ForbesOnTech

2008 California Salmon Season Cancelled--Major Bummer

In addition to $3.50 per gallon gas, and the fact that when I tow my boat behind my massively manly Toyota V6 4Runner I get about 9 miles to the gallon, here’s another damn reason why I won’t be going up north to fish for salmon later this Spring: fishing for salmon in California’s coastal waters has been cancelled this year see here.

            This is the first time in my memory when an entire salmon season in all of California’s coastal waters has been cancelled. The decision to close California’s coastal salmon fishery was made early this week and follows a federal closure of the salmon fishery that extends 200 miles from the coast, the edge of our international maritime boundary.

            A decision to close the inland Central and Northern California 2008 salmon season will not be made until early May. However the inland waters season is likely to be cancelled as well, according to reports in today’s Sacramento Bee.

            The reason for the closure is to protect remaining stocks of wild salmon that migrate up stream to their natal inland waterways to spawn and then die.

            Commercial and sport salmon fishing is a multimillion-dollar industry in California and over the last several years the number and size of salmon caught by commercial and sport fishermen alike has declined. Likewise, the number of wild Chinook (aka King) salmon counted by Fish and Game biologists, passing through fish ladders on the Sacramento River and its tributaries, has also fallen.

            As a sport fisherman who really enjoys chasing salmon off the Golden Gate, or further North off the Humboldt Coast, I have very mixed feelings about the salmon fishing closure.  On one hand, I will really miss tussling a slab sided King to the side of my boat, however, taking the pressure off the remaining salmon stocks for one or two seasons may result in my being able to catch free running wild salmon at a later date.

            I do feel sorry for members of the commercial salmon fishing fleet on the San Francisco coast. Until the albacore appear late this summer, there’s just no way they can make any money.—Jim Forbes 04/15/2008/

Thoughts on Fishies and Dams Plus Video of the Glenn Canyon Big Water Release

I come from a long straight line of surveyors and other professionals who played witgh, mapped, moved or otherwise mad a living with dirt. Part of that tradition is an appreciation and fascination with structures that have been built to store water.

To this day, I consider dams examples of engineering prowess and the absolute proof of many things trigonometric. When I pass by a dam, my natural reaction is to stop and look at it’s face and glass the pools and downstream flows for the reflected flash of jumping trout or the dark torpedo shapes hovering at the base of rills or small natural falls. Driving past the lakes created by dams, I look for signs of fish on the water and try to locate confluences of fast flowing natural streams with the dam’s corresponding lake.

But as much as I love dams, the radical trout and salmon fishermen at the core of my soul recognizes that horrific impact dams have had on riparian habitats that were once clogged with spring run steelhead, fall run king salmon and year-round abundant stocks of wild trout. At MaForbes’ house in my ancestral home in Azusa is a photo of her family when she was a girl of about three. The photo was taken in the San Gabriel canyon at a spot now covered by the millions of cubic yards of earth and stone that form the San Gabriel dam. On a stringer held up by my grandfather, William Sele and his brother, Jim (who patriotically changed his name from “Otto” to Jim during the first World War) Sele are about seven 25-inch or longer king salmon, a couple of silver salmon, three bodacious steelheads and several fine messes of native rainbow trout -- a couple of which appear to have been old enough to develop proganthic, undershot, hooked jaws. It’s one of the most spectacular fishing shots I’ve ever seen and it was taken on my beloved East Fork, before it’s two dams were built.

While I enjoy looking at dams I do not like their effect on trout and salmon populations. Put a dam on a river and watch the trout disappear with the seasonal river flows.

Hey, I recognize this makes me a curmudgeonly fishermen here in the land of the great Cadillac Desert. I’m willing to live with that as long as I can still trick the occasional rainbow to hit one of my ancient scraggly flies up on the east fork of the San Gabriel River, where you can still catch wild tail-dancing trout.

But back to dams. One of the real demonstrations of man-induced power is watching a dam keeper open up big 8- or 12-foot release valves and venting thousands of tons of water in a couple of minutes. Growing up in Azusa, I’d see the valves open up at the bottom of Morris Dam every couple of years, generally during or after rainstorms. For a brief couple of days, the water release would bring the San Gabriel’s River bed back to life-- for a bit.

