# the feathry truth



## paccity (Aug 6, 2013)

Evergreen Magazine


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## 1270d (Aug 6, 2013)

Good reading. Typical govt scam


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## northmanlogging (Aug 6, 2013)

Why am I not surprised? Don't think I've ever seen a spotted turkey in old growth, but I sure see a whole bunch of em in second growth...


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## slowp (Aug 6, 2013)

1270d said:


> Good reading. Typical govt scam



Hardly the whole government. This was started by people who didn't like to see clearcuts because the view was ruined. Think 1970s when some in your face clearcuts were made in full view of I-90--Snoqualmie Pass on private land. That's when I remember the anti-logging mania starting.

It escalated. People discovered they could make money off of law suits and by creating a crisis. I'm making this simple. In 1990 or round there abouts, Jack Thomas (I think) was made Chief of the Forest Service and found out that the Northwest Forest Plan was unworkable. But he also started advocating hiring more "scientists" (biologists), which they did and they got rid of the timber and engineering folks. Now you have a biologist heavy organization, which must then be double checked by another federal agency --U.S. Fish and Wildlife. It is an employment system for biologists.

Foresters have to take classes and learn about botany, soils, wildlife, hydrology, etc. Biologists do not and tend to see in tunnel vision instead of the whole. 

We now have a few timber sales sold, which are very complicated. 

Our forest had a majority of it burned to a crisp in the early 20th century. It was reforested by the CCCs and nature. Timber grows fast and it is of a size that looks like old growth to lay people. So, it must not be clearcut and must be cut lightly, if at all. 

When I first worked here in the 1980s, I was told that one of the mountains had been burned so hot and often by the Indians, that the soil was sterile. They burned a lot to make huckleberry habitat. Huckleberries were and still are important to the tribal folks. Tell that to anti-logging folks and they'll roll their eyes, ignore your input and keep on with their rhetoric. Unfortunately, there are more of them than us, and I can't see anything changing. Meanwhile, owl habitat burns up every year, just like it did in the past, before Europeans moved in. 

I get sick when I think of all the work we put into the plantations, from picking out trees to harvest cones from, to thinning, and now they are off limits or will only have one entry for a commercial thinning, because they are to be managed for old growth characteristics. In fact, I'm feeling the rage start so must stop typing. It is all so stupid. 

Until you loggers can come up with a touchy, feely emotional way to get folks to like logging, there is no hope. But I'm glad to see the guy got a PHD doing his research. We need more of those.


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## northmanlogging (Aug 6, 2013)

How come not very many people that live on this side of the hills even know about that huge fire, burned something like 6 whole counties and then some, along with another fire in oregon that was about the same? Oh yeah they don't teach about that stuff in school, had to talk to someone from PA to hear about the wobbly massacre in Everett... only stuff about how great the birds and stuff are and how we have to do everything in or power to protect them...


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## madhatte (Aug 6, 2013)

Have at ye


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## slowp (Aug 6, 2013)

I thought the Wobbly Massacre was in Centralia?


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## lfnh (Aug 6, 2013)

madhatte said:


> Have at ye



Well, seems like marbley omelet population count is rather vague. When they start tossing around vague numbers like "about 6000", it's high time to bring in the big survey guns. Like the folks from Mad River Biologists. Highly scientific Spotted Owl and other surveys in remote, inaccessible areas. They probly know about this special bird.

Yup. Read more right here


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## northmanlogging (Aug 7, 2013)

slowp said:


> I thought the Wobbly Massacre was in Centralia?




There where a few wobbly massacres... seems the local fraternal orders of whatever thought the wobblies where all commie scum so they liked to have target practice on their camps... that and at the time the fraternal orders of whatever's members happened to own the businesses that the wobblies happened to be trying to unionize... at a time when unions where a good thing, minimum wage, 40hr week etc. I'll shut up about current union stuff...


As far as the marbled mullet or whatever, could it possibly be that evolution has kicked in and since dumb bird A (the mullet) can only spawn in location A, while smart bird B (the Stellar's Jay (not to be confused with the blue jay or camp robber a grey jay...)) can copulate anywhere and with people around, is bound to push out dumb bird A? blasphemy! Besides it say's right in the damn report that the mottled mullet can breed all the way north into Alaska, which tells me its not frickin dependent on redwoods alone... 

Remember kids I barely graduated High school and never went to no college


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## slowp (Aug 7, 2013)

A coworker, who was a geologist but from a logging family, said he and another guy were bored one winter. They pulled out the owl location maps and did some unofficial research on their own, and discovered that the greatest number of owls were within easy walking distance of roads, and the nest locations petered out as the distance from the road increased.

