Day 4: The Art of Coring and Corralling or Morons with Spray-Paint

Day Four: The Art of Coring and Corralling or Morons with Spray-Paint

6/10/11:

On June tenth, I learned about morons. Morons with spray-paint (the non-special kind) to be specific.

Backstory: the crew was participating in another Kaibab Heritage Outreach event. Today saw us at Keyhole Sink with a gaggle of Williams elementary kids. The KNF was out in full-force: in addition to the KNF arch crew, we had a KNF Wildlife Biologist, a KNF silviculturist, a KNF geologist, a KNF firefighter, and a volunteer insect-enthusiast. With all this expertise wafting around, my sad little intern-self was rendered fairly useless.

After being saddled with a very expensive looking camera and before the arrival of the youngins’, I was instructed in the art of corralling kids, which was just as easy as it sounds.

Grinning to hide my fear (lots of new people, all of them undoubtedly smarter and wiser), I inquired of Rachel, the KNF silviculturist, after the nature of coring trees. Only too happy to oblige, Rachel explained via an impromptu demonstration.

Using the outer part of the corer, a long thin piece of metal, Rachel twisted the implement into the trunk of a fairly fat ponderosa pine. After gauging that she’d cored to about the middle of the tree, Rachel pulled out the inner bit of the corer, which now held a sliver of the tree (think of an arm-length Harry Potter wand). From this, Rachel could see the various tree rings and, depending on the distance between rings, their fatness and color, could approximate the tree’s age.

Much too shortly after letting me have a go with the corer, the children of Williams arrived. Yelena and I corralled like pros, learned some interesting facts (when striking a tree and presumably anything else, lightning is as hot as the sun!), and some sad ones.

Which brings me back to the morons.

There are some beautiful petroglyphs at Keyhole Sink which have been appreciated by the public for a good number of years. A few months ago, vandals defaced them with graffiti, altering a historic piece of art and royally pissing off Neil. After a lot of different approaches and many, many hours, Neil and some others determined that the best way to remove the spray-paint without destroying the petroglyphs was to melt the paint off the wall with some well-placed fire. With the help of a professional restorer, a drip torch, and following days of tedious work, Neil was able to return the Keyhole Sink petroglyphs to much of their former glory.

As for the morons, some advice: Don’t let Neil catch you.

Photos: 1. Rachel coring a tree 2. Neil talking about the Keyhole Sink petroglyphs