CHANGING PERSPECTIVE-Dear Vladimir-Dear Isis-SPRING TONIC

Pulling Back

DEAR ISIS

     Dear Isis,

          We are writing on behalf of Senator Tom Cotton and 46 Republicans in the US Senate. They have your sense of humor and mental agility.  Please adopt them and send them to one of your summer camps. You would do America a great favor by doing so.

Signed

Americans for the Constitution

FOR THE WINTER WEARY

    Spring Scenes from the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve in Cambria and the town square in Paso Robles.

DEAR VLADIMIR PUTIN

     Dear Vlad-

         We are writing on behalf of Tom Cotton and 46 Republican Senators who we think you should adopt. They are people of action, just like you. They are unhappy in America and don't like our President. Please give them your strongest embrace and if for some reason they upset you, send them out on the streets near the Kremlin. They won't be missed by thinking people.

Signed

Americans for the Constitution

See you down the trail.

A COMBUSTIBLE DEBATE

WHAT ABOUT THE FOREST?

Cambria and this area of the Central Coast
has been recently treated to a sometimes loud and
an animated debate about the clearing of a
a firebreak.  There are differing ideas about
how best to do that.  This post
raises the issue only as a point of context.
I wonder why some of our Monterey Pine forest
is allowed to become a kind of tinder box?

A recent hike across the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve

and into a portion of the forest

revealed what, to this blogger, looked like a dangerous situation.

There are plenty more situations like those captured in these few frames.  A lot of downed branches, limbs and even trees-

simply left to age, dry and become potential kindling.

I know experts who argue that it is best

to leave the forests untouched and natural.  A strain of

naturalist or environmentalist will agree but others differ.

It seems common sense alone would lead to know that

less debris like this, kindling, makes for a reduced fire hazard.  Chumash and Salinan tribes practiced controlled

burns to preen the wilderness and eliminate the potential for greater danger.  It also allowed for healthy soil and native

plant growth.

As I hike the area, I need to suppress the urge to 
clean up the forest floor.
Maybe some of the local hobbits will carry away
the debris and use it in their fireplaces!
In the meantime I wonder why there is such a 
difference of opinion.
See you down the trail. 

PLANT POLICE UPDATE

THE NEW ENEMY

       This updates the post of Wednesday February 2nd when we profiled the "plant police," those volunteers who work zealously to rid the 430 acre Fiscalini Ranch Preserve in Cambria of invasive plants.  The new target is thistle, which seems to be rampant after our wet winter.

 It can be a pernicious resident on the ranch.
In the frame below one of the targeted plants has survived the attempt to
uproot it, the others are dry,

 its bloom, a defiance

and in time it will dry and spread seed over a wide expanse.

This year's crop of of thistle seems formidable, long time residents say they can't recall such an "invasion" so the battle will carry on.

Stay tuned.

See you down the trail