0:06

What's up fungal associates. Welcome to completely

0:08

arbitrary, the podcast about trees and other

0:10

related topics. I am one of your

0:13

hosts. My name is Alex Croson. And

0:16

I'm the other host. I'm

0:18

Casey. Wow. There's a bunch of

0:20

hairs in that hair. But

0:22

you know, there's stuff on my microphone,

0:24

Alex. Without fail at you,

0:27

you find something to do the moment

0:30

we start recording. Yeah. It's far more

0:32

interesting than me. Just being like, also,

0:34

hello. NPR

0:36

would be very, very upset with how we do

0:38

this show. Oh, I doubt that. I should say

0:40

how I do this show. Hi,

0:43

Casey. Good day, Alex. How's it going? It's going

0:45

all right. Glad to see you. You're wearing your

0:47

old Lakers gear. Oh yeah. Now that's

0:49

the Lake Oswego Lakers to be very

0:51

clear. That's right. Alex is biased towards

0:53

them. I worked at that school for

0:56

a mere couple months and got it.

0:58

Hey, I got it. This is these, this is

1:00

the ultimate example of I worked

1:02

at that school and all I got was this

1:04

lousy sweatshirt. It's true. Yeah. It's nice.

1:07

Like it's Russia. I love it. It's my home sweatshirt. I

1:09

usually wear it when I'm at home. How

1:11

are you, Casey? Doing very well doing this. It's great.

1:13

It's a nice day. I've been

1:15

working hard, just writing things, doing

1:17

a lot. Just everything's always a lot all the

1:20

time. And I think it's good,

1:22

but also feeling stressed sometimes. Yeah. Got to make

1:24

sure everyone knows that even people like me can

1:27

feel stressed. Sure. I'm

1:29

sorry. It was a little bit, it was a little bit on

1:32

the inside. We don't need to do this

1:34

now, but I will say you are really

1:36

good at saying yes to things. Yes. True.

1:38

Well, Casey, I caught

1:40

you in the act. You're

1:42

right. You're right. I do. I do tend

1:44

to say yes to things and also tend

1:46

to try to do things. Uh, I

1:49

don't know. Like even writing is a big thing for

1:51

me. I'm trying to be a writer. So I'm trying

1:53

to say yes to doing writing things. Sure. But it

1:55

also takes me, uh, I can't just sit

1:57

down and be like, okay. And here's like 30

1:59

paragraphs. I have to like write

2:02

it and then I'm like am I this

2:04

where I want to go then I rewrite

2:06

something then I like I'm trying to get

2:08

my technique down. Okay, so it's a learning

2:10

while doing every day I'm

2:12

building the ship while I'm sailing

2:15

it. Yeah Right. Yeah,

2:17

or like the the railroad as you're

2:19

going you're like the ties and the

2:21

rails exactly So I'm building the thing

2:23

I'm going on and figuring out where

2:25

I'm going all at the same time. Yeah

2:28

It's great. Although I you

2:30

know, it's just it's a lot. Well, there's a lot

2:32

happening all the time as you say I

2:35

love that phrase Casey one of

2:37

the things happening. Mm-hmm. Is that you and

2:39

I? Commissioned

2:41

some beautiful artwork who did from

2:43

artists Tory Gorham. It's right down

2:46

there in Australia. That's right This

2:48

is a while ago and we got it

2:50

recently got it printed on a tote bag,

2:52

right? It's incredible you guys It is a

2:54

great bag. I cannot wait to go out

2:56

into the field and use it. Yeah. Yeah,

2:59

fill it with stuff Yeah, a lot of

3:01

people would say detritus if it was me.

3:03

Oh, I was thinking like Jesus.

3:05

Oh gosh. Yeah That

3:09

tote bag is now available on our

3:12

merch store arbitrary pod comm slash Merch

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right or if you just search our

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name and the word merch it'll pop

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up and guess what Casey

3:21

what Alex for the month of February if

3:24

You buy a piece of merch featuring

3:27

art by Tory Gorham. Yeah, this includes

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the new tote bag It's right the

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get 10% off if you've used the

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I noticed you had an inflection there of a query.

3:43

Yeah. Yeah, you see a friend and they have

3:46

a new tote You go new tote. Yes

3:48

now to be very clear, huh as

3:50

a statement You must ask that

3:52

as a question On

3:55

the website the the discount code

3:57

is new tote Question

4:00

mark exactly that is how you get 10% off

4:03

anything by Tori Gorm any art any

4:05

any merch featuring the art of Tori

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Gorm Including the

4:09

new tote and did you know if you

4:12

follow us on your podcast app of choice? You

4:14

do know that we just started

4:16

a new mainline series called seed pod And

4:19

our first episode came out last

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it features Phyllis Reynolds Portland tree

4:28

legend she's an author and

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she is Was

4:33

one of the one of the founding committee

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members of the Portland Heritage Tree Committee? That's

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right, and she is a 94 year old

4:39

woman. She's crushing it out there. Maybe I'm

4:41

reading them Yeah, she lives up in the

4:43

Arboretum Essentially, yeah, it was

4:45

a great Sweet conversation

4:48

and we edited it and put it online

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so that you can hear it exactly now

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of course We also should let you know

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there's our big news new

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tote and new series and

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please support the podcast at

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arbitrary pod Supercast comm Casey

5:55

it's exactly right today. We are talking about a

5:57

tree that when I discovered the species we were

5:59

talking about I was shocked that we

6:01

hadn't covered it yet. That's right, you

6:03

did, you said that. This is the

6:06

Western Juniperus Occidentalis. Yeah. And of course,

6:08

we will get to that discussion after

6:10

the break. We'll be right back with

6:12

Compleany arbitrary. Alex,

6:16

you know me. I don't really like New Year's resolutions.

6:18

They always fail. In fact, one time I had one, I

6:20

said I was going to read 24 books. Two

6:24

every month for the entire year.

6:26

I think I got to eight. Well, that's

6:28

the problem with resolutions. They're destined to fail.

6:30

Ain't that the truth, Alex? Well, Casey, lucky

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am. Going down to the laundry room, getting

6:58

it all over your fingers. Now you got

7:00

to wash your hands. Straining my arms? Yes.

7:03

From carrying the jug. Not a very strong

7:05

guy. And I got to be honest, Casey,

7:07

sometimes that makes me procrastinate on doing my

7:10

laundry. But no longer, because

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for a while I've been using

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Earth Breeze. Earth Breeze comes in

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the form factor of a dryer

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is detergent. Yeah, Alex, that's

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right. I also have been using it quite

7:25

a lot because you

7:27

turned me on to it, actually. That's right. And you gave me

7:30

a little packet. I put it down my thing. And I was

7:32

just like, go down, do laundry, a little bit

7:34

busy, got a lot of stuff going on. You

7:36

know, we're always doing things. And instead of pulling it

7:38

out, realizing I have to deal with this trash later,

7:40

I just open it up, run

7:43

away. Sometimes, though, if I'm really feeling like

7:45

I have a second, I watch it

7:47

dissolve. Oh, wow. That's fun. Yeah,

7:50

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back to Completely Arbitrary.

11:00

Thank you. Today we are talking

11:02

western juniper. That's right

11:05

Alex. Juniperus occidentalis. Juniperus

11:07

occidentalis. Casey. Yes Alex. Let's

11:09

imagine as we do every episode. Please. I

11:11

know exactly where I want to be walking

11:14

here. The of

11:16

course the juniperlands of central Oregon. Ooh

11:19

I love that that is where you

11:21

want to do this. I love it

11:23

over there. The question is where exactly?

11:25

How about close to Bend? Oh yeah

11:27

okay that sounds great. Yeah. Perfect. There's

11:29

a wilderness area out there called I

11:31

believe the Oregon Badlands wilderness. Wow. Filled

11:34

with these trees. Well let's go

11:36

to the Badlands my friend. All

11:38

right. Casey let's ID

11:40

this tree. Uh let's do

11:42

it. This is a spectacular

11:45

tree. I like

11:48

this tree a lot. Wow. And

11:50

I don't really have a good

11:53

reason as to why. It might

11:55

just be that it's the one that I know of.

