www.singingfalls.com/seine

09/17/2008: Yesterday's fish access survey went very well. Something that always surprises me is the unique ability of trees to survive in the harshest of situations. When I find an unusual statement made by a tree I always take note of it. The most recent image titled "Will to Live" is a classic example. This old growth snag was found in a BLM clear cut area. You can imagine the size of the trees that were extracted from this acreage. During the 1980's millions upon millions of board feet of old growth forest were removed from the Western US. It was the climax of tree removal from ancient forests that began slowly in the 1850's but accelerated exponentially during WW II and burst into a frenzied pace during the housing boom years of the 80's. The devastation is almost incomprehensible. What remains of this massive harvest in Douglas County Oregon is 585 thousand acres of relatively young trees set to go up in flames in a catastrophic fire. The regrowth is generally a monoculture of the Douglas Fir species. Some stands were planted into pine. The forest is not healthy and these stands really need to be precommercially and commercially thinned to avoid another ecological disaster.

Time flies. It's the 25th already and still no blog posted. I'm on the home stretch of the fish access survey. Hopefully things will wrap up in the middle of next week and I can begin to focus on the much needed attention toward things here on the homestead.

Tonight is the DCFC (Douglas County Forest Council) meeting. Keeping up to date on the "Fast Pyrolysis" project and legislative issues centered on the forest. Touchy subject for me at the moment that I will address here in the future.