Column by Hal Walter
Mounain Life – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
IT WAS A VICTIM of the drought. That much must be understood.
The smallish ponderosa pine, maybe 20 feet tall, had turned brown over the last two years, then dropped nearly all of its needles. Its upper branches showed telltale signs of porcupine gnawing. And I had begun to eye it as firewood.