11:57

It's like the most common in my experience. This

12:00

is the juniper that is

12:03

of the Pacific Northwest. Like

12:06

by far more than any other one. As

12:09

soon as you start going down to the south and

12:11

going to the east in the

12:13

Great Basin and Desert Southwest, that kind

12:15

of area, there's a bunch of them

12:17

all over the place. You

12:20

go west into Wyoming and

12:22

Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, you

12:24

get other species. But

12:26

in the Pacific Northwest,

12:28

and I should say probably more specifically

12:30

in Oregon, this is the

12:33

juniper almost exclusively. If you're in Oregon

12:35

and you see juniper, 99.9% of the

12:37

time, it is a western juniper. It

12:41

might as well be called the Oregon juniper. It

12:43

does very well here. It really does and it

12:45

just is absolutely crushing it. It grows on the

12:47

east side though. You're not gonna

12:49

find it growing very commonly on the west

12:52

side other than down in the Siskiks. Siskiks

12:55

is the Klamath Mountains, Northern California,

12:57

Southern Oregon. It stretches itself inland a

12:59

little bit. And then also continues down so

13:01

you can find it kind of on the

13:03

coast where it's a little bit hotter, a

13:06

little bit warmer, where the

13:08

soils are not quite so

13:10

lush and green where you'd

13:12

see other conifers that can grow bigger,

13:15

taller. Ponderosa pine is a great example.

13:17

Jeffrey pine also. So

13:19

you walk in over in

13:21

Bend, Central Oregon, either where essentially east

13:23

of the Cascades in Oregon. And

13:26

you're gonna find a big bushy

13:28

looking tree. Yeah. It's gonna

13:30

get not too tall, but it's not

13:32

gonna be too short. They tend to

13:34

stay around 30 feet. I think the

13:37

biggest one has been, I

13:39

think it's upwards of like 50 feet or so.

13:42

So they're like big ass trees.

13:45

They're not the kind of juniper that people think of

13:48

when they run into a little

13:50

scrubby tree that's just kind of

13:52

on the side of a rock.

13:54

Sure, I imagine like scrabbly, short,

13:56

kind of wind swept. Right. Almost

13:59

like a shrub. Yeah, and they can grow

14:01

like that they certainly do okay, but

14:03

in the cushiest spots in these kind

14:05

of dry Upland

14:07

areas and mostly where you'll find them

14:09

in this the spaces that are little

14:12

too dry for ponderosa pine But just

14:14

wet enough that you can have these

14:16

larger trees grow boom That's where you're

14:18

gonna find them and they're just large

14:20

gorgeous trees. They are so beautiful What

14:23

I love about junipers, I

14:25

guess specifically the Western juniper I'm talking about

14:27

Yeah, is that like I feel like a

14:29

even a somewhat young one in tree terms

14:32

Already looks like it it's wise and

14:34

a lot of worry to it really

14:37

I think it's the well

14:39

How about we start in terms of ID

14:41

characteristic? Yeah, how about we start with the

14:43

bark? All right Let's start with the bark.

14:45

So on mature trees the bark is It's

14:49

very thick. It's very reddish it can

14:51

kind of become grayish if it gets

14:53

a little weathered and it tends to

14:55

kind of spiral up as the Branches

14:58

and the trunk get bigger and it

15:00

becomes very thick and furrowed. It's a

15:02

little fibrous looking but it's very hard

15:06

So that is very classic of

15:08

a fire adapted species thick bark

15:10

fibrous bark And also, of course,

15:12

it's in the cypress family caprese

15:14

CA is a uniper and

15:16

it ends up becoming these like really

15:19

red looking spiral kind of

15:22

Really rough and tumble looking branches

15:24

looking bark on all of these

15:26

branches. It's really gorgeous

15:29

However, as a young

15:31

tree, it looks starkly different It

15:33

becomes far more shaggy and kind

15:35

of like flakes off almost so

15:37

in vertical shapes or vertical flakes.

15:39

I should say It's

15:41

very beautiful. That's when it's young. That's when it's young So

15:44

as it gets older those flakes kind of start

15:46

to really become a little bit more harder. Okay

15:49

Great beautiful tree. Can we talk about the

15:51

spiral nests of it all? We sure can

15:54

I think we mentioned this one time it

15:56

I mean it the bark literally looks like

15:58

it's growing in a spire trunk that

16:00

is growing a spiral. This is due to

16:02

weather? It is not quite

16:04

weather. No

16:07

one's quite sure what happens. We

16:09

know that it provides extra strength. So

16:12

as a tree's grain

16:14

spirals up, also the bark can

16:16

start to spiral as well. Oftentimes

16:19

that doesn't happen because you have

16:21

the cork cambium that produces the

16:23

bark and you have the cambium

16:25

inside underneath the bark that produces

16:28

the xylem and the phloem. That

16:30

the angles of the fibers

16:32

can be just off a little bit so

16:34

it ends up looking like it's spiraling up.

16:37

Whereas the outside the bark

16:39

can be perfectly vertical. It can just look normal.

16:41

So in this case that's

16:44

all growing together and they all kind of

16:46

end up making a spirally pattern in the

16:48

wood grain as well as the bark. And

16:51

it is also probably due

16:53

to the way

16:55

the tree is swaying and moving around. Oh maybe

16:57

that's what I was thinking of. Yeah so there's

17:00

a lot of different theories about exactly what's

17:02

happening. No one's quite sure why.

17:05

What the adaptation is. But most

17:07

people are thinking it has to do with the fact that

17:09

a tree is big and exposed to a lot of weather.

17:12

Yeah. Trees famously as they dampen,

17:14

I shouldn't say famously, turns out most nobody

17:16

knows this. So read my article and I'll

17:18

tell you all about it. As

17:21

they bend and sway they don't just go backwards and

17:23

forwards like what you'd kind of just imagine

17:26

like if you're waving your hand in a

17:28

kind of a very rigid way. They twist

17:30

as they bend. It's like

17:32

a matrix bullet time. Yeah oh

17:34

my god that's perfect. Yeah except imagine you know

17:36

not quite so intensely and they kind of go

17:38

back and forth in a really nice little fashion.

17:40

Yeah. Yeah so that is that's a perfect explanation.

17:42

That was excellent. How many people do you think

17:44

these days have seen the matrix? I

17:47

think a lot of people. I think it's so good. What

17:52

documentary there's ever been. Uh-huh.

17:54

So that is that spiral

17:56

pattern. Yeah. Usually get so

17:59

as the tree is. bending and swaying. It's

18:01

bending but it's also rotating so

18:03

you can end up getting this

18:05

kind of spiraled cracking,

18:08

these spiraled micro tears and

18:10

stresses on the wood. Yeah. So

18:12

then when the next wood comes out it

18:14

is at an angle because that's kind of how the

18:17

crack was. So it fixes itself at

18:19

an angle and then it ends up

18:21

kind of keeping that going because every year

18:23

it bends and sways a little bit more

18:25

so you end up developing as the tree

18:28

gets older and starts to hit more wind,

18:30

get more stress, it maintains that fixing

18:33

spiralness. Well I think when I said that's

18:35

due to weather that's kind of what I

18:37

meant. Oh! The elements, the wind and the...

18:39

Honestly I just thought rain. Like

18:42

how much water does it have? We

18:44

also talked about fire damage. Okay. No,

18:46

no. Yes. You're you are right then

18:48

in that case. Yeah. Well gorgeous gorgeous

18:50

bark, gorgeous form. Gorgeous form becomes rounded. It's

18:52

kind of you know as a big tree. Yeah.

18:54

Starts very very pointed you know has a single

18:57

little leader that comes up. Very

18:59

thin, very skinny. Here's the fun

19:02

thing though Alex. Wow. It as

19:04

it comes out the

19:06

branches, the leaves and

19:08

by extension the buds are

19:11

all in threes. Interesting.

19:13

Yes. Now imagine you have three things.

19:15

One, two, three and then you

19:17

have a second number that's just

19:20

offset so they kind of sit in between

19:22

each other. So you have one, two, three,

19:24

four, five, six at any one given point

19:26

in time. The way that

19:28

these twigs grow is

19:30

they are little tiny

19:32

diamond shaped leaves that are covered

19:34

very scale like on the growth.

