then boiled the apples with sugar and pectin, a special product for jam making. After the jam had boiled for a few minutes, I ladled it into jars, burning two of my fingertips in the process. I ended up with seven jars of delicious jam. LaVonne also sent me home with enough magazines to keep us reading for the rest of the summer. Her hospitality is heartwarming.
Speaking of LaVonne’s hospitality, it was she who organized a surface tour of the neighboring coal mine for us this week. A pair of mine workers drove us through the aboveground portions of the mine, which consist mostly of industrial belts which carry the coal into the silos and then into the loading area, where the coal is dumped into train cars and sprayed with a special, glue-like solution that keeps it from blowing away during transport. We learned that the mining underground takes place using a machine called a long wall, which mines the coal out of the earth and collapses its tunnel behind it. We were told that there is a great deal of coal in this area, and that the long wall will go deeper into the mountain after finishing its current layer. The operation was impressive and clearly very expensive; there were multiple D10 bulldozers on site, as well as the immense belts and silos. We were told that the mine’s electric bill runs at a little less than a million dollars per month. I don’t know about y’all, but I’d turn the lights off occasionally if that were my bill. As a conservationist I was slightly sickened by the sheer volume of coal going through this mine regularly, as well as the amount of resources required to extract that coal in the first place. I wonder if that volume of resources would be better spent making the transition to clean energy. With that said, the coal mine was a remarkable feat of engineering.
LaVonne is a fantastic cook. I’ve only had one lunch at her house, and it was a spread to rival Thanksgiving: burgers, chips, salsa, pasta salad, regular salad, and cookies. We had a jar of her apple jelly in the fridge for less than a week (because we ate it). I had asked LaVonne if I could help her make jam at some point during the summer, and a particularly hot afternoon this week offered me my chance. I used an old-fashioned corer and peeler on several apples, then boiled the apples with sugar and pectin, a special product for jam making. After the jam had boiled for a few minutes, I ladled it into jars, burning two of my fingertips in the process. I ended up with seven jars of delicious jam. LaVonne also sent me home with enough magazines to keep us reading for the rest of the summer. Her hospitality is heartwarming.
Speaking of LaVonne’s hospitality, it was she who organized a surface tour of the neighboring coal mine for us this week. A pair of mine workers drove us through the aboveground portions of the mine, which consist mostly of industrial belts which carry the coal into the silos and then into the loading area, where the coal is dumped into train cars and sprayed with a special, glue-like solution that keeps it from blowing away during transport. We learned that the mining underground takes place using a machine called a long wall, which mines the coal out of the earth and collapses its tunnel behind it. We were told that there is a great deal of coal in this area, and that the long wall will go deeper into the mountain after finishing its current layer. The operation was impressive and clearly very expensive; there were multiple D10 bulldozers on site, as well as the immense belts and silos. We were told that the mine’s electric bill runs at a little less than a million dollars per month. I don’t know about y’all, but I’d turn the lights off occasionally if that were my bill. As a conservationist I was slightly sickened by the sheer volume of coal going through this mine regularly, as well as the amount of resources required to extract that coal in the first place. I wonder if that volume of resources would be better spent making the transition to clean energy. With that said, the coal mine was a remarkable feat of engineering.
