Falling and Flying in the Forest

Photo: Helicopter for forest survey

This week I worked in a 24,000 acre northern California redwood forest.

Photo: Garcia River Forest, Mendocino County, California

I helped with "falling a tree," which is different than just "a tree falling." We cut down selected trees - already marked for harvest - to measure their growth rate and other factors.

Photo: Tree cookie and me

Falling a tree includes COOKIE cutting! The forester cuts a small slice out of different sections of the tree - a "cookie" - and we would count the rings to determine the tree's age at that height. By examining a batch of cookies, we could determine how fast the tree grew at different stages. ("Batch of cookies" is my term that I think the foresters should now use.)


By chance, I happened to visit the forest on the day where work included flying in a helicopter to search for certain invasive species.

I had been terrified of the idea of riding in a helicopter, but I could not pass up this chance. I hopped in and spent a few hours gliding above redwoods and weaving between mountains ridges. I pretended that my view was like a video screen - virtual reality rather than reality - and this helped calm my nerves.

Photo: Riding in the helicopter! An exciting and beautiful trip.

To learn more about what's going on at Garcia River Forest, click on this recent NPR story, "Scientists Turn Trees Into Carbon Banks" or San Francisco Chronicle's "Forests Break Ground by Selling Offsets." The second story has cool photos and graphics and explains how forests reduce carbon.

Pony Espresso

West coast tour top 5 shop names:

1. Pony Espresso, Jacksonville, Oregon
2. Consigning Women, Grants Pass, Oregon
3. Krop, Paper, Scissors (scrap booking), Grants Pass, Oregon
4. Shady Lady (window blinds), Eureka, California
5. Fiddles and Cameras, Fort Bragg, California





Photo: Fiddles and Cameras store, Fort Bragg, California. Because, why not.

The Egghead restaurant in Fort Bragg receives an honorable mention for randomly having a Kansas theme. I never thought I would wind up in coastal California dining beside a Wizard of Oz mural with my feet on the yellow brick road and drinking a tornado shaped latte.

Tree-hugging

Photo: Alone in the redwoods on my birthday. Tree-hugging while touring Redwood National and State Parks. Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

Bagpiper Sunset - Oregon

Sunset in Brookings, Oregon. My tranquil, cool-weathered walk after a long afternoon's drive became even more sublime when a bagpiper's tunes accompanied the view. Wonderful stop in between my tour of Oregon and California forests.

Give a Hoot

Photo: Woodsy the Owl

Has anyone noticed that Woodsy the Owl is not around anymore? The U.S. Forest Service still has Smokey the Bear on patrol, but Woodsy has been missing for a while.

Photo: Old Smokey the Bear poster

Well, it turns out that the Forest Service has phased out Woodsy, maybe because he's "too controversial" because of the 1980's spotted owl saga. Below is a photo from an internal U.S. Forest Service website, explaining to staff how to burn their Woodsy costume!


Sooo sad! I think I have a photo with Woodsy from a National Fishing Week event from 2006. I'll have to dig that up.

I find it most strange, since I think that Woodsy's mantra of "GIVE A HOOT, DON'T POLLUTE!" is still needed! Smokey just tells us to prevent forest fires.

Smokey went through a make-over last year, and now he has these tough looking posters and his own website.


In other related odd forestry news, Betty White became an honorary Forest Ranger last year. One of my favorite forestry factoids from 2010.

This blog is in remembrance of Woodsy. Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute!



Old Woodsy video



Modern Smokey video, somewhat creepy.

Glamping

My favorite term I've learned this month is "glamping." It stands for "glamorous camping." It's a trend for high-end camping. I can't stop saying this word. Glamping.

It's also pretty ridiculous, but fun to examine. Try putting in "glamping" in Google images and you'll be smiling.

There are also several websites dedicated to glamping, such as "Glamping Girl" and "Go Glamping." This has also led to using the term "happy glampers."

This glamping example seems to cross the line. Isn't this a house?

Adventure Park at Sandy Spring

If you're in the D.C. area, I highly recommend the Adventure Park at Sandy Spring - the nation's largest aerial forest adventure park.

One of my favorite features was that we had our own zipline device we carried with us the whole way. About every third element required ziplining between trees, sometimes a combo zipline/trapeze or snowboard feature.


Photo: Start of courses

Photo: Adventure Park course, view from the trees.