This week the operators of the Glenn Canyon dam on the Colorado river opened up their primary release valves in an effort to flush silt from portions of the Colorado River. The video of this is so impressive I thought I would post it tonight. So…without further ado here’s what happens when you crack open a big dam’s release valves:

here

Free the native Mojave Chub and the humpback fish!

Somewhere down stream from that dam the fishes are screaming: “Yippee” as they ride the tidal wave down to the next dam on the Colorado River.--Jim Forbes, on 02/05/2008, rod and real ready for a trip up the East Fork, later this week.

Gates Foundation Commits to Basic Ag Science Funding-- Aim Is Small Farms in Developing Countries

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Moves Fund Research in Small Scale Farming

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said.CNN story here

Once again, Bill Gates finds a base level solution providing strong vectors that help solve many key problems. In this case it’s a commitment to work on solving world hunger by improving small farm agrcutural methods in developing countries.

If you want to build, stronger, smarter citizens you must firzt have a basic level of agrculture technology to provide enough sufficient nutritional and caloric intake. Funding specialized research into agricultural technologies and products as well as educational institutions that enable all of this is an important evolutionary step in these overall processes.

In looking around at topics in the coming conference season, I was struck by Gates’ position on funding agriculture in developing countries. How does this compare in  importance to say a discussion of technology opportunities in Sharan Africa, West Africa or the Horn of Africa? Before you have techno0logy centers, you need people who are capable of feeding themselves and producing basic surplusses.

        Without such basic ingredients in developing countries you have conditions leading to wars over agriculturally or water rich territories or famine on a bibical scale.

The importance of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding agricultural research for small farms in developing countries?

        Some things are so self evident they need not be argued.

        That’s my screed for the week—Jim Forbes 01/25/2008

(mandatory disclosure. I am a graduate of an agricultural  and technology college as well as the direct descendant of female farmer from Western Colorado. That woman, my maternal grandmother, Ella Sherrod Forbes,  lost her husband to anthrax, then moved her family to California but instilled a love of the land and agriculture that exists in her lineage to this day.jmf)

My favorite Steelhead Spot May get Closed--Damn Treble hook Draggers!

click here for Sacramento Bee story

The (California) State Fish and Game Commission is set to consider a two-month fishing ban on the lower American River. If approved at the commission's February meeting, it would mark the first such ban along that stretch of river in years.

The ban would interrupt steelhead trout season in full swing along one of the region's most popular fishing spots

The Northern California Council, a branch of the national Federation of Fly Fishers, is asking for the ban during February and March, saying the unusually low river levels increase the opportunity for "snagging." Snaggers illegally catch fish by dragging a line through the water until a fish gets hooked, often on its body.

            There’s nothing lower than someone who drags for salmon or steelhead in one of the few stretches of water in California where both species can still be caught easily. And because of these lowlife salmon snagging goat ropers, I will not be able to walk out on the sandy bar that extends from the northern edge of the shore on the American River into the relatively deep water of the Sacramento River to satisfy my obsession for steelhead. It’s at this precise point that king salmon and winter run steelhead trout hang a hard right and fin up the American, past Folsom Prison and into the awaiting pens of the State-run Nimbus hatchery.

The proposed closure is perhaps the most rewarding water in all of California to introduce someone to the idea and discipline of fly fishing for salmon and much rarer steelhead (all of which are members of the family that includes the much more common trout). Over the years, I’ve often smiled at the early morning images of fathers and grandfathers leading younger male and female members of their tribes out onto the sand spit that goes from the north shore of the American River, out into California's mother river, the Sacramento.  What makes this place so special is it’s location. You can park nearby and begin enjoying a first class fishing experience within minutes. But I guess that’s not to be this year

There is very good news in this: first, the numbers of steelhead spawners will go up. Secondly, it alerts “draggers” that the Fish and game has very good binoculars and fast boats. With any luck the closure will slow down illegal fishing practices.

Oh, what’s the difference between a King salmon and a steelhead? I’m so glad you asked.

            A steelhead is a unique adaptation of a rainbow trout. Mother nature has seen fit to build a big ass rainbow that is born in freshwater, but goes to sea. Out in  the Pacific, Steelheads get really big (14-18 pounds is normal and 20 pounds is a gift from God), and if they don’t end up as seal poop, they also get very, very crafty.  Unlike salmon, when a steelhead returns to its natal waters to spawn, it doesn’t die, but rather body surfs its way back to the Pacific where if it survives, it gets bigger and sneakier.