19:36

So the buds underneath those scales

19:39

because remember each scale like leaf

19:41

is a leaf so there's an

19:43

associated bud. Sure. When new twigs

19:45

grow from those buds they're also

19:47

in threes. Interesting. So if you

19:50

look and go if you

19:52

can't quite conceptualize what I'm talking about go

19:55

to our website arbitrarypod.com

19:57

go to episodes click on the

19:59

juniper Scroll down to the very first

20:01

thing that just simply says, the Western

20:03

Juniper, Juniper's Occident Talus. That's going

20:05

to take you to the Oregon State Landscape Plants

20:08

website. As you scroll down, you'll see a bunch of some

20:11

paragraphs about this tree. A lot of the stuff that I

20:13

use when I tell you how to look at it. There's

20:15

also going to be a picture. The picture is going to

20:17

be on the left side and it will show a

20:20

profile of the tree as if

20:22

you're looking down the twig. Looking

20:25

down that twig, he has arrows pointed out.

20:27

This is all done by Mr. Patrick Breen.

20:30

He shows the arrows and you can

20:33

see very, very clearly that it

20:35

grows out in threes where

20:37

you have a twig coming

20:39

out from one side, another

20:41

side, and then down. Like

20:43

the space ships that are

20:45

the royal transport ships

20:48

in Star Wars. They have a top

20:50

wing and the two wings that come

20:52

down. Like a piece or a piece

20:54

side. A little bit. An

20:56

equilateral triangle. Yeah. So

21:00

are these oppositely arranged? No. The

21:02

three? They're... Well,

21:04

sorry. Are they... What

21:07

am I trying to say? Would

21:09

they be oppositely arranged if there were two? Are

21:11

they growing out from the same spot on the

21:13

stem? Yes. They are. They're

21:16

in threes. They're not staggered. No, they're world

21:18

in threes. World. Okay.

21:21

Casey, I would also love to briefly touch

21:23

on the stomatal bloom. Oh, I'm

21:25

happy. Which kind

21:28

of gives it its gray green

21:30

appearance. It does. Yeah. It's

21:32

got a gray green appearance because

21:34

that stomatal bloom, it outlines each one

21:37

of these rhombus or diamond shaped

21:39

leaves. Yeah. So you

21:41

have three diamond shaped leaves that go around

21:44

the twig. And then... Casey,

21:46

I would also love to briefly

21:48

touch on the stomatal bloom. Oh,

21:50

I'm happy you brought that up.

21:52

Which kind of gives it its

21:55

gray green appearance. It does.

21:58

Yeah. It's got a gray green

22:00

appearance. because that stomatal bloom, it

22:02

outlines each one of these

22:04

rhombus or diamond shaped leaves.

22:06

Yeah. So you have

22:08

three diamond shaped leaves that go around

22:10

the twig and then nestled in between

22:13

the top of the diamond is the

22:15

bottom of the next diamond. So they

22:18

are perfectly nestled in. They look like

22:20

they are patterned right next to each

22:22

other. Yeah, they're like tiles on a back

22:24

splash. With this nice little like stomatal bloom

22:27

going right on the edge of each

22:29

one of them. So they really like

22:31

stand out. This light blue green,

22:33

light blue green and it just

22:35

looks fantastic. The bloom in the

22:37

tile analogy, the bloom being the

22:39

grout between the tiles. Precisely. It's

22:42

a great looking tree. It really is. You know

22:44

what I love about it, part of the thing I love about it

22:46

is that it's great looking from any distance. Ah, yeah.

22:49

It's a beautiful tree if you just are

22:51

standing 20 yards away from it. It's beautiful

22:53

if you're standing up close. It's beautiful if

22:55

you're taking a really close look and seeing

22:57

all the little intricacies. Another

23:00

intricacy that you'll find is on each one of

23:02

those leaves there's a little teeny tiny gland that

23:04

puts out a little bit of exudate. Yeah, tell

23:06

us about this. Well, it's essentially a thing

23:08

that happens with a lot of cypress

23:10

family plants. A lot of

23:13

the leaves will have these little

23:15

teeny tiny glands. Sometimes

23:17

you can't even tell that it's a gland. It kind of

23:19

just looks like a dark shadowy kind of spot in the

23:21

middle of the leaf. On this

23:24

juniper specifically, it's very obvious and they

23:26

put out a very intense little

23:29

bit of sap, a little bit of resin.

23:32

It just kind of goes blue. If

23:35

you're trying to imagine when you say gland,

23:37

I think of a little organ or something.

23:39

It's really just like a little pinpoint

23:41

hole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can

23:43

kind of see it looks

23:46

sometimes a little bit different

23:48

than what you'd expect. You're thinking maybe like

23:50

a lenticel kind of like a little dot.

23:53

And now I'm not saying that you're wrong, but I'm saying that

23:55

on other plants as well and other things in the

23:57

cypress family, it looks like there could

23:59

be. be it looks almost like

24:01

a little depression whether you can see an

24:03

exact dot but you see more like oh

24:06

there's that looks like a little thing that might be there.

24:08

Little dip. Yeah almost like a bruise it

24:10

looks like something bruised it perfectly right in

24:12

the middle. Interesting. But not like hard bruise just kind of

24:14

like a yellow

24:17

bruise. Well

24:20

yeah gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous

24:23

foliage. Yeah. Oh boy we're big fans

24:25

of this one aren't we? We are.

24:27

Well only certain times because that is

24:30

the mature foliage. Oh also famously for

24:32

junipers has a juvenile foliage which is

24:34

the kind of leaves that we call

24:37

all like. Oh

24:40

yes all is a

24:42

all AWL yeah

24:45

comes from a like a I

24:47

guess a leatherworking tool. Yeah it's

24:50

like a spike. It's like a spike it's pretty

24:52

much it's a spike and people use it also

24:54

for like axing into things I can kind of

24:56

dig with it a little and they

24:59

have these kind of sharp leaves that

25:01

are oppressed to the stem at the

25:03

base and they're wide and then they

25:05

end up popping outwards and skinning down

25:07

to look more like needles. Yeah. So

25:09

they're very sharp in that regard. Okay

25:11

don't want to touch them? You don't

25:13

want to touch them they are pokey

25:15

they're violent. Okay. And they

25:18

are designed so that if

25:20

an animal comes over and browses a little

25:22

bit tree knows that it's got damage sends

25:24

out a new shoot and that new shoot

25:26

will be covered in spikes. Wow. So then

25:29

the animal will be like okay okay okay okay

25:31

I get it and then won't eat it and

25:33

then further down that shoot it'll

25:35

start putting on this mature foliage which is

25:37

just scales no protection at all. How about

25:39

that? Isn't that fantastic? I would love to

25:42

talk about the cone as well one of

25:44

my favorite activities when I'm

25:46

in Central Oregon. Mm-hmm. To walk

25:48

up to a juniper tree grab

25:51

a little cone and crush

25:54

it between my hands and

25:56

rub it all around and then go like this. Really

26:01

give it a good

26:03

smell, a good deep. Like a superstar

26:05

style where she sticks her hands in

26:07

her pits, you know, then goes, you

26:09

know what I'm talking about, Molly Shannon? No. Alright.

26:12

I honestly, I don't think I've seen that movie. That's

26:15

fine. You're not missing out. Okay.

26:17

Yeah. Lovely smelling elements

26:20

to this tree. Yeah. The

26:22

cone is no exception. It's gorgeous. And

26:24

when we say cone. What

26:26

do we mean, Alex? Cone-ish.

26:30

We mean cone-ish. It's a berry. This

26:32

is a famous juniper berry, right? That's

26:34

right. Now you remember juniper berries

26:36

being the things that are not

26:40

actual berries, but are actual

26:42

cones. Yes. They are

26:44

called that because they look like a berry because they're

26:46

doing the same thing that a berry would do. Yeah.

26:49

That is getting an animal to eat it and then

26:52

it flies away. Or runs

26:54

away. Whatever. It goes away and poops

26:56

it out somewhere else. If you take the cone and

26:58

you peel off its outer shell

27:00

type thing. Yeah. It's not

27:02

even an outer shell in this case. The

27:05

things in our, let's say the

27:08

stinking cedars, they

27:10

are the trees that are

27:12

in the Texas family, cephalotaxis.

27:16

And they look like plums.

