{"id":938,"date":"2007-11-27T01:44:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-27T01:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=938"},"modified":"2014-10-01T03:30:29","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:30:29","slug":"where-everything-is-smaller-than-usual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=938","title":{"rendered":"Where everything is smaller than usual"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Firstly, get out your granny glasses because the type on this page has gone all wonky again. Why does Blogger do that?<\/p>\n

In addition to the fire tower incident on Friday, I finally drove far enough south to see some of the damage from the Warren Grove fire<\/a> back in May. There’s a gunnery range there and well… an F-16 dropped a flare during target practice that set fire to 15,000 acres or so. Oops! It all ended well, with no one hurt, and the pines got a taste of fire again.<\/p>\n

I took this pic along Rt. 539 and you can sort of get an idea of what the pine plains are like – those are dwarf pines growing in the distance – stunted and twisted from the d<\/span>ry, sandy, nutrient-poor soil to reach no more than 10 feet tall, but mostly they’re shorter. The trees grow so closely together so as to be impenetrable, but here or there is a way in.<\/p>\n

It’s worth looking for an opening because there’s a subtle beauty to the plains. There’s pleasure in the absence of people and the stillness. The soil underfoot crunches with reindeer lichen and if you\"\"<\/span><\/a>‘re patient enough to look for it, there’s bearberry, a neat little arctic plant that stayed behind when the ice retreated.<\/p>\n

I didn’t spend very much time that day, mostly I was in a hurry to be somewhere else, but it was a worthwhile detour. I think my favorite time to visit the dwarf pines is in the middle of winter with a cover of snow and the company of a few chickadees searching the pine cones for a tasty morsel.
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Firstly, get out your granny glasses because the type on this page has gone all wonky again. Why does Blogger do that? In addition to the fire tower incident on Friday, I finally drove far enough south to see some of the damage from the Warren Grove fire back in May. There’s a gunnery range … Continue reading Where everything is smaller than usual<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}