They got caught and chewed out before they could do more "research". 

Apparently, their wildlife folks didn't want to walk very much.


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## madhatte (Aug 7, 2013)

slowp said:


> I thought the Wobbly Massacre was in Centralia?



I see what you did there.


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## RenaisSAWnceMan (Aug 9, 2013)

slowp said:


> When I hear Agenda 21 it tends to make me want to run to the drawer with the aluminum foil.



Really.....? Check it out, certainly not 'conspiracy theory', but fact. Reality. In-process implementation, and affecting everyone, now.... But, this is exactly why I just 'let it go' a few years back, and just became resigned to seeing it all come-to-pass, and stopped trying to 'disturb people with reality'....


No offense, for sure. I understand. I appreciate and respect your skepticism.


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## Gologit (Aug 9, 2013)

RenaisSAWnceMan said:


> Really.....? Check it out, certainly not 'conspiracy theory', but fact. Reality. In-process implementation, and affecting everyone, now.... But, this is exactly why I just 'let it go' a few years back, and just became resigned to seeing it all come-to-pass, and stopped trying to 'disturb people with reality'....
> 
> 
> No offense, for sure. I understand. I appreciate and respect your skepticism.



Posts of this type belong in the Political forum. Your previous post was deleted. Please, no further mention of this in Forestry/Logging.


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## Humptulips (Aug 9, 2013)

slowp said:


> I thought the Wobbly Massacre was in Centralia?



The Everett massacre was when shots were fired when Wobblies landed in Everett by boat.

The Centralia one was actully a lynching.

Workers of the world, awaken! 
Break your chains. demand your rights. 
All the wealth you make is taken 
By exploiting parasites. 
Shall you kneel in deep submission 
From your cradles to your graves? 
ls the height of your ambition 
To be good and willing slaves? 

CHORUS: 
Arise, ye prisoners of starvation! 
Fight for your own emancipation; 
Arise, ye slaves of every nation. 
In One Union grand. 
Our little ones for bread are crying, 
And millions are from hunger dying; 
The end the means is justifying, 
'Tis the final stand. 

If the workers take a notion, 
They can stop all speeding trains; 
Every ship upon the ocean 
They can tie with mighty chains. 
Every wheel in the creation, 
Every mine and every mill , 
Fleets and armies of the nation, 
Will at their command stand still. 

Join the union, fellow workers, 
Men and women, side by side; 
We will crush the greedy shirkers 
Like a sweeping, surging tide; 
For united we are standing, 
But divided we will fall; 
Let this be our understanding -- 
"All for one and one for all.'' 

Workers of the world, awaken! 
Rise in all your splendid might; 
Take the wealth that you are making, 
It belongs to you by right. 
No one will for bread be crying, 
We'll have freedom, love and health. 
When the grand red flag is flying 
In the Workers' Commonwealth. 

Joe Hill


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## madhatte (Dec 9, 2013)

Anybody remember that episode of South Park called "Cripple Fight"? Yeah, well, I got one better: 'Ologist Fight! See, the butterfly folks want some prairie firs removed, but the squirrel folks don't. Butterfly habitat will probably trump the squirrel issue because it's a Federal listed species rather than a "mere" state listed one. Can't say as I care one way or another -- my job is just to set up the sale. We'll see what happens.


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## slowp (Dec 9, 2013)

Yes. I didn't witness it but we had a botanist who moved into the gubmint house that I vacated and she wanted shrubbery cut so she could have a garden. The wildlife biologist trumped her, until he retired, then the shrubbery was cut down. It was native shrubbery too. The wildlife biologist was one of the infamous lynx hoax 'ologists who sent a sample of lynx hair to a lab that was from a stuffed lynx. We'll never know for sure what their motives were.


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## twochains (Dec 9, 2013)

treeslayer2003 is not permitted to log where fox squirrels are in Maryland...that's crazy, we have the damn things running all over the place. I kinda like how they do things around here...they will protect something till it starts destroying something else they protect and then shoot the **** out of what they were originally protecting! LMAO...do I need to say that again? How about this... Blue Herons are protected, Game and Fish raise millions of trout, Blue Herons eat the **** out of trout, Blue Herons get the **** shot out of them now...clear? LOL!


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## treeslayer2003 (Dec 11, 2013)

i'll send ya some eagles to go with the fox squirrels and blue herons lol.


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## madhatte (Dec 11, 2013)

... looks like the squirrel folks are winning. Weird.


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## northmanlogging (Dec 12, 2013)

Skwerrals are cuter than budder flies


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## slowp (Dec 12, 2013)

madhatte said:


> ... looks like the squirrel folks are winning. Weird.