27:18

And they have this outer thing

27:20

on it. So it looks

27:22

like one very uniform fruit-looking

27:25

thing. And then

27:27

this, the cone, the actual

27:29

like, each scale itself has

27:32

so much bloom on it and actually becomes

27:34

fleshy. There's no actual outer layer.

27:36

You can just kind of rub off the outer

27:38

layer and you can see all

27:40

of the different individual scales all

27:42

smashed together. Sure. And

27:45

if you like pinch it, kind of what you're talking about, like you

27:47

brick it open a little bit. Yeah. That,

27:50

you're just really opening the whole scales itself.

27:52

Okay. With the cone. Okay.

27:55

And then you'll see that it's fleshy. It's not

27:57

a shell. No, no shell. It's just, it's

27:59

just. layers of bloom.

28:02

Yeah, that create like

28:04

a membrane. Exactly. Yeah. So it's

28:06

all kind of just, it is

28:08

slowly but surely looking

28:10

like it's fusing itself together. Yeah, sure. And

28:13

that's by design because it essentially wants to

28:15

look like one berry that then a bird

28:17

or an animal would be like, hey, cool,

28:19

that looks sweet. That looks delicious. I'm gonna

28:21

go eat it. Yeah. You just said a

28:23

kweet when I was saying cool and sweet

28:26

at the same time. Man, you're really

28:28

kweet. Anyway, this kweet tree is

28:31

quite a beauty case. Yeah, it's

28:33

a really cool tree and

28:35

it is also dioecious which means that

28:38

it has plants that have predominantly

28:40

pollen bearing cones,

28:43

predominantly ovule bearing cones that then

28:45

will become the big fleshy ones

28:47

that everyone knows about. Is it

28:49

possible for, a

28:52

quote, female or ovule bearing

28:54

tree to grow male cones?

28:57

Sure is. They

28:59

don't generally switch back and forth but it's not

29:01

like 100%, you know. It's 98%, 2%. Exactly. We

29:03

see like, yeah,

29:07

there's a couple cones on that one and

29:09

then one will be like just covered.

29:11

Okay, interesting. Well, Casey, let's drop the

29:14

ball here. Yeah, is that the metaphor

29:16

you're looking for? Hey, we

29:19

dropped the ball every episode. This one, we're

29:21

picking it back up. There we go. So, let's

29:24

tell people the story of

29:27

our coverage of this tree as

29:30

an episode of Please, Please, Please, Please. Well,

29:32

I'll start and then you can pick up

29:34

because this is close to your heart as

29:36

the content director of this show. Thank you.

29:38

We had this idea when I say we,

29:40

it was you, of doing a

29:43

series of episodes called The

29:46

Seven Deadly Stems. The Seven Deadly Stems.

29:48

Yeah. You came up with the name though. I did?

29:50

I think so. Oh, great. So,

29:54

where we talked about the Seven Deadly Sins,

29:57

being lust, greed, etc. I'm not going

29:59

to name one. Less.

30:02

The Devil come after me who

30:04

are have since September violently summon

30:06

Beelzebub sooner. I have. And this

30:09

tree the Western juniper was going

30:11

to represent the sin of. Greed.

30:14

And. You. Started doing

30:16

the research team. And. He said.

30:19

It's. Doesn't feel right, doesn't feel right Else

30:21

mother well sell the seven Deadly Sins

30:23

as we were talking. Ah, Some of

30:25

them are have fun I mean flush. It is

30:28

now. Let's be honest, we didn't Love love

30:30

love love for the earth. Ah, Well

30:32

yes but that's gonna things I get so it's a

30:34

bit. Add to heated right? Yeah

30:36

so the fact that we have

30:38

some have this is like this

30:41

old you know do whatever he

30:43

the christians of the world of

30:45

the need. One

30:48

thousands shudder come up with some

30:50

big morality thing. Yeah, so whatever

30:52

cool assist live with it. It

30:54

reeks of late antiquity. does it

30:57

really has an. And in so

30:59

nowadays I got a it's it is.

31:02

In he gave dubious at best to say

31:04

that we're really going to take it seriously.

31:06

Obviously we're making upon and it's about trees

31:08

so we can't a too seriously but. Of.

31:11

The set, some of them are great,

31:13

we can make a nice whole thing

31:15

like let's talk about wrath and this

31:17

tree, or it does that have. Then

31:19

when we talk about greed or a

31:21

kind of still is almost to have

31:23

a negative connotation even today for that,

31:26

even if it's not a sudden seven

31:28

deadly sin kind of greed, it still

31:30

is like I'll use. Is being greedy?

31:32

This is not like they're very few

31:34

times when someone say you know it

31:37

below greedy here and beat her in

31:39

a positive light. Yeah so all that

31:41

to say. I was going through this

31:43

and normally files can be doing of

31:46

seven deadly sins and I choose greed.

31:48

Oblige out this tree. That a story

31:50

about a treats above an asshole as

31:52

a tree that you'd that you have

31:54

a dislike be on your experience. Exactly

31:57

a tree that is going. To is

31:59

going to it. You're going to give

32:01

a little n it's gonna take it all

32:03

in. Will never give anything back as I

32:05

do research or I kind of knew where

32:07

I was going with this. I already had

32:09

no idea I knew why we chose this

32:12

tree for that sin. And the whole point

32:14

is essentially. On Tv that

32:16

does the headline. This is

32:18

a tree that over the last

32:20

about. One hundred and fifty

32:23

years or so has been

32:25

increased. It's. Range not

32:27

only has been increasing it's

32:29

range. it's extremely good at

32:31

competing in it's range and

32:33

it will suck up all

32:35

of the water has it

32:37

just has really good root

32:40

system. It's almost allele a

32:42

perfect for not killing things

32:44

but it is. I'm

32:46

maggie are harder for other things

32:48

to live exactly Iran or Iraq

32:50

or other use that spot on.

32:52

I don't spot on so I'm

32:54

doing research and the one of

32:56

the articles i sounds really good

32:58

and it's called. A mean I

33:00

say it's really good. I. Have a little bit

33:03

of global. Hippie. It's called the tree

33:05

that eight the west. Oh wow it's

33:07

a very good or thing. It's a

33:09

by bio. Graphic is the name of

33:11

this this company. Or the says

33:13

internet website and and. I think

33:16

the other did. A very good job. It's

33:18

Rebecca Heisman and the photographers Catherine Whitney

33:20

A and they wrote this article or

33:22

as the she wrote this article. On

33:25

the Western Juniper here. In Oregon

33:27

went to this very place a

33:29

you I imagined the we were

33:31

walking this organ Badlands Yeah wilderness

33:33

and. Talks about how

33:35

this tree has done something and

33:37

is called something that I have

33:39

a big problem with. Wow, That's

33:41

why I couldn't make it into

33:43

the Seven Deadly sins I So

33:45

complacent. It deserves better, deserves better.

33:47

Or it at least. In

33:50

the wagon. Let's. get into

33:52

okay wow the reason that my god

33:54

what did you just edit your so

33:56

i did i enjoy serious effort to

33:58

go to jail for that My job. Get

34:01

out of here. Like seeing eclipse. So

34:05

the big thing that this

34:07

is talking about, the subtitle

34:09

is both native and invasive,

34:11

protected and reviled Western junipers

34:13

are living contradictions. Wow. So.

34:17

Interesting. My whole scheme was that this tree is greedy.

34:20

It is actively expanding

34:23

its range and taking more land

34:25

and space. It also is

34:27

sucking up all the water so it's

34:29

better at competing. So it is greedily

34:31

taking more of all the resources. Great.

34:34

What a good storyline that would be.

34:36

Sure. The fact that

34:38

they call this invasive, I have a

34:40

really big kind of chip on my

34:43

shoulder for this idea of a native

34:45

tree being considered invasive. In its native

34:47

habitat. In its native habitat. Sure. So.

34:51

Yeah, that makes no sense. It makes no sense. That's

34:53

the contradiction of definition. Exactly. Which of

34:55

course she literally says right here, it's

34:57

a living contradiction. But

34:59

this is my problem. If it's a contradiction

35:02

then it's a logical fallacy and it can't

35:04

be that. Because by definition

35:06

a contradiction is contradicting

35:09

itself. It means that

35:11

it is two different and mutually

35:13

exclusive things at the same time

35:15

which is impossible. Okay. So

35:18

is this tree invasive or is it

35:20

native? Because if it's native it can't

35:22

be invasive. The idea being

35:24

for anybody who's wondering the difference here,

35:26

invasive means that it goes and invades

35:28

somewhere that is not its native habitat.

