To fight the spread of the emerald ash borer, the Department of Agriculture is asking us all to sign the “Don’t Move Firewood” Pledge. Unlike the Republican caucus’s loyalty oath, this pledge doesn’t require us to keep any secrets; it simply asks that we join the fight against the creeping scourge of emerald ash borers by promising not to haul firewood from place to place. Burn it where you buy it!
Like the Republican loyalty oath, we do get a chance at campaign gifts—oops! camping gifts: sign the pledge before June 30, and the Department of Agriculture will include your name in a drawing for camping gear! The Department offers no specs or pix on “The Perfect Camping Set,” but if the state is offering free sleeping bags, a tent, and campfire cookware, I’m not going to be particular. No firewood crossing the state in my Beetle, I promise!
Department of Agriculture Secretary Kim Vanneman expresses her strong commitment to protecting South Dakota’s trees and sends a strong signal to Aberdeen municipal candidates Travis Schaunaman and Josh Rife that their anti-arboreal rhetoric is out of step with the Noem Administration:
“Trees are an extremely important part of our communities, farms, and ranches and we at the Department of Agriculture want to do everything in our power to protect our trees across the state,” she said. “Therefore, we urge every South Dakotan to join us and take the pledge to not move untreated firewood” [Bob Mercer, “South Dakota Officials Want People to Pledge Not to Move ‘Raw’ Firewood,” KELO-TV, 2019.05.13].
Of course, if you really want to vex the Aberdeen tree-haters and join Secretary Vanneman’s pro-tree movement, you could camp without firewood altogether. Cook dinner over a camp stove (I’ve got my canteen ring and a box of trioxane bars!), reduce your greenhouse emissions, and hug a tree goodnight under the undimmed stars before curling up in your state-issued sleeping bag.
p.s.: The state’s emerald ash borer website also includes a page for reporting suspicious beetles (no, not mine). So far, Governor Noem is not offering any bounties for beetle tails.
Two years ago I had an ash borer that liveved and died in my belly button for two weeks. It was a nasty bit of business.
“Burn it where you buy it!”
Can we burn the unSouth Dakotan SDGOP loyalty oath?
Blindman is DFP Poet Laureate. And that position has been retired in his honor.
[Porter, Blindman, take your personal dispute elsewhere.]
Blindman, didn’t you watch The Matrix? When you feel something like that, you get Trinity to come by with her big bug sucker!