Posted on by tonytomeo · 20 Comments

Six on Saturday: LOG!

What rolls down stairs
alone or in pairs,
and over your neighbor’s dog?
What’s great for a snack,
And fits on your back?
It’s log, log, log

It’s log, it’s log,
It’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood.
It’s log, it’s log, it’s better than bad, it’s good.”

Everyone wants a log
You’re gonna love it, log
Come on and get your log
Everyone needs a log
log log log

Hopefully, no one remembers this. Anyway, vegetation management has become something of a priority recently, and has been generating a bit of firewood.

1. LOG! From Blammo! Actually, this one is from a bigleaf maple, Acer macrophyllum. It is an exemplary specimen, artfully displayed against a backdrop of sawdust scattered over asphalt.

2. Pseudotsuga menziesii, Douglas fir is cruddy firewood that can ruin carpet inside a car if moved while green and sappy, but most was gone by the time I got this picture. It is all gone now.

3. (Notho)lithocarpus densiflorus, tanoak is much better firewood. It is also my least favorite of native trees here. It smells like bad salami while in bloom, and produces irritating tomentum.

4. Ligustrum japonicum, waxleaf privet is not native. It was likely a remnant of a prehistoric landscape, rather than self sown. The few logs are nothing to brag about, but will burn like olive.

5. Umbellularia californica, California bay was claimed before it was stacked, so was outfitted with a sign that read, “This bay is not free. (This ain’t FREEBAY!) LOL – LOL”. It smell badly!

6. Acer macrophyllum, bigleaf maple, according to the sign, is for Aunt Jemima. It is one of my favorite native species, but is notably uncommon, so I am none too keen on cutting any down.

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/

Posted on by tonytomeo · 7 Comments

Six on Saturday: Vegetation Management Gone Bad

The last three of these six are rather embarrassing. Perhaps I should have omitted them. Some might find them to be amusing. Some of the buildings here are more than a century old. Even more originally lacked electricity. Much of the wiring is substandard by modern regulations. Some is downright shoddy, and susceptible to damage from . . . vegetation management.

1. Ash is STILL everywhere! Even without rain, it should have blown away in any breeze. Instead, it is a constant reminder of why we must be more diligent about vegetation management.

2. Strangely atypical foliar scorch damaged several rhododendron and a few other plants during evacuation. Sheltered foliage is as scorched as exposed foliage. There is no time for grooming.

3. Volunteers are helping with vegetation management at cabins that are inhabited by some who lost their homes. Even if it were not green, resulting ‘fire’wood is unlikely to be popular here.

4. Before I continue, I should point out the cruddy pipe clamp that is barely attached to weathered trim by only a short screw. It is right there in the middle. Its other short screw is missing.

5. This is what the pipe clamp was supporting. The large box leaning out from the wall is the fuse box. The smaller box is the electrical meter. The pipe to the lower right is electrical conduit.

6. Something so important and potentially hazardous should have been secured by more than two small screws. It should not have been so easily dislodged by a smack from the top two feet of a bay tree. This thing made major sparks when it hit the ground. It could have started another fire! Anyway, the tree was removed. We are actually careful about vegetation management.

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/

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Six on Saturday: Another Quarter

Getting there is half the fun, but only half of that fun was illustrated last week. This it the remaining half of half the fun, . . . which is technically a ‘quarter’. The pictures are not very colorful. Mine are very often like that for Six on Saturday. I am sorry that I got no picture of Rhody.

1. Rhody’s meadow next door was a baseball field. It may eventually be restored. For now, compost piles occupy the edge of right field. The railroad bridge of last week is in the background.

2. Toasted leaves remain evident in undisturbed areas. There has been no rain to accelerate decomposition. It is disconcerting to see so many amongst combustible dried vegetation like this.

3. Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree lives here. It is a baby ponderosa pine, which seems out of place among redwood forest. Those are sickly Monterey cypress in the background to the right.

4. Trinity Tree was about this tall in historic pictures from more than a century ago. It is only plumper now. It may have been rejected from earlier harvest because it is so thickly branched.

5. California buckeye seed pods, or whatever they are, look even sillier than what the English know as conkers of red horse chestnut, because they linger after summer defoliation. This is an odd species that defoliates during the arid warmth of summer, refoliates for late autumn, and defoliates again after it gets frosted in winter, only to foliate late in winter to repeat the process.

6. Yuck! I detest carpet roses. Besides this pink colony at the Depot, there is a red hedge in another landscape. Without a picture of Rhody, it seems polite to add at least one colorful picture.

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/

Posted on by tonytomeo · 28 Comments

Six on Saturday: Getting There Is Half The Fun

The biggest valley oak in the Santa Clara Valley supposedly lives next door to where I lived in town. Well, that was too far to go to get the picture I needed for the garden column next week. Another lives on the other side of the tracks.

1. Roaring Camp Railroad is out back. The Depot is out of view to the right, on the other side of Zayante Creek. The big valley oak that I got a picture of is on the left, but does not look so big from here. A few ecosystems mix here, so ponderosa pines, Douglas firs and all the riparian trees mingle with the coast live oaks and redwoods. However, I doubt that valley oaks are native.

2. Rhody stayed home. These grates on the pedestrian catwalk on the bridge are not intended for small paws. Some of those trees down there are about thirty feet tall! Most are white alder.

3. Riparian trees are close enough for pictures from a pedestrian bridge just downstream. That foliage in the middle of this picture is a sycamore. However, the deteriorating bridge is closed.

4. Old valley oaks, which are native just a few miles away, seem to have been planted here; since they all are on roadsides or driveways. Whether native or introduced, they happily self sow.

5. Moss makes these sculptural limbs seem to be older than they are. This now massive valley oak was a shrubby young pup in photographs from the 1920s. It was likely planted after 1906.

6. Gnarly roots were exposed by erosion on an embankment between the big valley oak and the train tracks. I suspect that the tree was planted to shade the depot during the late afternoon.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate:

Six on Saturday – a participant guide