Other elements usually included balancing on logs and barrels or climbing higher in the tree-tops. The Adventure Park had 5+ courses to choose from, up to a "double black diamond" level that had a 70% fail rate. A ticket allows three hours at the Park, so we were able to complete three different courses.


Video: Tom snowboard zip-lining

During a hot summer, zip-lining through the trees was mighty fun.

Germany in Minnesota

Photo: Homemade quilt from Tom's mom, a wedding gift. They really know how to greet family in Minnesota!

Last weekend I visited Tom's hometown for the first time. He grew up in New Ulm, Minnesota, about 2 hours southwest of the Twin Cities.


Tom doesn't read my blog, so he won't mind me posting this photo of him in the New Ulm paper about his Eagle Scout award.

New Ulm is a very German town, with "Herman the German" presiding. He is the third largest copper statue in the U.S., after the Statue of Liberty and a Portland, Oregon, statue.

New Ulm is home to America's second oldest family-owned brewery, Schell's (oldest is Yuengling). The family opened the brewery in the 1860's and chose New Ulm because it looks like Germany. The above photo is on the grounds of the family's estate, next to the brewery that we toured on Saturday.

Photo: Tom, his Dad, and his uncle, at Schell's Brewery

New Ulm even has its own glockenspiel! We watched the noon chimes.

Tom's Dad took me for a tour of New Ulm on his red Harley. We even went to the other side of the tracks, by the butter factory. Last month I met Al Franken and we talked about Tom growing up in New Ulm. Senator Franken said, "They make butter there." That's right. Every time you have a lil' wrapped piece of butter, it's probably from New Ulm. A few years ago, the butter factory caught on fire and butter melted all over the streets. Everything was fine for the motorcycle ride, though. Beautiful day.

No trip to the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" is complete without a lake-house weekend. We spent Fourth of July on Lake Mine Belle.

Fourth of July is also Tom's Mom's birthday. She went tubing on her 65th birthday!

Tom and I rode a paddleboat into the sunset. Romantic Minnesota :)

A wonderful weekend in Minnesota, land of the Germans, the Norwegian "Ingebritsons" and a whole lot of fun.

Did I mention Tom is an Eagle Scout!? So trustworthy.

Spoonbridge and Cherry

Photo: Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg, of Shuttlecocks and Broom and Dustpan fame. Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 2011

Nordic Adventures

I'm about to transform to a more Nordic surname, Ingebritson, so I thought an event for "Nordic Jazz Week" at the Embassy of Finland would be a good chance to learn more about Nordic culture.

The Ambassdor said that Finnish jazz is "unique" and by that I think he meant it sounds like playing a piano with ice picks accompanied by a yelping puppy, because that was essence of the two fifteen minute pieces we heard.

Photo: Staircase in Embassy of Finland down to event space. View of Rock Creek Park out the windows downstairs.

In my view, the event was one of my best finds of the year. On a Tuesday night, this was a free chance to see the inside of an Embassy, meet people from all over the world, sample bounties of Finnish food and Finlandia vodka, and watch live music in a beautifully designed setting with Rock Creek Park in the background.

Combined with the Nordic hook, the Finnish Embassy is also the first "green" Embassy in the U.S., so it was an environmental tour, too. The Embassy received its Gold LEED status last year. Tom is LEED certified, so I thought that would be another reason he would like to see the Embassy. He was not disappointed and took photos everywhere.

Photo: Kari Mokko, press secretary and spokesman of the Embassy of Finland. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

The Finnish Embassy is famous for its sauna, which Tom really wanted to visit, but that was not part of the jazz event. The Washington Post wrote a nice feature on the dignitaries visiting the sauna, link here.

Graduation Speech Season!

May makes me giddy, because I love to track the line-up of celebrity graduation speeches. Most are not noteworthy, but there's usually one or two worth checking out.

This year, I marked Amy Poehler's speech at Harvard on my calendar, video above. She calls Harvard grads "wicked smott" and has many funny lines.

The gems of past years include Samantha Power's inspirational speech and Will Ferrell's hilarious one, where he pretends to arrive at a boat show, dressed as a captain.


I started my hobby of following graduation speeches when I first read Will Ferrell's address at Harvard's Class Day in 2003. Text link. Video link.

If you have the graduation speech fever like me, here's a link to CNBC post on "The 10 Best Graduation Speeches."