Thought For the Day

[MountainDon]

Many green people do not consider concrete green -- way too much embodied energy.  As far as wood use -- I have way more than I could ever burn.....   :-/

I don't know about the eastern forests much, but virtually all the western forests are in sad need of some real maintenance, ... not just putting out every fire that starts. It used to be that wildfires would sweep through every so often and clean up the natural state of dead or dying trees. This photo is reasonably typical of the state of the Jemez Mountains forests today. This area was logged in the 30's or 40's and nothing much done since then. No fires, no nothing. You can hardly walk through the woods without tripping or being in danger of tripping a "snag" and having it fall on you or somebody else. A lot of that wood on the ground will still make decent firewood, there's a lot of standing dead as can be seen. It takes a lot of time and effort to clean it up... or let a wildfire rip through.


A disaster waiting to happen

[glenn-k]

You are right, Don, but our criminals and greedy power mongers in office have made it a criminal act to attempt to clean it up without paying them a protection tax of one kind or another.  My dad was fined for removing a dead log for firewood, that was slightly over the line on property logged next to his - in fact they illegally logged part of his.  

The local criminal forest ranger even asked to cross my dad's property to inspect the log then fine him.

[MountainDon]

Wow! The politics of it all must vary from location to location, state to state, or something. Here the forestry people are all too glad to have any landowner cleanup the deadfall and standing dead and do whatever else is necessary to reduce the fire danger. And no fees involved either.    

[glenn-k]

I guess even under similar rules you can have your crooked little power mongers who with an accomplice in the justice department, and they can pull in a tidy little sum to show the public just how valuable they are.

Oregon is a police state anyway.  One good cop I knew there had to quit as he couldn't stand the corruption -- it wasn't his style.  He was a good neighbor.

[MountainDon]

The local forest supervisor is a good down to earth man, not a typical bureaucrat. He's a hands on landowner, one of my neighbors.

[peg_688]

Yanno up here at the tree hugger school I attended some years back with the grandkids 5th grade class , they leave down trees in these forest up here , they callum nurse logs , the new lil tres grow right outta the downed tree , so ain a old growth forest , a Fir forest downed trees are part of the deal and trees tend to grown in lines as they follow the nurse log .

Also all the trees play a part the vine maples provide shade , the cedars are next and then the Firs come thru last and  have thick bark at the base to protect them selve from fire , a real wraped up eco system all in all.  

Some of that is backwards and other types of trees are in the mix , just what I remember , sort of of the cuff.  

[MountainDon]

We're leaving some downed trees on the lower south slopes. They'll also act as water brakes or whatever you'd call them, to prevent erosion. These mountains have too many small tress as a rule. I've seen areas where the FS has gone thru and in a 10' x 10 area cut 100 small, 1 to 3" saplings out. The one thing I don't want on my land are standing dead, I've already almost been in the wrong place at the wrong time on a windy day. Branch missed my head, but hit the corner of my eye glasses hard enough to bend the flexy frames past there flex point. They didn't break but sure weren't wearable. Cool thing was the optomotrist tech was able to apply some magic and straighten them.

[Amanda_931]

Big difference between the PNW temperate rain forest where you find--and need--the nurse logs. and the mountains of the Southwest with pines.

Or here (and where I grew up in North Carolina) with planted monoculture loblolly pines.  

[MountainDon]

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.
-Dave Barry

and

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
-Dave Barry

[glenn kangiser]

Believing that we have a government and that somehow it can be resurrected and made to work for us is not only delusional, but makes the believer of the illusion part of the very problem she/he purports to solve.

Collapse, sudden or gradual, is upon us. It's Independence Day, and we have no government.

http://carolynbaker.org/archives/happy-independence-dayyou-have-no-government-by-carolyn-baker

[John_C]

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
-Dave Barry

This was recently sent to me.  Seems appropriate here...

A Short History Of Beer And The Wheel

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals
2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girliemen.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef welldone. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.

Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are engineers, IT persons, big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history. It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to tick them off.

[glenn kangiser]

Wow -- glad I'm an anarchist.

[Sassy]

[Colin Powell] - "Finding the Russian scientists may be a problem being that Russia does not have a Social Security System, as here in America, that allows us to MONITOR, TRACK DOWN and CAPTURE an American citizen."

http://lonelantern.org/site/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=114

[PEG688]

All this thinkin makin me tired , Gad nite

[glenn kangiser]

Rough thoughts there for the day.  :-/

[Sassy]

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear." --Marcus Tullius Cicero 42B.C.

[MountainDon]

A Short History Of Beer And The Wheel

That was a good one John C    

[glenn kangiser]

Garden tip from About.com

Traditional wisdom says harvest your corn the day before the raccoons do.

[PEG688]

Traditional wisdom says harvest your corn the day before the raccoons do.

Or have a great coon hound called Smoke  

[glenn kangiser]

I could many times use one of those, PEG.

[glenn-k]

"When you're stupid, it's for a long time."  

[Sassy]

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
-- Thomas Jefferson

[MountainDon]

Our third President, Jefferson was probably the greatest advocate of liberty this country has ever had.

[MountainDon]

Why do you have to "put your two cents in".. but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?

[fourx]

"" my two bob's worth"" it used to be here, per-decimal currancy. Two bob was two shillings. As for where the penny went, ""spend a penny"" was a polite term for a trip to the toilet- public toilet stalls had a door which needed a penny dropped in the slot to unlock it....A penny for your thoughts in that context gives a whole new meaning to Rodins The Thinker statue