 
Could you do a computer simulation of the action and make a game out of it? You could call it the squirrel and butterfly game.
A non-violent video game which would not sell in today's bloody market.


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## madhatte (Dec 12, 2013)

Y' know, I probably could. It'd be some old-school looking side-scroller, all Pac-Man looking and blocky. I guess I just need sprite graphics. This is a terrible idea. Must resist the urge.


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## slowp (Dec 13, 2013)

madhatte said:


> Y' know, I probably could. It'd be some old-school looking side-scroller, all Pac-Man looking and blocky. I guess I just need sprite graphics. This is a terrible idea. Must resist the urge.


 
Do it. You know you can...need the devil bubble figure to add to this.


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## madhatte (Dec 13, 2013)

Turns out that this is totally a thing that ANYBODY can do... but I'm not sure I care enough to do the time to make it actually happen. I was mostly joking about being able to just "make" a game, but, as usual, the Internet beat me to it. Color me "Schooled".


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## Gologit (Dec 13, 2013)

madhatte said:


> Turns out that this is totally a thing that ANYBODY can do... but I'm not sure I care enough to do the time to make it actually happen. I was mostly joking about being able to just "make" a game, but, as usual, the Internet beat me to it. Color me "Schooled".



Might be fun. Can you make a game with loggers vs. preservationists? I probably need more coffee.


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## slowp (Dec 13, 2013)

Gologit said:


> Might be fun. Can you make a game with loggers vs. preservationists? I probably need more coffee.


 
That could be an offshoot. I would make an in-house game called IDT meeting. Maybe not, it brings up too many frustrating memories. 

That may be a project for a horrible weather day.


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## Gologit (Dec 14, 2013)

slowp said:


> That could be an offshoot. I would make an in-house game called IDT meeting. Maybe not, it brings up too many frustrating memories.
> 
> That may be a project for a horrible weather day.




Okay, for us civilians who don't speak fluent acronym, what's an IDT meeting? I can think of several words that match the letters...I just can't say any of them here.


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## slowp (Dec 14, 2013)

Inter Disciplinary Team. Where the serious fighting is done. I tried to avoid going to those meetings but got told that I had to.
The meetings are maddening. You'd want to throw your Donettos and throw them hard at the participants.


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## Gologit (Dec 14, 2013)

slowp said:


> Inter Disciplinary Team. Where the serious fighting is done. I tried to avoid going to those meetings but got told that I had to.
> The meetings are maddening. You'd want to throw your Donettos and throw them hard at the participants.




No! What a terrible waste of pastry. Throw pencils or coffee cups or something. Not Donettos!.


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## northmanlogging (Dec 15, 2013)

sounds either really kinky, or a total waste of time and energy.


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## madhatte (Dec 16, 2013)

Both, to my way of thinking


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## slowp (Dec 16, 2013)

The meetings here seemed to be futile. The 'ologists want to keep their part simple. This means no change in what they want to do no matter if the conditions warrant it. They have a boiler plate write up on their computers and that's what they will put into every document. Once in a while I would catch them because they missed a change of the name of the project. 

These meetings were on my Pro list when I was deciding whether to retire or not.


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## OlympicYJ (Dec 16, 2013)

Wow I know how I missed this cuz I was busy whacking down owl and mullet habitat this summer, okay not me personally but my contractors were. Anyways the article from Evergreen Mag was great and I think I have found a new site to frequent. As for the Murrelet article they still can't get crap strait; and I mean that in a literal sense. Murrelets do not just lay their eggs on flat mistletoe infected branches. They litterally crap a ring and lay the egg inside that. I went to a DNR meeting on Murrelets this summer. Without causing my brain to hurt too much; basically they have no idea how many Murrelets there are and once the plan is in place will not continue to do surveys of the population; this is DNR land private continues to do surveys where murrelets are. Anyways as for the predation aspect. Corvids, crows/ravens, are the primary target of the finger pointing. Granted they probably do eat some eggs and they say that clearcuts and smooth edges are what cause the attraction of corvids. You say what does clearcuts and edge effect have to do with attracting some damn birds that like to eat the other birds eggs. Well the berries and such attract the birds. Now for strait edges, here's where scientists infinite brilliance shines. They want ragged edges. Well this increases the amount of edge you have rather than decrease, think of filters, same principle that the brilliant morons can't figure out. Oh and they want tons of uncut forest without edge but the real truth is Murrelets do not fly and lite on branches. They are flying freakin potatoes; meaning when they go to lite they just fold their wings and fall to the branch unlike most birds. Hmm well it would seem to me that having edge could help them. Yes edge could expose them to more corvid predation but alas all the solutions are "techno fixes." These doctored eggs are a techno fix which we rely on to fix our environmental problems instead of trans-formative change. Granted I believe techno fixes are valid and definitely useful. Where we need the trans-formative changes are with our science and overcoming our tendency to overreact to problems or percieved problems before we have a good grasp of the problem. Owls would be a prime example and Murrelets will be another once we find out we screwed the pooch on it too. Hey species go extinct, the very nature of these bird species lends themselves to extinction and probably without human help. The original article, I believe, speaks volumes to this.