            Although salmon get twice as big as steelhead, there easier to catch.

            Give a man a steelhead and he can feed his family. Show him how and where to catch steelhead and he begins suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  Catching Steelies is that addictive. If you’re lucky enough to hook one you soon discover that it’s like trying to hold a panther in a hurricane. 

California has several great steelhead fisheries: the State Street Bridge at highway 101 in Ukiah; Dos Rios on the Covelo Reservation north of Ukiah, The Matole and Mad Rivers north of Ukiah, inland from highway 101, and the Smith River, near the Oregon border. Surprisingly, Steelhead have not completely disappeared from southern California rivers. Recently, they’ve been observed in natural spawning beds on the Santa Margarita near Camp Pendleton and a few miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean on the Ojai River near Ventura. Steelhead numbers are down, but as long as they can reach good spawning grounds, this species has proven remarkable resilient. Catching steelhead isn’t a hobby, it’s a vocation. It requires attention to presentation of a fly or bait and a thorough knowledge of a given waterway. It also helps if you can take time off from work to begin fishing within seconds of the first moments of opening day. But once you hook and beach your first steelhead, you’re addicted.

I fly fish for steelies but I don’t hold a grudge against family members and friends that use sacks if fresh roe and colored streamers to catch their fish.  I just never let them see or tell them what fly  I’m using. And, I release my steelies for another day and perhaps a new generation of Forbeslings to discover. 

Leave the land as you find it, the fish a little wiser for their encounter with you and laugh at yourself along the way.—Jim Forbes 01/24/2008

 

Part III Wild Land Fire Safety-- It Begins At Home

San Diego Fire Blog Part III

Thoughts On the Edge of the Fire Pit

Like a lot of retiring boomers, I looked forward to selling my over priced house near where I worked (Silicon Valley) and getting a place in the country with a large oak tree for my hammock, and maybe a view out my breakfast nook of a spotted fawn hidden behind green leaves and red brown bark. And while I was at it, maybe I’d plant a tangy Eucalyptus or two for shade and grow my own grapes for artisan crafted big red wines.

Sounds idyllic, right?

What I’ve just described is literally the plans for an organic crematorium.

            Sorry for the contrived lead but after five days of fires on all four sides I wanted to write about something that I was taught back in elementary school in Azusa, CA;

Fire Safety When you live on the Edge of Wild Lands

            When I moved to this house I noticed a previous owner had used indigenous California plants to accentuate his house and lawn. Using native plants for landscaping was quite the trend in the early Seventies, when my house was built.

            The problem with that when you live on the edge of wild lands is that native drought resistant brush = chaparral. Chaparral is made up of three distinct plants that grow wild i what we jokingly call “national forests.” in California  Those plants are mesquite, ornamental madrone (which is actually a type of mesquite), scrub oak and poison oak. Each of those plants has two interesting characteristics: while very much able to survive droughts, their branches and leaves dry up; And, they burn hot enough to melt metal and destroy concrete.

            Don’t believe me, ask the 2,000 or so residents of Oakland Hills who returned after being evacuated to find homes –including the concrete slabs they were built on—completely and utterly burned.

            I have a simple rule about chaparral anywhere near my house.  I use a tractor to pull it out by its roots. A Wind driven, chaparral fueled, fire generates enormous amounts of burning embers that can travel a mile or so to start new spot fires.  Although my house was not damaged in the Witch Creek fire here in Escondido, five houses up the street at the base of my hill burned to their foundations.

            And on early Tuesday I got a lttle freaked when I thought I smelled hot plastic. As soon as I recognized the smell I jumped up, yelled “Holy Shit,. The boat!” I jogged out to the boat port, the oor got stronger and I looked closely at its deck. Right there where it’s gas tank normally sits but which I removed earlier, was a small melted depression with a  black piece of charcoal in the middle. I don’t have a degree in fire science, but I recognized the piece of charcoal as being manzanita. The closest surviving stand of which is two blocks away.

            As I kid, growing up in Azusa, I learned about the dangers of chaparral fires in the fourth and fifth grades. At about the same time they warned us never to play with blasting caps or railroad torpedo signaling devices. I’ve never forgotten those lessons, but judging from the damage I’ve seen on the news here in San Diego, basic wild land fire safety is no longer taught in public or private schools.

