Off to Phoenix and the Southwest

There will be a hiatus in these posts while Kathie and I travel to Phoenix to have Christmas with our adult children.

But we'll be doing a little "business" on this Phoenix trip as we intend to visit some interesting oak savanna areas in mountain ranges on the Arizona/New Mexico/Old Mexico border. This is an area called the "Sky Islands", where mountain ranges shoot up from very dry desert. As the tourist brochures say: "Lush mountain islands float above desert seas..." Mountain ranges such as the Chiricahuas, Dragoons, Pinalenos, Peloncillos, and Tumacacori's, represent about one-fourth of more than forty Sky Islands that make up the region.

There has been considerable research in recent years on the use of prescribed fire to manage these savanna areas. Hopefully, we will be able to see some of the burn units. The species of oaks are completely different than what we have in the Midwest. The principal oak is gambel oak (Quercus gambelli), which is considered the "white oak" of the southwest.