Wow I got fired up there. Anyways that's how I feel about all this. Take home message is junk in is junk out. Once we fix the problem of shoddy science then maybe we can truly come to understand the problems we face and how best to fix them.

Wes


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## madhatte (Dec 16, 2013)

Species notwithstanding, long, complex and feathered edges are a good idea wherever practical; it leaves more protection for canopy trees that are not wind-hardened so you lose less to windthrow and breakage, and also leaves more structural continuity in the remnant stand which means a shorter time to functional forest structure regardless of rotation time. The key word here is "practical" -- if there's a road, there's an edge. There's no sense in feathering that. As for 'ologists, well, I guess their heart is in the right place even if they can't agree among themselves what they want to do, much less play nice with others.


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## OlympicYJ (Dec 16, 2013)

This is true. I haven't decided yet if its a bad thing it isn't practiced more on private timber ground. Although RMZ boundaries and other resources to be protected often create a feather effect of sorts. But like you said species notwithstanding. I was on a timbersale a couple years ago post harvest. It was feathered for Murrelets and I wanna say everyone was griping about it both operationally and the fact we had to leave more timber.


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## redprospector (Dec 16, 2013)

This thread brings me to mind of what a former Mescalero Apache Chief once said.
I think it was in 91, the enviro's were letting us have it with both barrels. Mexican Spotted Owl, Goss Hawk, some kind of salamander, butterflies, and even a thistle. About the only logging jobs were on the reservation (which was not subject to the EPA or many other Fed. decisions). A TV reporter interviewed Chief Wendell Chino who stated that logging would continue on the reservation, during the interview the reporter asked; But Mr. Chino, what about the Spotted Owl? The Chief replied; We've done alright without the dinosaurs haven't we?


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## OlympicYJ (Dec 17, 2013)

If the spotted fluff balls go extinct the barred bad guys are more than willing and able to take over.


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## madhatte (Dec 17, 2013)

OlympicYJ said:


> Although RMZ boundaries and other resources to be protected often create a feather effect of sorts.



RMZ's would be an excellent place to feather edges, and are often very much a lost opportunity, as are ridiculous leave tree clumps in the middle of the unit which blow over during the first winter. Connect 'em to something, make 'em functional! Rules are just guidelines; foresters need to think beyond that! For every sale, the forester in charge of planning needs to think about what they want to leave for the next entry -- 10 years for a precommercial thin, 25 for first commercial entry, etc -- it isn't done by rubber stamp or congressional decree, it's done by slow natural systems that can't be rushed (much). 



redprospector said:


> The Chief replied; We've done alright without the dinosaurs haven't we?



I kind of like that. It's a bit snarky, and a bit commonsense. It's worth noting that Tribal forestry is catching up quickly and can get things done much more efficiently than FS/BLM can. I have spoken to foresters from several tribes and they seem to really "get it".


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## OlympicYJ (Dec 17, 2013)

Most everyone is only leaving the wildlife trees and incorporating the leave tree clumps into the unit boundaries, Except for the DNR they leave [email protected]%^ everywhere and it's a pain in the butt. I could see feathering being plausible if part of FSC but most folks just want to follow the forest practices and get every stick possible. Now part of this is rooted in the fact that the Forest Practices keep getting more restrictive and therefore they see the harvestable area shrinking already and to do it voluntarily takes some guts on managers part. I'm not saying leaving more is a bad thing nor doing it voluntarily. It would actually be great. What I would prefer is a cap on the RMZs where they are now and allow more management in the outer, inner and a smaller core. Green Diamond for instance has an HCP and they felt going that route would reap more benefits in the end while meeting the needs of Forest Practices. On the flip side to this it costs more to manage with the HCP and allot of outfits don't want to go through the hassle and expense. Especially since the govt wants more and more in the RMZs.

And i will say I wouldn't mind seeing some more diversity in our stands as opposed to just clearcutting it all and replanting. Feathering could provide some added structure. Although I'm thinking about it from a wood quality/market sense but one aids the other in the end. Sure would be nice to have some high quality peelers or poles in the future on private ground.