35:31

Yes. Or it's brought somewhere

35:33

where it's not, you

35:35

know, mother nature didn't intend for it to be. And

35:38

so it has a different skill

35:40

set, you know, depending

35:42

on the rules of the new

35:45

area and it gets really strong

35:47

and starts like outcompeting everything to

35:49

an unfair degree. Yes. That

35:51

is, that's literally it. The way I have

35:54

termed it in my book because I wanted to

35:56

try to give this a little bit of context

35:58

where I say this is Before

36:00

is the plant that existed

36:02

in our region prior to

36:05

Europeans coming over and Intervening

36:07

essentially just having any effect

36:09

on the landscape I'm not

36:11

gonna necessarily say that it is a

36:13

plant that was brought over on purpose

36:16

Sometimes they're not sometimes they come

36:18

because of something else

36:20

So somebody was eating an apple on

36:22

the yeah, right or in the moment. They spit it

36:24

out into the into the Exactly. Yeah,

36:26

it's not necessarily they came and planted it and said

36:28

now this trees here and then it you know

36:31

escapes cultivation so That

36:34

is what I want to do and even as

36:36

I say that it makes me like okay that

36:38

definition also is a little squishy because

36:43

Intervention and just is just changing something. That's

36:45

why I want to make it kind of

36:47

this broad term before they The

36:49

European settlers came over and just changed how

36:51

things were so In

36:54

this whole area. There's a geographical

36:56

range and the geographical range of

36:59

the Western Juniper is known It's

37:01

certain areas with certain water types

37:03

in Oregon, California And

37:06

a little bit into Nevada and

37:08

Idaho and Washington That

37:11

is where this tree is Geographically

37:13

native to and that's kind of

37:15

what I want to stick with

37:17

so Conditions change all the time

37:20

and you and I've had this conversation a few different

37:22

times like if you if you cut down

37:24

a forest Or you have a grassland a

37:26

grassland is just a little too dry to

37:29

become a forest But give it enough time

37:31

and a little more water It will become

37:33

a way do the opposite give enough time

37:35

take away water a forest will become a

37:37

shrub land or a grassland Or something else

37:39

these things are in cycles. It's always gonna

37:41

be changing, you know, and so

37:44

in this case There

37:46

used to be fire. There is fire

37:48

that was naturally occurring all over the

37:50

landscape and there was fire it was

37:52

set by the native people managing the

37:54

land for all time the

37:57

junipers were growing and

38:00

were held in check on

38:02

certain areas. I learned a

38:04

term, and I want to read

38:06

this term to you because it's

38:08

a fun term that I didn't

38:11

know existed before, but the term

38:13

is tapawe daffyk. Tapawe

38:15

daffyk. Yes. What this

38:17

means is that its range

38:21

and its habitat are

38:24

exclusive to certain places and

38:27

certain soil types. In

38:29

this case, they say that it's a

38:31

tapawe daffyk dominant or climax species. They

38:34

say it in quotes because it's

38:36

a tree that isn't really competing with anything

38:38

else. It is at any

38:40

given point a early

38:43

succession, mid succession, late succession tree.

38:46

There is no other tree. It's not like it's waiting

38:48

for ponderosa pine to come in and take over, something

38:50

like that. When it's

38:52

in a juniper forest or whatever? Yeah,

38:54

exactly. It grows on

38:56

the edges of these spaces that have

38:58

the right kind of soil, which is

39:00

usually some kind of volcanic-esque

39:03

kind of thing, very dry. It

39:07

grows on spaces that are far

39:10

enough away from a lot of other stuff where there's

39:12

just not a lot of fire. If

39:14

you ever go to Eastern Oregon, you can

39:16

find these rimrock mesa-bute areas. Sure.

39:20

Is that like Painted Hills? No,

39:22

not quite that. It would be a little bit

39:24

further to the south. Painted Hills are a different

39:26

geographic kind of situation. This is where

39:29

you had like rimrock where you

39:31

can see very clearly there used to

39:33

be a bunch of

39:37

lava that flowed over the land. I

39:39

know this. Yeah, and then it eroded

39:41

away so you get these big hills

39:43

with these perfectly flat tops. It's

39:46

a classic American West landscape.

39:49

Yeah, totally. Over here

39:51

in Oregon, and this is kind of the beginning of the

39:53

Great Basin, it's a little bit different than

39:55

the stuff down in the southwest where over

39:57

here we actually have a little bit more. soil

40:00

than the southwest generally has and

40:03

these trees will grow there and they're perfectly

40:05

happy. They've grown there for a long time,

40:08

they live for a long time, they're fire

40:10

adapted but they're also sensitive to fire. The

40:12

big old ones can live, the younger ones

40:14

usually are kaput. Contradiction indeed. Exactly. So

40:17

now since about

40:20

1870 settlers came over and

40:22

they said no more fires. We're gonna

40:24

stop doing any fires. We're also gonna split up the land

40:26

so I have my ranch, you have yours.

40:29

I guess that over there is gonna become

40:31

what will soon be known as the BLM.

40:33

So you have this landscape

40:36

that used to be one big piece

40:38

of land with this one tree in

40:40

this whole ecosystem. They call it the

40:42

sagebrush step and fires would

40:44

go through and any time these

40:46

junipers would start to encroach down

40:48

into different places a fire would

40:50

come through and be like back

40:52

back back back back back. There's

40:54

this balance. So junipers grew in

40:57

there. Topoedaphic spaces and all

41:00

these other sagebrush plants would grow elsewhere with

41:02

this also native grass. Now if there's one

41:04

thing I know that European settlers

41:07

knew how to do it's

41:09

throw things off balance. That's

41:11

a well set out. That

41:15

is precisely what

41:17

happened. So these trees grow about

41:19

every 30 to 50 years it

41:21

takes for them to like become mature and start

41:23

producing seeds and really start to take over. So

41:26

it's a dry landscape so things do not happen

41:28

quickly. So over the last 150 years there has

41:30

been this slow march of the

41:35

junipers who we could

41:37

say greedily taken

41:39

over. Slowly but

41:41

surely. Now this has been

41:44

called and people are using this term in

41:46

the same way that we say the tree

41:48

of heaven is an invasive tree. It's taking

41:50

over different spaces and forest areas that the

41:52

way that people in the southeast would say

41:54

that the calorie pear Has

41:57

started to take over different forest areas and all

41:59

these are. The Pc you can name a

42:01

million. They're using that

42:03

same terminology to say the Western

42:06

Juniper is an invasive. A horribly

42:08

noxious invasive. Tree. Wow. growing.

42:11

In his native habitat. Yeah, now

42:13

that just does not. That doesn't

42:15

ring true. Now they're huge problems

42:17

with this. The biggest problem in

42:19

terms of well laces. The biggest

42:21

problem that people are. Trying to make

42:23

sure it's framed in his habitat for the

42:26

Sage grouse. I should say the Greater Sage

42:28

Grouse that a bird as bird is a

42:30

beautiful, beautiful bird is a, if not endangered.

42:32

It's certainly threatened because of habitat loss. Habitat.

42:36

Loss. In. This case. Includes

42:38

junipers coming down into what

42:41

used to be sagebrush areas.

42:43

The only had rushed: It's

42:45

maybe two or three feet

42:47

tall because if a plant

42:50

is more than four feet

42:52

tall. The Sage Grouse. Do.

42:55

Not do their fancy reproductive.

42:57

Seeing that they do it

42:59

is an incredible. A

43:01

Procedure. Have you heard about this? Yeah yeah.

43:03

Do. I can see those well. You know what you

43:05

know? What a cell up these big sachs

43:07

on their chair. ah and then of and

43:10

what They kind of beat him with their

43:12

with their wings they were with the winter.

43:14

They also make like these weird clicking sound

43:16

like something the ads like hope it's like

43:18

I'm ah it's a good example I can't

43:20

I can't think I go to you tube

43:22

and look up looking at grouse. yeah mating

43:24

ritual or whatever. then they do it. They

43:27

they have these spaces called lex L E

43:29

K am you go They have like a

43:31

bunch of females were kind of meet up

43:33

here than the males com just dance their

43:35

asses. Off. Yeah, Spades, you find out I

43:37

know when you're wow So if you're laying

43:39

there is literally cock block. or they are

43:42

literally. so it's not a lotta. Salmon.