            It should be.

            Two of my best friends live today in the Gold Country in El Dorado County near Sacramento. Both have untended chaparral near their houses. I suspect that the next time I go up to visit, I’ll rent a tractor, bull doze and remove their stands of crematory fuel.

            I believe that the best approach to fire safety around my house is a nice lawn and water filled succulents, I don’t mind mowing my lawn but I do mind losing my house to a fire. When I realized that the nearby hills could burn this week— I raked, bagged up and removed my compost pile and took a long hard look at the properties that adjoin my mountaintop. I began saturating the citrus and avocado trees and got rid of the flammable detritus nesting against the fence that separates my neighbor’s untended five-acre field from my lot.

            The whole process took only abot four hours and afterwards I was pretty satisfied that my place, and I, was safe.

            I try to respect my neighbors. But their idea of a picturesque view that includes manzanita hedges and light tan, dried wild wheat, makes me think of me as a charcoaled curled up hot dog sizzling on a BBQ.

            Prior to the fire season last year, I took my tractor to my neighbor’s field and cleared a 200-foot fire break on her side of the property. She didn’t like it and said that she probably had “liability issues” with my using the tractor to clear the field to bare mineral earth.

            I mentioned that if I burned because of her untended fire trap field, my heirs and assignees could probably “turn her field into a nice 15-home development, yielding a couple of million in profits!”

            She took my point and I’ve since cut her field twice, for free. The neighbor and I are on very good terms today. I drop of an occasional bag of yellowtail or halibut steaks and try to give her strawberries from my patch. We laugh about my cutting her field the first time and she’s come around on fire safety.

            I love living on the edge of wild lands a great deal. But living here involves stewardship of the land and an understanding of basic fire safety.

            My final thought is about something that you see down here in upscale communities that I really don’t get. Shake shingle roofing.

Good God, why not just douse your house in nitro methane and throw a road flare on it. That anyone would have a shake roof after the 2003 fire is beyond my comprehension. And that the county building and fire departments have not cited home owners with flammable shake roofs is a condition I just don’t understand.

            Fire takes three things: fuel, air and heat.  Reduce the impact of any one of its three components and you live another day.  Enhance key elements of the fire triangle like fuel or heat and you can lose your home, your life, and really hurt your loved ones.

I have to mention my respect and admiration for the wild lands firefighters of the State of California and the USDA’s Forestry Service hotshot crews. Houses and lives have been lost but without their gritty efforts this fire season could have been much worse.

            And, to the volunteers of the Calvan Christian High School who volunteered to set up an emergency overflow evacuation center here in Escondido you reinforced my respect for all people of faith. You also made a big difference for several thousand of your fellow residents here in town.

Jim “Joad”  Forbes from smoky Escondido on 10/26/2007. Now back to blogging about portable computing, organic gardening, technology and fishing at the same bat channel and the same bat time.

Fire Blogging, A Refugee's Observations and Why I Love my Ultra Portable and Verizon Broadband

The “prepare to evacuate order” came by phone at 9 a.m. this gray ultra smoky morning.  So, off I went through the house rounding up my two useless cats, and my bug-eyed road buddy Perro, making sure I loaded cat food, cans of Mighty Dog and sundry bedding for my pets, just in case I had to abandon my home here on a little mountain top in Escondido. I also made sure  my X60 notebook with its WWAN Verizon data network was charged and in the back of my trusty little Prius, along with my cell phone and “get out of town in a hurry bag.”

By 11 am, the visibility was down to less than one-quarter mile and a second fire had erupted down by Lake Hodges, which is south of me.  The main blaze however is less than one mile away and it’s being supercharged by 55 mph Santa Ana winds.

            First and foremost I am fire aware southern California boy. So right after the first notification came in, I fired up the tractor and cleared a 100by 75-foot safety spot away from my house. I cleared everything down to BME (bare mineral earth, then moved my SUV to the its separate safety spot and covered my boat’s 6 gallon gas tank and my two-gallon gas can in a potato mound I excavated this weekend. Then I covered it with a shake and bake fire blanket and soaked my garden, hastily picking up blown down palm fronds that have come off my 70 foot palm tree in the windstorm. 

