I need to have my hide tanned with a Tan Oak switch.

Everything that is wood in these photos is a localy made product, made out of local wood. The floors are Tan Oak.

Ken Forden and his crew at Whitethorn Constuction are understandably proud of these products.

All of the photos but the top two will greatly expand by double-clicking on them.

Mea Culpa
Noun
1. "An acknowledgment of your error or guilt."

Okay, I made a huge error in overlooking one of Southern Humboldt and Northern Mendocino’s most important, and long lasting businesses. My total focus on the Eel River Valley made me overlook Whitethorn Construction. That’s those guys one ridge over in the Matole drainage. The Matole drainage and the Eel River drainage have almost identical ecology, but totally different geology, a fact that will probably be reflected in a post on this blog one day. But, the people are the same kind of people that cover all of Sohum and Nomend. A poet by the name of “Deerhawk” coined us to be the people of the Mateel. The word is a combination of the Matole and the Eel. I campaigned for us to be called the Eetole, but I lost and Deerhawk got his way.

Back to my huge error. No amount of apologizing can make up for my oversight, because the people of the Whitethorn Construction Company are my friends and Neighbors. Indeed, the Owners of Whitethorn construction, the Mckees, are one of the oldest families in Southern Humboldt. Bob Mckee and I are even related through marriage a few generations ago. Also, as Ken forden, the manager of Whitethorn Constuction’s Hardwood Products division said, we have known each other for over thirty years. We’ve even been to many social events together. So I understand his being miffed.

After I show you the local hardwood products that they produce, you will see that I was very remiss in not thinking of them in my Tan Oak Lumber post. I offer my sincere apologies to Whitethorn Construction, and especially Ken Forden. I admire a person that will tell me when I’m wrong and allow me to repair the error.

Ken proceeded to fire some rather frank and much deserved e-mails my way and the following is being printed with his permission:

"Ernie, rather than submit photos of Tan Oak products directly to the site ( I actually don't know if that is how it works) I think I will try and get some together and send them to you for your review. I hope that at least a couple will be worth your while to put up on the site to continue the discussion. Local woods have a place and I've built a lot of items from them over the last 30 years. I didn't mean to start out rudely but I was upset that so little seemed to be known about the subject and our part in making it happen. Forgive me please. I'll try to work something in today but no promises. I enjoy giving tours but I have regular work to do and that is why I specified an appointment. I can usually accommodate wherever people have in mind but I need to work it in to my own schedule. I would truly like to show you around, I'd like you to see me on my own turf. thanks, ken"

The presented photos are of their mill, and a few photos of their local product, produced one ridge over to the West. I'm pretty sure that Ken will be monitoring this blog for a while, so if you have any questions just post them here with your other comments, and we will get them answered.

Madrone

Okay one more tree, amongst many more, but my feet are itching to move into new territory. Before I go on, I want to pay the majestic Madrone tree its due respect.

The mighty Madrone is one of the north coasts most beautiful trees. The Madrone is an evergreen tree, and it’s green year around. I lifted these photo’s off of the ones that are readily available on the internet, to reflect some of it‘s stages. Although the Madrone is an evergreen tree, it reflects the four seasons with true character, and it easily melds the seasons together in its smooth transition from one phase to another.

In the spring, the Madrone forms large bunches of blossoms that look like bunches of white grapes from afar, and close up each blossom looks like a tiny white Chinese lantern. Later the new leaves start to bud and form, then the new bark grows a new green layer under last years cinnamon orange colored bark.

As the new bark ripens underneath the old bark, the old bark splits and peels away in tiny rolls that look like ringlets in a young girl’s hair. The fresh green bark underneath springs from under the old bark, anxious to bask in the young summer’s sun and gain its own cinnamon tan color.
The new leaves ripen and harden, last years leaves start to lose their green, then mid summer, they turn a creamy yellow. Then as if waiting for a clue from mother nature the leaves await a gentle breeze, then they all flutter in majestic unison to the ground. Leaving the tree it’s bright evergreen color.

