View from the Office

We're marking timber again in the Sierra this week.  For these tours, I have been renting a car in southern Utah and driving it to the Glen Meadow Work Center near Shaver Lake, CA.  The first time I did it, the rental company "upgraded" me to a Hyundai Sonata.  Knowing nothing about the car, I didn't consider it much of a benefit.  I was wrong.  That was a very nice car.  Being something of a ludite, I had no idea that all that was possible in a car.  I called my brother-in-law to tell him about this thing called satellite radio:  "You can hear Waylon, and Willie, and Johnny Cash, and Hank Jr. all at the same time."  My brother-in-law just laughed.  I guess I wasn't the first person to tell him about Sirius XM.

Anyway, for this trip I got the economy car that I requested.  It is a Mazda 2.  (I'd hate to see the Mazda 1.)  The car has a motor the size of my laptop.  It has no leg room, no cruise control, and no tilt wheel.  It does, however, have air conditioning, which was just barely adequate for me as I crossed the Mojave.  By the time I limped into Tehachapi nursing an empty tank and a worried mind, I was feeling worse than Tom Joad after his nocturnal run from Needles.  Unfortunately for Tom, things didn't get any better for him after he reached Bakersfield.  Fortunately for me, I've gone to work in the woods every day in a 1 ton Chev.

Beer and Bullets

In the places where I live and work, target shooting is a popular pastime.  There are a number of old dumps and gravel pits where gunfire can be heard most weekends.  And, as everyone knows, the thing that goes best with shooting is beer.  First, because it gives you something to drink; second, because the empties give you something at which to shoot.  Then, when you're done, you jump in your truck and roar back to town.

On Monday morning, when the gravel pit is cool and quiet, I like to go out there and listen to the canyon wrens.  As I walk, I pick up beer cans.  When I come to a pile of casings, I stoop down and put those in a bag.  Sometimes, when working, I'll come to an unexpected party place.  For a few minutes I'll put beer cans in my pack and casings in my pocket.  At the end of the month, when Valerie is heading to her parent's house in Cedar City, I'll throw all the trash in the truck and she'll cash it in at the recycling place.  Rifle brass is worth 90 cents a pound; aluminum about half that.

If you keep your eyes peeled for beer and bullets, you can make between $10 and $20 per month.  (I shouldn't put this on my blog because I may write myself out of a job.  On the other hand, who is going to spend their time picking up trash?  I hope my reader has better things to do with his time.)  But, there are a couple of rules to be observed.  First, be safe and be courteous.  The roadsides can be trashy, but it can also be dangerous to stop in traffic.  Also, you don't want to be going around at classy cocktail parties saying to people, "Ah, are you done with that?"  Second, don't go driving around looking for trash; pick it only when you're doing something else.  If you go driving up the hill looking for cans, you're going to spend more on fuel than you're going to earn.  Pick trash only when you've already invested in the trip for another reason.

The girls have picked up (no pun intended) on my habit, and we've let Ellen start her own trash collection to earn a little spare cash.  Now, when I'm driving down the road, she'll keep an eye in the ditch and start yelling out "CANS!"  If it is safe, I'll pull over and let her grab them.  She is, of course, required to be courteous:  No swiping the beer can from someone's hand.

Red Flag Warning

During the summer, we experience numerous Red Flag Warnings in southern Utah.  These warnings are posted by the National Weather Service and signify that we are entering a period of critical fire weather conditions.  In other words, stand by for hot, dry, and windy.  The NWS has posted such a warning for today.  The trouble is that summer has not even started.  The other problem is that summer started a month ago.  That is, the calendar shows one thing and the conditions show another.  At The Homestead our last appreciable rain came on 18 May, so we've already gone a month without moisture.  And the wind . . . we've had strong wind nearly every day.  The heat and the sun can be hard on our gardens and tree plantings, but the desiccating wind is worse.  It is under these conditions that the violence of the ancient King David's curse in Psalm 11 takes on real meaning for me:  "a scorching wind will be their lot."

Wildlife

I just returned to southern Utah after 21 days in the Sierra.  While working there I had many wildlife encounters:  I heard the coyotes, saw two bears cross my path, and was startled repeatedly in the woods by quail.  None of this, however, was as vexing as the varmint population with which I cohabitated.  Indeed, it was much more dangerous indoors than out.  I killed one mouse inside my rental car, for example.  Another mouse I killed in the shower by whacking it with a toilet cleaning brush.  But, the mice were nothing compared to the spiders.  I had them in my bed, in my sink, in my clothes.  After the first sleepless night, this is what I wrote:

"For this tour it looks as though I'll be bunking in the barracks at the Glen Meadow Work Center.  The building assigned to me is really just a grungy double-wide set up something like a college dorm . . . only dirtier.  I moved into a room on the end of the building and evicted three or four small spiders that I found there.  I was exhausted from a 12 hour drive, so I immediately pulled out my sleeping bag and got settled.  As my eyes closed, however, I noticed a spider on the ceiling above me.  Now, I'm not one to exaggerate spider sizes like others do—well, my sister, for one—so you can believe me when I say that this thing was the size of a 50-cent piece.  For a moment, I wondered if the Sierra had tarantulas—it was that big.  Anyway, I got up and grabbed a wad of paper towel.  My plan was to make one quick grab—pin it, squish it, and remove it all at once.  I got into position and struck.  Hard.  The thing about spiders, as with other wildlife, is that you don't want them to know you're afraid, so you have to move with confidence.  My aim was perfect.  I had, however, failed to account for the flimsiness of the drop ceiling.  As my hand hit it, the ceiling tile lifted, retracting upward and blunting the force of my blow.  The movement of the tile also provided the monster with space for retreat:  It pulled back into the ceiling.  I let the tile drop and managed to pin the spider between the asbestos and the frame.  Unfortunately, every time I tried to jab at it again, I only managed to shift the tile such that the spider could pull further into the ceiling.  Finally, there were just a couple of legs showing, and, eventually, even those were gone.  I had, apparently, wounded the animal, while failing completely in my attempt to remove it.  The only thing worse than sleeping beneath a giant spider is sleeping beneath an angry giant spider.  It haunted my dreams."

V-Day Redux

My reader will remember that back in May, I found a Valentines Day balloon while out hiking near Parowan.  This week, I've noticed several of those aluminum foil party favors in the Sierras.  In fact, I have seen more of them here than anywhere else I've been.  I found the smiley face last week and the Patriot's helmet today.  One of my local colleagues told me that Fresno is directly upwind and that all its airborn trash finds its way into this part of the forest.  That reminded me of the dollar I found tied to my V-day balloon, and I told him about it.  Without missing a beat he said, "You should have bought a lottery ticket with it."  Well, Utah doesn't have a lottery, but he does have a point.  On my way to California, I should have stopped in Vegas and thrown down at the $1 poker table.  It could have been the end of all my troubles.

Big Trees

This week we're marking timber in the Sierras.  The marking guides have a 30 inch diameter limit.  Now, in southern Utah, that wouldn't mean much because 30 inch trees are rare.  In the Sierras, however, 30 inch trees are common.  In fact, 50 inch trees are common.  The twin red fir trees pictured above are 54 inches (left) and 52 inches (right) in diameter.  Even if you could grow trees that big in southern Utah, it might take around 500 years or so.  In the Sierra, you can do it in 200 or less.  Count the rings in the picture below, and you'll see what I mean.

Before I left southern Utah, my friend Vern told me wistfully that I would see 60 inch ponderosas and Jeffrey pines in the Sierras.  This last picture (below) is for you, Vern.  The Jeffrey pine at the rear, with the D-tape, is 64 inches in diameter.