            The big out call came from the police department around 1 p.m. so I loaded up my useless cats and my road dog and off I went to an evacuation center at the north end of Escondido. I stayed there until about 6 tonight and decided to haul ass for Azusa, where I know my dog and useless cats will be safe for the night.

As I write this the eastern and southern sky are cherry red and the smoke is pretty intense. I’ve thought a lot about what’s left up at the house. My gianty ag water canons are hooked up and on a timer.  At 8:30 tonight they’ll start soaking my lower yard and the front of my house.  There’s a lot to be said for having 135 PSI water pressure. Well at least, if the fire gets to my house, I’ll come home to some nice black sooty mud.

            My attitude about fleeing my house is simple: other than my pets, I don’t have anything I can’t replace. Been there done that in life. But I may appear like some grizzled super salty vet, I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that I’m very afraid of being seriously burned, again. I was burned pretty seriously as a kid. I had 3^rd degree burns on about 50 percent of my legs.  The pain is something you have to experience to believe. It’s quite unforgettable.

            So I don’t take chances with fire. If the Witch Creek fire takes my house, I can always rebuild. I can’t replace my buddy Perro or my two useless cats, so I keep them close at hand and safe.

            But I wanted to write tonight about some things I observed at the evacuation center and by watching local and regional media (particularly a.m.talk radio). The evacuation center had a computer room set up. It was filled to overflowing with kids, playing interactive games. Not one kid has his browser parked on the local newspapers web site, or on websites belonging to any of the San Diego news radio stations. Had it been me, I would have put a responsible kid in front of a computer with strict orders to relay any news to the 2,000 or so of us at the evacuation center. There was almost no incoming news prior to 630 p.m, so I pulled out my cell and called the North County Times and got in touch with the deputy M.E., explaining who I was and asking what news they had. I was particularly interested in what routes out of Escondido were open since I-15 has been closed all day and th east west arterials to I-5 were also closed because of the more than half dozen fires raging down here now.

            I can’t begin to say how much I don’t like being in a valley surrounded on three sides by fire with no surface routes out of here. Hey if I were a reporter working the fire story, the second set of questions I would have asked the highway patrol commander is “when do you expect to allow traffic through and what exit routes are open?” It took until 6:15 tonight for the local Fox station in San Diego to get their traffic reporter to say “ yes, you can get out northbound, isfyou take I-15 to the Pala exit east to the Pala Casino, then turn left on Temecula Road and take it north to the big casino in Temecula where you can get on I-15 north again.”

            But back to the process of being an evacuee: The volunteers at the overflow evacuation center I was directed to were incredible. They provided treats. Chilled beverages, water and hope to the 2,000 or so people who were there, and who ate dinner and spent the night on the gymnasium’s floor. I mean I can’t praise them enough. They put on nice spaghetti feed and provided games and television for kids and adults.  And no pet at the evacuation center went without water and at least a knish and a reaffirming stroke between their ears.

            With the one exception of the San Diego AM radio fox affiliate, the new has been incredibly superficial. There have been almost no details on what routes are open or how to get to the Fallbrook Gate of Camp Pendleton to drive across the base and get on I-5, which is open to Los Angeles. But there has been a lot of sniveling from one specific radio talk show host, Roger Hedgecock on the lack of air tanker support for the San Diego firestorm. Never mind that the winds make it unsafe for tankers to fly, or that the voters of San Diego turned down a bond measure that would have provided organic air tanker support in 2003. The bond was turned down because it would have increased taxes. Well D’oh!

            The inability or unwillingness of AM radio to provide detailed information on the status of communities effected by the fires in San Diego is one of the most damning comments that can be made about talk radio today. There are more than 200,000 residents of this county that have been evacuated to centers tonight and all talk and news radio can do is provide superficial overviews of fire status and not one scintilla of granular detail.

            It’s enough to make me weep. Or maybe that’s just the particulate solids in the smoke filled air tonight in San Diego County.         

            Well, I’ve got to tend to my grove and then set my alarm clock for midnight, to make sure that my mountaintop is still safe.

            To my friends and family that read my sometimes odd ramblings; every one is tucked in and safe, here on my little mountaintop in rural northern San Diego County where I can move my water canons by the fiery light of the Witch Creek Fire. Cough cough, Jim Forbes on 10/22/2007.

Thank God for Great Portable Computers and Persistent Connectivity.