43:46

i wish there was a focus of this

43:48

episode couldn't selected be the title ah the

43:50

cock block or well okay i should say

43:52

technically i don't know if we would call

43:54

them cox vs like a male roost oh

43:56

really care i know but i just say

43:58

in l exists is why week This is

44:00

why we have to be careful. No, you don't even need

44:02

to. You don't even. This is

44:04

why- Just smile and nod. Yes, it works. It's good.

44:06

This is why you come up with the name. Better

44:09

smiling than nodding. Oh

44:12

man. So, in this

44:14

case, you have junipers coming in and they're

44:16

out competing Sage Grash and they're coming into these

44:18

areas. It used to be, as far as I

44:20

could see, Sage and that's it.

44:23

There's some beautiful places outside of Bend

44:25

that you just look and it's just

44:27

like these perfectly spaced dotted patterns of

44:29

the Sage for as far as you

44:31

can see. So beautiful. It really is.

44:33

That color palette, by the way. It's

44:35

outstanding. Incredible. So that is what it

44:37

used to be. You can find Sage Grash out there just

44:40

having a ball. As

44:42

the juniper moves in and takes over,

44:44

these are now looking like woodlands, like

44:46

legitimate woodlands covered from head to toe

44:49

with these medium sized juniper trees. Now

44:52

no longer do Sagebrush come in there.

44:54

Now here's where I'm a little bit dubious

44:56

and why I'm like, okay, hmm,

45:00

ranchers are the

45:02

primary land use owner,

45:04

land use land owner, whatever you want to

45:06

say. That ranch is the primary

45:08

land use of this area. They

45:11

have usually

45:13

the land reserved for

45:15

cattle. And the cattle is

45:18

eating native grasses. Now

45:20

these native grasses are not meant

45:22

to be grazed at the level that we graze them

45:24

at. It's a big problem. It

45:27

has been for decades. They're doing things

45:29

about it. Like

45:32

the cows are eating them too fast and

45:35

they're not growing back fast enough for the

45:37

cow to have more. Precisely. Or

45:39

anything else like Sage Grash. Like some

45:41

grasses you would eat and then like

45:43

the next week it would be... Yeah,

45:45

it's popped back up. But this ecosystem

45:48

is a little too fragile for that.

45:50

It's not wet enough. So the grasses

45:52

will grow and then they'll grow back

45:54

because they've been evolved and adapted

45:58

to be eaten by all sorts of animals. of

46:00

herbivores for a very long time. But

46:02

when you have an intense amount of

46:05

cattle that are voracious and way bigger

46:07

than say a pronghorn or something like

46:09

that, an antelope, you end up finding

46:11

that they graze too much, too quickly.

46:14

It's an unnatural thing. Exactly. So

46:17

this is also what happens when

46:19

you have junipers come in. They

46:21

will out-compete the grasses, even though

46:23

they're native grasses, and

46:25

they will push the grasses out, which

46:27

is exactly what happens with forest succession.

46:29

As soon as you get trees coming in, they

46:31

out-compete the things that are not trees. Most

46:34

of the time, if there's enough water and

46:36

no fire. So our junipers

46:38

are just doing what they do. They

46:40

are just being junipers in their native

46:42

habitat and taking advantage of the lack

46:44

of fire. Sure. So you

46:46

have ranchers on one hand really upset because

46:49

they're like, we got to get rid of

46:51

all these junipers. They are an absolute invasive

46:53

scourge upon the world. Then

46:55

you have these other wildlife people who are

46:57

like, the sage-grouse is losing all of its

47:00

habitat because these god-dang junipers are coming in

47:02

everywhere. And who takes it from all ends? The

47:04

juniper. Yeah. But they're

47:06

not a ... that's fine. Honestly, burn

47:09

half of them down. There's still going to be plenty. Wow.

47:12

The birds, their fruit, of course, is spread by

47:14

birds. So they're always popping up all over the

47:16

place. They're very good at what they do. Sure.

47:20

So they are out of balance, 100%. I

47:23

agree with this. However, I am

47:26

dubious about the ranchers being

47:28

so gosh-dang upset about this

47:30

because they are trying to

47:33

work to make their living. And

47:35

I really want to acknowledge that's

47:38

good. Like you are

47:40

running this. I eat the cows that

47:42

you are making. I get

47:44

it. But

47:47

I will not go so far as

47:49

to call this tree an invasive

47:52

thing, the worst invasive thing to ever happen

47:54

in this part of the world since the

47:56

humans that are there in this part of

47:58

the world who have ... change the

48:00

entire landscape in a very literal way

48:02

to be out of balance. Yeah. And

48:05

now, because you tip the scales in

48:07

favor of this one tree, the one

48:09

tree's like, yeah, great, I'm going to

48:11

take over because that's what I do.

48:14

And now you're complaining about it. Right.

48:16

Because I'm like, well, you did it in the first

48:18

place. Totally. So it kind of

48:20

just is a very complicated,

48:22

circular thing where on one hand,

48:25

yes, we want the sage-grouse habitat. But

48:28

on the other hand, I'm not

48:30

so humanistic most of the time

48:32

to say, yeah, no, we need ranches. I'm

48:34

like, well, maybe we need to change

48:36

our management practices, have fewer cows or

48:39

use the space differently and manage it. And

48:41

trust me, this is like a very controversial,

48:44

convoluted subject and barely even

48:46

getting in to really

48:48

give someone. There's going to be great arguments on

48:50

all sides. Okay. However, I

48:53

am insistent that we need to just

48:55

understand this not as a good or

48:58

bad thing. And I just am convinced,

49:00

Alex, that there is no possible

49:02

way that we can say

49:05

a native species is

49:07

in fact an invasive species. That's all

49:09

I have, Alex. What do you think?

49:11

Wow. Mic

49:14

drop. Mic drop. There's plenty more I guess

49:16

we could talk about. Wow.

49:20

You know, I'm in an agreement. I

49:22

feel like the story comes up in like

49:25

the template of the story. Yeah. Comes up

49:27

in so many ways. Like there's

49:29

a lot of ways to see it, right? Well,

49:31

there's a human-caused issue.

49:34

And then the humans complain about it. And

49:38

the thing that always ends up taking

49:41

the brunt of the

49:43

heat off of these issues.

49:48

Is the environment? Yeah. It's

49:51

almost like you blame

49:53

the trees for just being,

49:55

just doing what they've always done. Yeah. Taking

49:58

advantage of the situation you create. It's

50:00

almost like propaganda. It feels like propaganda. Look what

50:02

these trees are doing, by the way. We made

50:05

them do it. You better cut

50:07

them all down. We enabled these

50:09

consequences and now we're so mad that they're

50:11

happening. Yeah, it's like war propaganda. To

50:14

make it okay to vilify this tree

50:16

that's just crushing it in its native

50:18

habitat. Yes, geographically native

50:20

for certain. Yeah, I don't know.

50:25

I'm mostly curious what this

50:27

article says about all this. Well,

50:31

honestly, it's a very well-written article. I

50:33

really did like it. We're not coming after

50:35

this author or this article. No, no, no,

50:38

no. Not at all. This is more of

50:40

a discussion on the framing of a tree

50:42

being native as invasive.

50:46

That's the big... Like, oh, right there.

50:48

Okay, just to be annoying and to

50:50

be a good podcaster

50:53

and to be a contrarian. Let's say

50:55

that I'm like, honestly,

50:58

who gives a shit? This is like 2020 Alex, right? I

51:02

would say, oh, you would say people are vilifying

51:05

the Western Juniper and calling it invasive when it's

51:07

not. Back then I might have

51:09

said, so who

51:12

gives a shit? Answer

51:14

that question. Why is this

51:17

important? I think

51:19

it's important because it

51:21

mixes two very specific terms and

51:24

it kind of blurs the definition

51:32

in a kind of management

51:34

sort of way, where

51:36

anytime a tree is doing something in

51:38

a place we don't want it to

51:40

be doing it, we'll call it invasive.

