“This” is the first word of each of these six entries for Six on Saturday this week. There is not much variation among the coast live oak, coastal redwood, California bay, California black oak, big leaf maple and whatever else might be visible in these pictures. Half these pictures happen to feature specific coast live oaks. Therefore, I omitted botanical names. I wanted to show some of what is happening at the new home site, but there is not much to show, and there may not be much to show for a while, except for Rhody.

1. This is where the old home was. The forest wasted no time reclaiming its space. I miss the old home very much, but it was too deteriorated to salvage. I knew it was temporary.

2. This is where the new home will be built. It is less than fifty feet to the west, and faces more to the west instead of south. The upstairs office studio will face into the redwoods.

3. This lofty coast live oak stands high over the new home site, but leans to the north and away from where the house will be. It is the biggest of several big oaks in the grove here.

4. This silly coast live oak leans parallel to the driveway. The contrastingly vertical trunk to its right is the same that is on the right border of the first picture of the old home site.

5. This grand coast live oak arches elegantly over the driveway. It can be seen across the upper left corner of the previous picture. It is about perpendicular to the horizontal oak.

6. This is how I manage the overgrown and overly combustible vegetation here. It needs to be planned in accordance with the weather that has been too dry for much too long.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

23 thoughts on “Six on Saturday: This”

    1. I was fortunate to live in every place that I ever lived in. I miss my older home in town very much. It was such an excellent neighborhood, with flat ground and excellent climate. Redwoods are certainly awesome, but so are neighbors.

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  3. This is going to sound very silly, but if you were any one of my neighbors, your post wouldn’t exist and all those trees would be gone!

    I think what I am trying to say is thank you for reminding me of the beauty and worth of trees (which I so value as well). It seems that out here, our first instinct, any time a tree shows a natural inclination to grow or lean in a certain direction, is to cut it down before it falls over. It’s just terribly sad.

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    1. Coast live oak commonly grows in weird positions, but can be remarkably stable as it does so. I would be much more concerned if any other species gres like the nearly horizontal oak next to the driveway. Madrones grow like this, but then fall over. If they are close to where they can do any damage, I do not hesitate to cut them down.

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      1. Oh definitely, I know that you would surely have the knowledge to know which trees are safe and which can stay. I am just so grateful to know that not everyone sees a tree with a bend and runs screaming for the first man they can find with a chainsaw!

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  4. As you mention the redwoods and the live oaks, I got an olfactory memory of the smell of the Bohemian Grove that I had the privilege to visit back in the 1980s, and also the live oaks (not coastal) in El Cajon, where I lived when I was high school age – where as I mentioned Fred, we had 31 very productive avocado trees (all gone now, one assumes that the owners did not want to water, or disease?). Your new home will be lovely!

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    1. Both the interior live oak and canyon live oak are native to El Cajon, as well as coast live oak.
      The new home is designed for simplicity, to be as unobtrusive as possible to the surrounding forest as possible, . . . although with a steep roof to shed debris from adjacent redwoods. It should be of Early American architecture, but because it is so simple, may not be recognizable as such. Unfortunately, the forest must be groomed to decrease combustibility around the home. That will be more obtrusive than the home will be.

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      1. Your home will be nice – I like simple, especially in more natural areas. The grooming is necessary. We know what the fire risks are in California. You have to have at least some space around buildings to reduce chance of fire getting to your home.

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      2. Redwood forests are naturally less combustible than other forests, and dense redwood forests naturally exclude more combustible species. The problem here is the lack of forest management after clear cut harvest more than a century ago. The oaks, madrones and other hardwoods that are native here are now more abundant, and therefore more combustible, than they naturally should be. Although forest management is unnatural, it is no more so than clear cut harvest. Even the redwoods would benefit from thinning as they regenerate, but that is another long story.

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      4. Redwoods were clear cut harvested here at a time when people were unaware of how much damage they could do to the environment. All that lumber seemed to be an inexhaustible resource. It became more difficult to ignore when such harvest increased to rebuild San Francisco and other urban development around the San Francisco Bay Area after the Great Earthquake of 1906. At least one of the old lumber companies from that time is now one of the most proficient with ecologically responsible forest management and harvest here.

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      5. Likewise fish – in the 1970s, one could go fish the yellowtail run and come back with 40 pound fish. But in the 1920s fish were much larger. Catching them younger and younger until there is nothing left. Sad.

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    1. Oh, yes, I do appreciate the trees here. I am fortunate that not many need to be removed to groom the forest of superfluously combustible vegetation. Most merely need pruning to elevate their canopies. It will be quite a while before the house is habitable, and although I will be pleased with it, I really wish I could build an old home. I find old homes to be much more comfortable.

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    1. Gee, I did not mean to be negligent in response; but this was somehow filtered out as spam. I should get more pictures as development proceeds. As you can see, there is not much to see yet. After I return from vacation, and do not need to rely on Jonathan to irrigate (because it may not be raining so much then), I can start relocating much of the vegetation from the nursery at work back to the home garden.

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    1. No architecture is completely fire resistant (yet). I intended for the home to be of Early American architecture, but may need to modify it to be less vulnerable to fire. There are many features of modern architecture and building codes that I dislike VERY much, but I can learn to accommodate architecture that might make the home less combustible, even if it makes it look ridiculous.

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    1. These sculptural trees very coincidentally grew in very good situations. They literally designate the corners of the driveway. I could not have planted them in better positions. However, and sadly, the biggest may need to be removed. It may be too close to the foundation of the house, and I do not want to move the house over.

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