[Ski]

.... speaking of derailment: My mom got a box of mangoes from "Harry and David" and offered me one the day before yesterday. I had a huge package of beautiful lamb chops in the refrigerator and rather than go pay a bunch of money for a little jar of "Major Grey's" I thought I'd give it a shot on my own: I peeled and chopped up the mango and tossed it into a pot (it amounted to about one cup) and then added a third cup white sugar one sixth cup white vinegar three diced cubes of TJ's crystallized ginger one quarter of clove of garlic minced up about a quarter cup of black raisins about a quarter of a teaspoon of whole mustard seed a tiny tiny tiny bit of ground clove a very very tiny tiny bit of cayenne a small sprinkle of salt and a couple tablespoons of water. ...brought all that to a boil, reduced the heat to low, and let it simmer for 45 minutes and cool for a couple hours. Worked out so well on those lamb chops I went over to my mom's yesterday and made a batch for her out of the last mango, as she'd hit the same sale at Safeway on the lamb chops as I had. Enjoy your 4th!

[treeswarper]

Kim, those photos look similar to what the helicopter unit did prior to harvest. Wonders can be done with a feller buncher and a good operator, although the heli unit was hand felled--and had lots of hangups due to the tight spacing. As for trees planted close together, somewhere out there is a paper on how seedlings grow better when planted closely. It has to do with light bouncing off and around the little trees. However, in an intensely managed forest, those trees are usually thinned after a few years, and then left to grow to a commercial size. As to the 55 road. That area had a notorious commercial thinning sale during the 1980s. It was the first commercial entry and because it was the time of big timber going down the road, did not attract many bidders. The low value meant loggers did not get paid much and logger after logger would be hired and would leave after doing only one unit. That watershed has been clearcut and commericial thinned and roads closed or washed out. The latter has a big influence on what happens to the plantations. Once a road is decommissioned, it isn't coming back and the alternate road that connected the 55 with the Iron Creek system was decommissioned. The elk were using it last time I was walking on it. They had a nice trail made.

[treeswarper]

One paper on planting density. https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/olympia/silv/publications/opt/417_ScottEtal1998.pdf