August 25, 2012 - Redwood

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

30,000 board feet of lumber did NOT come out of the hole in that tree.

ETA: 30,000 board feet of lumber MIGHT have came out of the hole in that tree.

a board foot is 1' x 1' x1"
12 board feet = 1 cubic foot
30,000 board feet = 2,500 cubic feet
Cube root of 2,500 = 13.6' (approximately)

That hole looks easily 13' x 13' x 13'.

Trust me, I know from feet.

[Trilby]

I draw them with pencil on paper. (I have a serious notebook problem).

yes - I'm killing trees and then taunting them by drawing what they used to be.

I'm pretty evil that way.

[footfootfoot]

Paper comes from crop trees, not virgin timber. Just like carrots, planted and harvested.

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!
You've got to fight the power!
Fight the power!
Fight the powerful Trees!

Redwoods they are a hero to most,
But they never meant shit to me.
The suckers are racist, straight up and plain,
Motherfuck them and end grain.

[Adak]

Very huge and majestic. What most folk don't realize is that a mature Redwood forest like this, will support very few plants and animals. Once the Redwood tree's start blocking out the sunlight, and contaminating the forest floor with it's dead needle litter (which prevents nearly all species from germinating). The forest animals have to move on. Their food can't grow there, anymore.

It's more appropriate to say it's "quiet as a graveyard", instead of "quiet as a cathedral", in a mature Redwood forest.

[xoxoxoBruce]

And their root system is very shallow, no culture at all.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Adak

Very huge and majestic. What most folk don't realize is that a mature Redwood forest like this, will support very few plants and animals. Once the Redwood tree's start blocking out the sunlight, and contaminating the forest floor with it's dead needle litter (which prevents nearly all species from germinating). The forest animals have to move on. Their food can't grow there, anymore.

It's more appropriate to say it's "quiet as a graveyard", instead of "quiet as a cathedral", in a mature Redwood forest.

There's plenty of life going on up in the canopy.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

There's plenty of life going on up in the canopy.

I lived near, ran in, and camped in redwood forests for 20 years. Mature redwood forest are a near desert of life, compared to area's where sunlight (even dappled), is allowed to reach the forest floor, and the redwood "duff" (needles it sheds), can't poison the earth.

The "Wonderful world of the mature redwood forest" crap you hear from the ecologists, is just that -- crap.

Ranks right up there with "let's spend our way out of debt".

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

There's plenty of life going on up in the canopy.

Sequoia canopy.

[xoxoxoBruce]

One important animal that lives in the redwood forest canopy is the Clouded Salamander... snip

Neither that article, nor any others I can find, tell why this thing is important. Hyperbole I guess.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

There's plenty of life going on up in the canopy.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Neither that article, nor any others I can find, tell why this thing is important. Hyperbole I guess.

It tips the balance of "life going on up in the canopy" from "some" to "plenty".

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Adak

Very huge and majestic. What most folk don't realize is that a mature Redwood forest like this, will support very few plants and animals. Once the Redwood tree's start blocking out the sunlight, and contaminating the forest floor with it's dead needle litter (which prevents nearly all species from germinating). The forest animals have to move on. Their food can't grow there, anymore.

Reminded me of this:

"The Trees"

by Rush


There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream 'Oppression!'
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw

[SPUCK]

The only tree on my property besides an orange tree is a 180ft redwood. It's about 10 foot in diameter. Talk about crapping all over the place! It dumps about two truckloads of debris year.

Then there's the pollen.. It's a shit storm of pollen for about a month. It cakes on things and if you think you don't have hay-fever just live under one of these babies for that month.

Oh oh then there are the seed months. They're in the winter. The tree casts them babies everywhere in about a 120 foot radius. The small little brown seeds leave insane dark purple puddles around them as soon as the dew or mist shows up. It's like it was designed to obliterate car paint.

Then there's the cast off limbs. You know the ones that are about 3 inches in diameter and you find them stuck in your lawn about a foot and a half deep like some javelin hurled from the sky.

All this layered over the fear that tree evokes in a big storm. Lone. 18 feet from the house....

It is beautiful though. Several raccoons and a family of squirrels live in the multi-ton balls of caught-and-piled-up debris balls scattered about in its limbs. Often hawks sit on the top terrorizing the chickens.

[ZenGum]

Now, I do like trees, and I like houses too, but this...

18 feet from the house....

... yeah, that's gonna be a problem.