            I literally never go anywhere without my ThinkPad X60 convertible notebook. It’s become such an integral part of my life that I now automatically keep it charged when its noit in use so it’s always ready to go.

            Tonight, at an evacuation center I booted it up and quickly bought a $15 day pass on the Verizon broadband network to get up to the minute news on the fires that surround the little town where I live (Escondido ,CA).

            Arriving at the evacuation center I was pleased to see that they had set up a “computer room” with a wireless network.  My pleasure quickly turned to anger after I noticed that the room was filled with unsupervised kids playing games on the computers.  Not one of the youngsters was checking web sites for fire information. So, I sat down with a cup of coffee and checked road closures on the Cal Tran web site as well as looked for bulletins on my local paper’s web site.

            Cutting and pasting information into a Google Docs document, I wandered over to the information board and had someone—a teacher who worked at the school which was the over flow evacuation center to which I had been directed —write the updates on an information bulletin board. My handwriting is illegible; her’s was schoolmarm perfect.

            I’m writing this on my trusty X60 tablet now. It has about four hours of battery life remaining and I my day pass on Verizon is good until tomorrow night.  Me, my notebook and persistent wireless connectivity, it doesn’t get any better and it makes me feel all snuggly safe, as I watch a crimson sky through incredibly thick smoke. So here I am, same bat time, same bat channel_ JMF

Web-based Eco Indulgences-- Does It get any Better?

It’s too bad Pope Leo X didn’t have Pay Pal, e-commerce engines or even a primitive version of the Ubernet. Just think what he could have done to forestall the Reformation, or the birth of Confessional Lutherans.

            I can just imagine Leo’s Holy See Spam:  30 percent off name brand indulgences, “click here”; or Get Viagra and “Pay As You Grow Indulgences.”

            Welcome to my sarcastic take on what I think is one of the most inane Web 2.0 business plans I’ve ever heard of.  Web-based carbon credits.

Holy Cow, Guenther, Martin Luther couldn’t even make this up. But some idiot on Sand Hill Road with a twisted view of eco-politics is backing such a plan.

            I Better hang on to my Husquvarna chainsaw with its carbide-tipped 26-inch chain and bar, my life is freaking complete. 

Now, I can offset my ATV-driving, and red-wine making commutes to the California Gold Country by donating money to some web-based entity lacking recognized audit practices who will invest money in projects that generate clean air, green or blue vistas, and make me feel better by adding their URL to my list of Internet often Interbet visited sites, right underneath CalTrout, Ducks Unlimited, the Sierra Club, the NRA and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

And now I can buy ecological absolution, indulgences from any of my several computers. Could my tie-dyed life have more meaning?

I have a couple of small sinful confessions I’ll put out there right now. I’ve littered when I was younger, and I once released a mid-sized trout that I thought might die as a result of my efforts to land it by the craggy side of a cold northern California creek. Oh, I use to drive a terribly inefficient Volkswagen bus with a built-to scream 1835cc upright air-cooled motor that had not one, but two big ass fuel gulping carburetors. I really liked that VW Type II, even if it got really bad mileage, blasting up hill on I-5 at 85 mph in fourth gear.

But wait there’s more, your Web 2.0 ecological eminence.  When I bought boat 2.0 it had a (father forgive me) a 70 horsepower two-stroke outboard that would discharge a sad blue petroleum film through the exhaust port in its propeller hub.

But after that unreliable SOB almost killed me by stopping dead in the water in front of a fast returning guided missile frigate just inside San Diego harbor last year, I saw the light. The White light. The guiding light. The beam of righteousness. The light was right there at a Suzuki outboard dealer, shining on a brand new 50 horsepower long shaft Suzuki four-stroke. I was blinded by it’s smooth acceleration and fell in love with it’s mighty torque curve, its ability to sneak up on innocent yellowtail very quietly, and most of all, the fact that it doesn’t leave a film of petroleum ring around the harbor.

Back to reality and lame-ass Web 2.0 fads designed to feed current consumer guilt.

Want to reduce your carbon footprints or offset your disastrous effect on my beloved outdoors. Here’ are some practical ideas.

1.                  Plant sequoia strswberries as ground cover. The fruit tastes great, the plants have large leaves and quickly convert CO2 to oxygen. Plus, you can use inexpensive cow poop to boost the plant’s fruit production and its vegetative growth.