51:43

And if we start doing that, then we can

51:45

say, well, the Douglas fir

51:48

is invasive here in the Willamette

51:50

Valley or this

51:52

other tree is invasive because we

51:54

changed the land use and now

51:57

it is taking over where... Another

52:00

tree used to be dominant because of,

52:03

let's say, fire. Fire usually

52:05

always revolves around fire. We

52:08

can call any tree that takes advantage

52:10

of this change in

52:12

this one kind of disturbance

52:14

regime as an invasive species

52:17

in that area, even though everything

52:20

is cyclical, everything is moving forward

52:22

at some pace. I don't want

52:24

to say forward. Everything is moving

52:26

and going through stages of succession.

52:29

So if there is a

52:32

species that we

52:35

decide we want to

52:38

vilify, like you said, then we can do

52:40

that on the auspices that, well, shoot, this

52:42

didn't used to grow here, so we should

52:44

get rid of it. It is invasive. I

52:47

think, like you said, it's vilifying

52:49

the wrong thing. It's

52:52

a scapegoat for what we are actually doing,

52:54

which is this larger land use regime. That

52:56

is also something that comes up a lot

52:58

on this podcast, is like fixing

53:01

the, what do

53:05

you call it, treating the symptoms,

53:09

not the disease? Exactly. Yes,

53:12

that's exactly it. I would use the term

53:14

that Jared Diamond presented in Guns,

53:16

Germs, and Steel, where there's the

53:19

proximate cause and there's the ultimate

53:21

cause. Ultimate cause is that

53:23

big thing. The proximate cause are the things that we

53:26

look at and say, ah, well, we're running

53:28

out of grass and we're running out of sage grass

53:30

habitat. What's the proximate cause?

53:33

There's juniper everywhere. What's the

53:35

ultimate cause? Fire

53:37

regimes. Right. Okay,

53:39

interesting. A lot to chew on here. It's

53:41

a lot to chew on. Much like the

53:43

grasses upon which the cows feed and after

53:46

the break, we'll shit it all out into

53:48

a review of this tree. I'm

53:52

always stunned about the poetics that you can

53:54

just pull out of. Thank you. Anyway.

53:58

With that, we'll be right back. Casey,

54:08

it's time to give a review to this tree.

54:12

Yeah, we gotta give a review. And

54:14

here's how it works. Okay. We're gonna

54:16

give some final thoughts and then give this tree a

54:18

rating of zero to ten golden berries

54:21

of honor. Wow,

54:23

that's, I hate that. As

54:26

our resident expert, we

54:28

will begin with you. So,

54:30

you know, I think the

54:33

Western Juniper is beautiful. I think it's

54:35

under planted and we should utilize it

54:37

more in rough places where

54:39

we don't necessarily need to worry

54:41

about it having a negative

54:43

impact on sage grouse or

54:46

ranch habitat or whatever.

54:49

I think it's a tree that is

54:51

underused and should be used more. Nice.

54:54

That's my thought. I also think that it is

54:56

beautiful and I don't think that

54:58

this tree is at fault

55:00

for being a tree that is good

55:02

at doing what it does. Here, here.

55:05

It's not an invasive tree. It is not a

55:07

tree that we're like, God, this is ruining habitat

55:09

because it shouldn't be here. Yeah.

55:12

It's ruining habitat because we changed

55:14

the habitat to be better for

55:16

it. And now you're

55:18

defining a habitat, this

55:21

tree's habitat, as something that it

55:23

is not but that you could

55:25

have made it but you made

55:27

it something else. My God, I'd

55:30

never heard something so clear in my life. And then

55:32

I throw my nachos at it. Yes.

55:36

Now I want it to be back in balance

55:38

to be very clear. I just

55:40

need to say that I can't

55:43

blame this tree for throwing it

55:45

off balance. It just happens to

55:47

be sliding down to where the balance is

55:49

taking it. So I'm going to give the western juniper

55:51

and I'm going to compare this to some other junipers

55:53

that I'm thinking in my head right now to make

55:55

sure I'm doing this right. I'm

55:57

going to give it an 8.8. 8.8

56:01

an 8.8 for the western juniper. So I think it's

56:03

the best of all the junipers. That's a Wow,

56:06

that's what I you heard it here first All

56:10

right, it's the best of all the junipers any other juniper is not

56:13

as good You

56:15

have to editorialize my man, you're right

56:17

you're right I now that

56:19

I look back casey said this is his

56:21

favorite tree If

56:25

you're going to be an influencer you have

56:27

to make strong statements without thinking about it

56:29

too much I'm a horrible

56:31

influencer I

56:33

have actually taken western juniper berries and

56:36

made my own Sourdough

56:38

from them because they have yeast on their The

56:42

bloom the bloom is yeasty. Yeah, it's got yeast on it. So

56:44

you can put that in add a little bit of stuff to

56:46

it Sir, the bloom

56:48

is yeasty get out there now Alex

56:53

has been playing a lot of games the bloom

56:55

is yeasty is the new the eagle has landed

56:57

the bloom is easy Yes,

57:01

i'm gonna go 8.8 8.8 8.8 golden berries of honor Alex

57:06

do you have an opinion on the street because this is another tree

57:08

you've had a lot of experience with yes You've

57:10

actually been east of the cascades multiple times.

57:13

Of course. Yes, of course um,

57:15

you know, yeah, I I

57:18

will say like even trees that

57:20

grow in the pacific northwest I

57:23

don't have a ton of experience with all of

57:25

them because as i've said before i'm an indoor

57:27

boy most of the time But

57:30

I do have a great fondness for

57:32

central oregon the bend area, you

57:34

know Just around the bend

57:36

I would say um And

57:39

I love juniper country. I love walking

57:41

out in the morning wherever i'm staying

57:44

in west Central

57:46

oregon. Yeah. Yeah. Nope. Don't call it eastern. Everyone

57:48

gets really sorry everyone. No, no, you did. Okay.

57:50

You did Okay, i'm just saying anyone out there

57:53

who says eastern oregon you're talking about east of

57:55

bend. Yes. Yes central Yes, or

57:57

I no longer like oregon Oh,

58:00

all right. Another conversation. Another conversation. And I

58:02

love walking out in the morning and

58:05

you just get this fluff, especially

58:07

in the cool, the cool

58:09

months. I feel like

58:11

the air is just rich with the

58:13

perfume of the junipers. Evergreen, it's always

58:16

there. It is a gorgeous smell. I

58:18

think they look fabulous. I

58:21

think a juniper, if you're in the right place, would

58:23

make a great statement

58:26

piece tree. Yeah. In the middle of your

58:28

yard. Definitely. I've seen one here. I forgot

58:30

where it was, but it's in Portland. I'm

58:32

pretty sure it was a western juniper. And

58:34

it's got this it's got this great

58:38

bonsai tree, by the way. Yeah.

58:40

It's got this storied look to

58:42

it. It's it flows like

58:44

water. It's just gorgeous when

58:46

they're when they're really old and and have

58:49

a lot of a

58:51

lot of rings on their growth. They

58:54

have this sort of and some of them

58:56

I've seen like they have almost no. They're

58:58

just directionless. Mm hmm. They're just kind of

59:01

going with what feels good. I know all

59:03

trees do this. Shut up. But

59:05

they're like they have this appearance to

59:07

them where they just like flow and

59:10

they have beautiful, beautiful curves and they've

59:12

got a shape to them. And

59:14

I love that they take a different approach

59:16

to growing a cone. Much like our friend,

59:19

the you. Yes. It's not your traditional cone

59:21

in our podocarp friends. Yes, that's right.

59:23

Not your traditional cone. I think that's

59:25

really interesting. And there

59:28

are a few things that I dislike about this

59:30

tree that I know of. Wow.

59:33

And I don't live around them every day. This

59:35

is like how my my childhood friend Emily, I

59:38

love like woodland creatures and

59:40

I love deer. Yeah. And she reviles deer

59:42

because she grew up where she would walk

59:44

out in the morning and there'd be a

59:47

bunch of fucking deer in her yard and

59:49

they would spit at her, you know, that's

59:51

just me. If I maybe if I lived

59:53

around junipers, I'd be like, I'm so fucking

59:56

sick of Juniper. Yeah, I think that is

59:58

that is something that people. have.

