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10/24/2008 I had a nice and busy summer leading into fall. Bryce is back at school at Jean Weingarten three days per week and going to a little home preschool 2 days per week. I've been flooded with work from Pearson Science. They contacted me back in May asking if I wanted to do photo research on some chemistry texts. It's been fun so far because I have gotten to not only do photo research but also some photography. I love going hiking up in the mountains, but what I love even more is going wandering in the mountains looking for bonsai material. Memorial day weekend Randall and I headed down to Bishop to go up into the White Mountains for some collecting. I dug up a really beautiful tree that is now happily potted up and growing in my back yard. More recently I heard some rumors that the Tahoe National Forest, between Nevada City and Truckee along I-80 was issuing permits. I asked the people that I had heard were going but they were not particularly helpful in giving me a permit or information so I contacted the forest service office. Bureaucracy is a funny thing when you really step back and look at it, here is an e-mail that I got from them at one point: "Hi Eric, It sounds like you are requesting to collect on the Yuba River Ranger District which means Susi Urie will not need to be involved. I suggest that you limit your collection area to an area on the District that has already had environmental analysis for collecting small conifer trees. Collection has been analyzed within 200 feet of the 85 road (Rattlesnake road) on NFS lands in sections16, 14, and 6, T.17N. R.13E. – Soda Springs Quadrangle. If this area does not meet your needs, the district will need to do a different environmental analysis. What I ask people to do is provide 1 to 24,000 scale quadrangle maps to me showing where they would like to collect, what they want to collect, and how much. I then take that information to the District interdiciplinary team to find out if there are any concerns with what is being proposed. This process takes time and is usually not high priority since the District does not recieve funding to do the process. Since you have already provided the what and how much, I just need to know if the area described above will work for you. An e-mail response works best since I am frequently not in my office. Thank you for contacting us. Kathy" That all sounds fine eh? Only a 6-month to 1-year lead time for environmental review....to dig up 8 small plants. Sometimes I wonder how our government ever gets anything done. I mean really, how many small trees were bulldozed to make way for all the roads through the forest? How many were killed when they made the reservoirs? How many are being killed every day by OHV activities? Well, at least they are open to reviewing it. Almost all other national forests that I have contacted simply tell me "No", or "No, it could interfere with logging activities." Despite the roadblocks, after 2 weeks, and agreeing to confine my activities to the areas that had already undergone environmental analysis, They agreed to issue me a permit. It was only $20, $12 fee plus $1 per tree that I wanted to dig. But the catch was that I had to pick up the permit in person in Nevada City on a weekday....which meant that my plans for collecting on a Sunday would require two trips up there. Will, who was my partner in crime this time, suggested that we just go up there and do everything on Wednesday...which happened to work out well since my mom was here to babysit. She took Bryce to school, had some relaxing time while he was there and picked him up afterward. I left the house at 7AM, drove to Nevada City to pick up the permit and was up bouncing my way along a dirt road before 11AM. I had never been to this particular area, I was surprised to find some nice collectible material within the area specified by the permit. It seems that one of the people that I know has been collecting up there had requested an environmental analysis of this area after scouting it a couple years ago....I guess I owe them a favor. I dug up one Lodgepole pine and one Sierra Juniper. The pine will be a fantastic tree, the juniper a good one, but not great. I've been working a lot. Mostly photo research, but a little photography as well. I have a lot of fun when I shoot things so I have been doing as much as I can. I think I'm actually getting better. My friend Bernard who has been a professional photographer for 30 years told me that he would give me some help when we both have time. 1/10/2008 9/22/2007 8/24/2007 6/28/2007 5/11/2007 3/27/2007 1/5/2007 11/23/2006 10/1/2006 9/1/2006 7/20/2006 5/30/2006 5/20/2006 4/25/2006 3/22/2006 2/22/2006 1/25/2006 12/20/2005 11/17/2005 10/27/2005 10/8/2005 9/11/2005 8/26/2005 8/9/2005 8/1/2005 7/20/2005 7/5/2005 6/17/2005 5/27/2005 5/1/2005 4/15/2005 4/5/2005 3/24/2005 3/13/2005 2/5/2005 12/28/2004 11/29/2004 11/3/2004 10/2/2004 9/10/2004 8/23/2004 8/8/2004 7/21/2004 7/2/2004 6/8/2004 5/4/2004 4/20/2004 3/28/2004 3/10/2004 2/10/2004 1/15/2004 To reach entries prior to January 2004 click on one of the older entries on this list and scroll down to the bottom of that entry. e-mail Eric |