2.                  Be pious and buy a Prius. Hey Al Gore III proved you can get them over 100 miles an hour and the wide open lanes on the 280 beckon fetchingly. I routinely get about 45.6 mpg in mine and make it from ecologically wanton Azusa, CA to Mountain View or Sacramento on one tank of gas, arriving with about one gallon left in my tank.

3.                  This fall, take your kids or your neighbors yuppy larva to a Sierra or coastal meadow and collect acorns.  Put them pointy end down in small pots filled with compost and set them in the sun. Water sparingly and begin to feed lightly when the baby oaks begin to grow. Let grow for a year or two, then go plant them in the meadows from which they came. Rather than send money to some Israeli tree farm, I’ve planted an oak sapling for each and every member of my father’s and mother’s family that has passed away. There’s a little arroyo on the East Fork of the San Gabriel River that has some great looking oaks today. And most were planted by me in remembrance of old men that taught me to walk softly in the forest, or how to tickle up trout with my bare hands, or that a chocolate chip ice cream cone on a hot summer day was indeed a very good thing.

But this carbon credit web site idea is a hoot. If you really give tinkers damn, plant one or two fruit trees in your front or back yards. I’d recommend stone fruits over citrus (which are technically shrubs, not trees), or maybe even a nice oak, under which you can read Steinbeck, Pearl S. Buck, or Twain, as you eat a mouth-watering peach that you grew, without much help from the Internet.

            So walk gently, don’t be afraid to get your feet wet crossing a cold moving trout-filled stream on a hot summer day. Plant some fruit trees, share some nuts with an urban squirrel and enjoy the outdoors.

            But web sites dedicated to buying ecological indulgences. Give me a break!  Stop the Reformation, I can’t believe it’s come to this…

            Beside, I just got my chainsaw sharpened and I have a date with a citrus stump out by my wood pile over at the side of my compost heap.—Jim Forbes, un reporterro viejo,08/29/2007 from atop my mountaintop adjacent  to the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County.

Scary Morning Noise-- Woodpeckers Near my Fiberglass Boat and old Caterpillars

A series of weird noises this morning made me jump out of bed.

The first was the odd jack hammering of a flicker (one of the seven North American woodpecker species) working on something other than a scrub oak somewhere very near the rear of my house.

            I moved stealthily through the house, out my office door and quietly tried to get into a viewing position where I could see what in the hell the bird was up to. My very real fear was that the woodpecker was working on my boat. But then I saw him, drilling on the wooden eves of my neighbors’ shed, which has fiberglass siding.

            “Skated that one” I said to myself as I went back inside to brew my coffee.

            Sucking down my cup of Yuban, I heard the distinctive noise of a four-stroke starter engine turning over a large in-line, six-cylinder diesel engine. Some older Caterpillars used “helper” starter engines.  Starting a diesel this way requires that the operator depress a lever connected to the diesel’s valve train.  When actuated, the lever opens the valves, which allows the engine to turn freely. Once the main engine is turning and the oil pressure comes up, the dozer operator shuts the valve detent lever, releasing the valves to their closed position and the diesel comes to life. The little helper engine is then shut down until the next time it’s needed.

            A diesel turning over with it’s valves open makes a very distinctive sound. And that sound was coming from an abandoned avocado grove I plunder every year.

            “Damn green thumber*s!” I yelled into the cold gray morning air. Soon I heard the dozer operator engage his tracks and go clanking off on the morning job.

            My dad, Boardie Forbes, was a cat skinner. So, I’m intimately familiar with the sound of Caterpillar bull dozers. Dad cleared a lot of Southern California groves to make room for the baby boomers family housing and the schools they required. I’m always sad a little sad when I see a grove or stand of wild oaks get toppled over to make room for new houses. But I understand the importance of new houses and the jobs they create. Nevertheless, I still don’t like developers.

            I’m just glad I was able to buy my piece of rural California while mortgage interest rates were at an all-time low, and before the developers turn my little mountaintop into tiny pie-slices of land festooned with rural condos. And I’m glad I’ve been able to plant my fruit trees. I just wish the gophers would stop gnawing on their roots.—Jim Forbes on 4/24/2007

*green thumbers: a pejorative phrased used to describe southern California real estate developer who turned citrus, avocado and stone fruit orchards into housing developments in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s