The evidence

OK, I know my post about the weird disease plaguing trees here in Salem may have seemed a little far fetch. You are skeptics, and I can understand that. So, I decided I needed to provide proof. Photographic evidence.

The photo here is completely unretouched. It hasn't been tampered with in any way. Just downloaded straight from the camera. I didn't even do any color correction. I merely resized it for viewing online.

You may note in the photo that there are some leaves that are still green, but the red-leaf disease is attacking even those leaves from the outside edges inward. I admire that little green patch for fighting off the invasion, but alas I fear it is a lost cause.

I noticed more dead leaf soldiers littering the ground today. The bed of my truck had several rotting corpses in it as well.

Alas, photosynthesis has ended.

This may be a plot to rob the Willamette Valley of vital oxygen.

I stopped at the newsstand and bought copies of the Salem Statesman Journal* and the Oregonian today. Still no stories on this plague. KGW Channel 8 didn't have anything on this scourge on the evening news either. Apparently Dumsters on sidewalks in Portland was a bigger story than scads of trees seemingly dying for no reason.

We never had such a thing in Palm Springs. Oh sure, sometimes the fronds on the palm trees would wither and die, giving the trees a distinctive bushy skirt (unless of course they were hacked off by landscapers). But they stubbornly hung on until blown off in high winds or torched off by flames if they got too close to powerlines. And even then the older dying fronds were replaces by new, young, vibrant growth.

I saw no signs of new growth on the infected trees.

Toto, I don't think we are in the desert anymore.

The investigation continues. More updates may be coming as warranted. Unless... the tree killer tracks me down and uses some devious or violent means to silence me.

* Update (7:07 a.m.) OK, so the Statesman Journal ruined my rant about a media conspiracy and had a story this morning about fall foliage. Killjoys.

Fall foliage