But the downside of that is once the timber gets older and starts taking on mature stand characteristics they are worried that it will be declared habitat. So you have the economics of the REITS playing into the majority of the management but the regulations are just stoking that fire. I would like longer rotation ages myself, 50-60 yrs. We may see a shift though as demand for better quality rises but I'm not banking on it too much unless they start genetically modifying the crap out of stuff and zap it with some x-rays. Intensive silv does not lend itself to good wood quality due to the low density of early wood but the economics right now don't work out too well.


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## madhatte (Dec 17, 2013)

OlympicYJ said:


> But the downside of that is once the timber gets older and starts taking on mature stand characteristics they are worried that it will be declared habitat.



That observation is right on and I don't have a clue what to do about it. I've been doing sales of bigger and bigger areas in order to spread the disturbance around and to create structural continuity at the landscape level (one unit I'm working on now is 600 acres and another is 750 acres) and I am well aware that if I do my job right I will eventually put myself out of business. However, the bigger sales get bigger bids because it helps drive production costs down, so it works, for now. Perhaps someday we'll figure out a politically-expedient way to meet all of the environmental requirements at once as well as turn a profit from working forests and we'll all live happily ever after. In the meantime, the best we can do is the best we can do.


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## OlympicYJ (Dec 20, 2013)

Exactly! If we could get the political BS to stabalize then we could have some clear management objectives but till then it's really just a shot in the dark. Oh hey I'm gonna be down in Tummwater for an interview Monday. Although you'll still be at work. The Tummwater reference is a hint at who it's with lol


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## slowp (Dec 20, 2013)

Tumwater.


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## madhatte (Dec 20, 2013)

I can think of four outfits in Tumwater, or at least 4 offices. My dad retired from one of the two on 93rd Ave.


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## OlympicYJ (Dec 20, 2013)

My bad Miss. P.! In my defense I had a few adult beverages before typing that.

Hmm second guess, it's private.

I'll even make it easy they have a really nice sign.


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## madhatte (Dec 20, 2013)

If you end up getting the job, I'll put you in touch with a friend of mine who's a road engineer there.


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## OlympicYJ (Dec 22, 2013)

Ten4! They have another great engineer there. He was hired last spring I believe. Never got to work with him but met him a few times. Have a mutual friend and he's held in high regard at Rayonier. He worked for the contract engineers.


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## madhatte (Jan 3, 2014)

It continues: they're still arguing about boundaries. I'm all for a first-entry thin on all of the prairie-colonization forest in the area as stem-exclusion is killing a good portion of the standing poles through basic competition. If we leave 'em, they'll just die, which wouldn't be too big of a deal, except for the fact that the prairie folks want to re-introduce fire, so fuel loading is a very real issue. It's weird to me how myopic folks can be about their own areas of specialty, and I wonder what my own biases say about me.


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## OlympicYJ (Jan 5, 2014)

And somewhere in all that myopia a beguiling decision is made


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## madhatte (Jan 9, 2014)

Oh, hey, guess what? They're still arguing. I thought we had a final decision three days ago, but that changed this morning. The fight goes on!


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## slowp (Jan 9, 2014)

Are you there so you can devise a way to award points for a score? That can be a way to stay awake.


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## northmanlogging (Jan 9, 2014)

You know squirrels are good eating, and you only need 70 to make a decent stew, mix in a little spotted wild chicken, devils club root, fiddle heads, wild onions, camas root. Maybe some nettle pesto,

Toss on some salmon berry/wild cherry/black berry/ blue berry... tart thing made with cattail flower and serve it up to all the locavores...


Remember to make an omelette out of the mottled mullet eggs, and they could be handy to hold that cat tail tart together...








(anyone brave enough to harvest devils club root is a bad ass in my book)


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## OlympicYJ (Jan 16, 2014)

Figured I'd let the outcome of my job interview in Tumwater known for ya Miss P. Got it, Interviewed on the day before Christmas eve and heard back last Friday. Two dollar pay raise over what I had been getting previously. Darn squirrels! Oh yeah gonna pull the trailer to my uncles place just down the road from the office. Should only be about a 4 mile drive one way and may do a little work for him runin excavator or driving truck after the day job. Plus gonna do some loggin on the old mans place. I have a wedding to pay for now lol Got engaged Christmas eve in Leavenworth.


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## slowp (Jan 16, 2014)

Wow! A happy life to you!


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## OlympicYJ (Jan 16, 2014)

Thanks! Pretty happy at the moment!


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## madhatte (Jan 16, 2014)

There ya go!


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