1:00:00

Yeah, but I do not and so I'm not

1:00:02

sick of them. I love them. 9.2. Wow. Berries

1:00:04

of honor. 9.2,

1:00:08

8.8. That's a 9.0 on

1:00:10

average and that's true math.

1:00:12

That was our review of

1:00:15

the western juniper Casey. It's

1:00:17

time for our complete laboratory

1:00:19

AMA. Today we have a

1:00:21

question regarding cones. From

1:00:24

Adam Hallahan. Adam Hallahan.

1:00:26

How the heck are you? If you want to

1:00:28

ask us a question, and get

1:00:30

on this AMA train, join

1:00:33

up on Completely Arbitrary's

1:00:35

premium. Here comes the

1:00:37

AMA train. It

1:00:40

asks who who. It's our brand new

1:00:42

support platform. It's the best way to

1:00:45

support the show and get a bunch

1:00:47

of cool rewards. Bonus audio, cone

1:00:49

stickers every month. AMA access,

1:00:51

live stream access. If

1:00:54

you just want to you know support

1:00:56

this podcast that you love so much and

1:00:58

this week our question comes from Adam. Adam

1:01:01

says, now I think Adam might

1:01:04

be new to the

1:01:06

podcast. Oh Adam, hey. And

1:01:09

I'm getting this from context clues because he says, hi

1:01:12

Alex, I've heard your cone collection

1:01:14

mentioned in episodes and I'm interested in

1:01:16

starting one as well. No way. Casey

1:01:18

is the man with the

1:01:20

ridiculous cone collection. I have a few scattered around

1:01:23

my apartment. You do, yeah. I think it's just

1:01:25

like I have to admit if you associate yourself

1:01:27

with me for any amount of time it starts

1:01:29

to happen. Like, oh yeah, you

1:01:31

just cone to show up. Yeah. Adam says,

1:01:33

I am a teacher and

1:01:36

they, the cones would serve as

1:01:38

great decorations and instructional tools for

1:01:40

my classroom. 100%.

1:01:42

Do you have any tips or resources you

1:01:44

can link out to that would help someone

1:01:46

like me who is starting with no knowledge?

1:01:48

How? Well, Alex, what do you think? Well,

1:01:52

here's what I know from your cone collection.

1:01:54

So here's what you do. This is what

1:01:56

I know from Casey. You've got some options

1:01:58

depending on the application here. Yeah. If

1:02:00

you want to store your cones

1:02:02

in a more professional, scientific way,

1:02:05

get yourself a jar, the size

1:02:07

of which will depend on the size of the cone.

1:02:09

Make sure it fits when it's going in. Yes, the

1:02:12

mouth is the most important in terms of jars. I've

1:02:14

said this. And

1:02:16

then you also want to think about the

1:02:18

cone expanding when it dries out if it's

1:02:21

a wet cone, and you want to make

1:02:23

sure that the jar will fit

1:02:25

that too. Correct. If you put it

1:02:27

in there though, do yourself a favor, buy

1:02:29

some little tags with some strings. You

1:02:32

can find these at any, gosh, you can

1:02:34

probably find them at a teacher's supply store.

1:02:36

It's very possible, yeah. Science supply store also.

1:02:40

Certainly. You write the name, the common name of

1:02:42

the cone species and the scientific name of the

1:02:44

cone species. Put a date on there when you put it

1:02:46

in there. That's a fun idea. Yeah, I

1:02:48

like that. Casey's giving me a face like, hey,

1:02:50

I never thought. That's pretty good. I never thought

1:02:52

of that. You might try it. Like

1:02:54

people writing the date on the back of a photo,

1:02:56

right? This is when I collected this cone. And

1:02:59

then you just twist the top, you forget about

1:03:01

it. Put some gorilla glue in there so you

1:03:03

can never open it again. I don't necessarily

1:03:06

recommend that, but yes. So

1:03:09

far, you're doing great. Now,

1:03:11

if you just want them for decoration,

1:03:14

I say you go Christmas style and

1:03:16

make a garland of cones. And

1:03:19

you stagger big cone, little cone, big cone, little

1:03:21

cone. You can do all sorts of patterns. That's

1:03:23

a great idea. Yeah. That's what

1:03:25

I got. Excellent. Well,

1:03:28

I noticed you have not done either of those

1:03:30

things. Because I look around.

1:03:33

Do as I say, not as I do. I

1:03:36

am going to propose that you do exactly that.

1:03:39

And also just like toss them around.

1:03:42

I would say identify

1:03:44

the cone for certain. That's

1:03:46

an important part of this all. That's also

1:03:48

really fun. It is, yeah. And that is what I

1:03:50

think kids have the most fun with. And

1:03:53

as a teacher, that I think is one of

1:03:55

the most important things you can do. You

1:03:58

have probably heard me, many people have. talked

1:04:01

about how I think that people

1:04:03

learning the names of trees and how to

1:04:05

identify them even rudimentually like you don't

1:04:07

need to say why this is oak

1:04:10

tree A and why this is pine tree

1:04:12

B just say this is that pine tree

1:04:14

and kids can understand it they can already

1:04:18

identify it they can see it and say yeah okay I see

1:04:20

what that looks like it is that it's also very fun to

1:04:23

be able to like if you're on a walk

1:04:25

to be able to say hey that's a this

1:04:27

exactly it's impressive it's fun and fun to use

1:04:29

your knowledge yeah and kids are really good at

1:04:31

this everyone is the kids especially just like they're

1:04:33

good at everything they're always learning and taking in

1:04:35

everything but teach them how to

1:04:37

identify the trees first in go find

1:04:40

those little cones find as many as you

1:04:42

can from different trees identify that tree do

1:04:44

everything Alex said and then you can have

1:04:46

those set up and around you can go

1:04:48

sometimes to arboretum or parks and do this

1:04:50

and they'll have names of the trees but

1:04:53

you can snag a couple little cones of

1:04:55

whatever trees nearby put

1:04:57

them somewhere to dry off a little bit add

1:04:59

that tag and then you got your kids learning

1:05:02

how to identify trees by just this one part

1:05:04

so when they walk outside again they'll be

1:05:06

like wow look that's the cone from the

1:05:08

Douglas fir I love ya I will also

1:05:10

say I know this isn't really what the

1:05:12

question was about but since we're talking about

1:05:14

teaching people how to identify things having a

1:05:16

little mnemonic device or a little tale a

1:05:18

little story I say tail very deliberately because

1:05:20

for the Douglas fir you got your little

1:05:22

mouse but you know coming out of the

1:05:24

cone that's a great that's a great example

1:05:27

of a little fun fact that you

1:05:29

can associate with that cone yeah you're

1:05:31

gonna if you can identify the cone

1:05:33

you can identify the tree right it's

1:05:35

precisely right thank you so much Adam

1:05:38

for your question like I said if

1:05:40

you've got a question for us support

1:05:42

the podcast on completely

1:05:44

arbitrary tranium become a tranium

1:05:46

member today at arbitrary pod

1:05:48

dot supercast dot com

1:05:51

Casey another good one Alex another

1:05:54

another one for the books mm-hmm

1:05:56

just a reminder we have a

1:05:58

brand new toe that's right We

1:06:00

got a tall and new episode of the seed pod.

1:06:02

You just came out as much as we can. Hell

1:06:04

yeah. And if you want one of those totes, go

1:06:07

to arbitrarypod.com/merch and

1:06:09

use the discount code newtote

1:06:12

with a question mark. Get 10%

1:06:14

off that brand newtote. I love

1:06:17

this place. Casey.

1:06:20

Great work today. Thanks for the conversation, Alan.

1:06:22

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. Good

1:06:24

and interesting one. Yeah, we'll see what everyone

1:06:26

else thinks because I'm sure someone over in

1:06:28

Eastern Oregon is probably like, Oh, no,

1:06:30

no, no. This tree sucks. I can

1:06:32

hear them typing the email and we

1:06:35

welcome it. Yeah, we welcome. We welcome

1:06:37

this type of examination. For sure. And

1:06:41

with that, we say thank you so much for listening to

1:06:43

this episode of Complete Laboratory. We'll see you next time. Bye.

1:06:45

See you. Completely

1:06:51

arbitrary is produced by Alex Croson and

1:06:53

Casey Clapp. Our artwork is by Jillian

1:06:55

Barthold and our music is by AIDS

1:06:57

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