Adak, note as SPUCK says, the critturs living in the canopy. I'll bet there's all sorts of bugs, and birds that eat the bugs, and parasitic plants and stuff up there.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Adak, note as SPUCK says, the critturs living in the canopy. I'll bet there's all sorts of bugs, and birds that eat the bugs, and parasitic plants and stuff up there.

That web site is very misleading - sort of like the democrats. They think the big problem facing the country is paying for contraceptives, getting illegal immigrants who were raised here, drivers licenses, and college loans.

Anything to distract us from the problems we should be dealing with:

1) We're spending $58,000 PER SECOND, MORE than we are bringing in. You can tax the rich until they're butt naked and you won't put a dent into that degree of spending!

2) They have had NO budget that even ONE senator OR representative would vote for, for three years now.

3) All the jobs they've created -- don't begin to match the number of jobs they have destroyed, that you never hear ONE WORD about. This is the worst recovery in US history. According to the bi-partisan budget office, the middle class has lost 40% of their wealth, mostly from the collapse of the housing market.

Yes, there is life in the canopy of the mature redwood forest. Life is always trying to use every niche in nature.

But the AMOUNT of life in a mature redwood forest, is pitifully small, compared to the life you'd find in a non-conifer forest - especially a forest with some open meadows here and there.

I was watching a "reality" series on survival by an expert, who made the silly mistake of going into a Canadian mature conifer forest. These have more life than mature redwood forests, but not much more.

First day, he killed and ate a porcupine. He couldn't kill the moose he saw that week, (feeding in the lake), so that was the end of his meat. After that, his meals were fish from the nearby lake for breakfast, fish for lunch, and fish for dinner. A few bugs too, but not much.

By the third week, he had become seriously depressed, had lost a boatload of weight, and his heart had slowed down so much, a doctor told him he should quit - which he gladly did.

End of TV series.

Just think about it -

Plants require sunlight for photosynthesis. Redwoods block nearly all direct sunlight from reaching the ground. Redwood duff spoils the ground for nearly all plants - first by providing a further sun block, and second by chemically poisoning the soil so most seeds can't germinate and grow.

Animals like deer, birds, most mammals, require a number of plants to be around them, because the plants or their fruit (berries), become edible only during certain times of the year.

Carnivores require these herbivores, etc., in order to survive. Without a lot of them, most of the carnivores must move on, or die.

You'll see a lot of this "Redwood forests are oh so great!", type of writing. But understand that when the agenda is to promote "something", then savvy writers learn they need to write "something" that fits that agenda, or they'll be writing very little.

[editorial soapbox]
It's like "Climate change". If your research supports man made climate change, you will be funded (most likely), and your papers will be reported in major news or research magazines, and quoted in books and on the net.

If your research does NOT support man made climate change, you will NOT (most likely), be funded, and your papers will NOT be reported in the majority of the major news or research magazines, or quoted in books, or on the net. The value of the science you did will not matter - you simply do NOT fit into the agenda that is now popular.

I never thought I would live to see the day that our media outlets, would be so careless with the truth, so manipulative to make their story line up with what they perceive to be a "popular framework".

The facts don't matter as much as the framework for what's being reported/published/etc.

One example: the Yahoo Washington bureau new chief, had this to say (he thought his mic was off), just before starting his broadcast of the RNC convention:
"Yahoo News has fired its Washington bureau chief, after he was caught on a microphone saying Mitt Romney and his wife were “happy to have a party with black people drowning.” (referring to Hurricane Isaac hitting Mississippi and Louisiana)

Company spokeswoman Anne Espiritu said Wednesday that David Chalian’s remark was inappropriate and does not represent Yahoo’s views. She says Yahoo is apologizing to the Republican presidential candidate and his supporters, and has reached out to the campaign to convey the message.

Do you believe for one second that people like this can report the news, factually? And this guy wasn't just a reporter - he was the bureau CHIEF, of Washington, DC.


[end of editorial]

[glatt]

Wow. That was kind of random.

"Redwood forests are barren, and the Democrats SUCK!" I love election years.

So I can see what you're saying about the Redwood forests being relatively barren, but they are only very thin strips along the coasts. So if a deer wanders into one, it only has to go 10 miles East to get out of it again. And they are nothing like anything else in the world, and take thousands of years to grow, so they are extremely important.

I think they should be protected. My kids have seen them, but I think it would be cool if my future grand kids got to see them too.