The bark curls that are shed in the summer are sometimes collected and used as tea. My wife tells me that if you collect the bark before the rain ruins it, it makes a great fabric dye. In the fall of the year the Madrone berries ripen and they become the favorite food of the hungry Robins returning to our moderate climate for the winter. In the higher elevations the berries become the victim of the wild Bandtail Pigeon.

In the winter the tree becomes the umbrella of the deer, that like to eat its low hanging branches. I can safely say that the Madrone tree is one of the deer’s favorite foods. The Madrone thrives in acid soil, with out many soil nutrients. The tree needs to stay dry in the summer. To irrigate it will cause root rot, and kill it.

The Madrone makes beautiful lumber, but it must be cured by someone that really knows what they are doing. The lumber can warp badly, and it is subject to false post powder beetle blight.

The old-timers used it in their forges for making horseshoes and shoeing horses. Madrone burns hot and clean. It leaves little ash. The only wood that burns hotter and cleaner is Manzanita. It is sad that the Madrone tree is used mostly as firewood, and it is the most expensive wood that you can buy.

There once was a Madrone tree in Ettersburg, called The Council Madrone, that was over one-hundred feet tall and over one-hundred and fifty feet wide. The base of the tree was twelve feet through. It was acknowledged as the largest Madrone tree in the world. A windstorm in 2000 twisted it, and laid it open. The remains of the tree are still sitting there on it's hilltop. It's history as a large tree descends back into legend. The Indian people held council under the tree, and it is rumored that is how the tree got it's name.

Conversations about wood, with Ben.

Ernie..." I saw some nice tanoak board floors when Wild Iris Forest Products was making it in Briceland. I did buy flooring for a place in Salmon Creek tho someone else laid the floor. It looks great today. The best looking one I have seen is out at the Wilson's in Briceland."


Ben
It's a shame that the women in our lives, that seem to appreciate beauty more than us guys, just don't seem to appreciate technology, so this post will be for the guys and the more technologically minded women.

Jan Iris (Pronounced Yon, and he was a guy, for those that didn’t know him) used a refrigerated lumber dryer, so I was familiar with his operation. I really believe that if Jan still with us we would have a viable Tan Oak industry. He was a remarkable person that didn’t know the word “fail”.

The flooring product that Jan produced, was not produced by the Coombs operation, because they deemed it to be an inferior product. It was deemed inferior because of the high rate of expansion and contraction that it had in comparison to Red Oak. Red Oak is the oak that standard oak flooring is made from.

What Coombs failed to consider, or was maybe reluctant to risk, was the fact that Tan Oak is drop dead beautiful, and people would tolerate cracked edges on their flooring for the beauty. The other factor nowadays, is that our houses are tighter, better insulated, and sealed, than the houses in the sixties and seventies, The humidity and temperature stays much the same, and the fluctuations are moderated, so the joints don’t crack as bad as they thought that they would.

Now, to get to the really fascinating part of Jan’s lumber dryer. It was a plain old, off the shelf, heat pump. Some of you are aware of my love for machinery, so you will have to forgive me while I ramble. The dryer was so simple that I’m amazed that it wasn’t thought of, or used more by small lumber operations years ago. Jan’s lumber dryer was a highly insulated room that was heated slowly from room temperature to 160-180 degrees. That is the temperature required to dry lumber and kill wood bugs. The air was heated by the heat pump, and the electric heat strips that are standard equipment in heat pumps.

I’ll try to describe it in simple terms, so the non-refrigerator types can follow. A normal heat pump works by refrigerating outside air, and returning the greatly chilled air back outside, while taking the heat gained in that process and running the inside air through a radiator, and blowing the much heated air back inside. When it is real cold outside the heat pump will kick-in regular resistance electric heat strips for supplemental heat.

With Jan’s lumber dryer, it ran the room air into the cooling coil first, then ran the cooled air through the heating coil to reheat the air, then through the electric heat strips to increase the temperature up to 180 degrees, then back into the room. By running the room air through the cooling coils first, it condensed the wood vapors and moisture from the wood, and drained the condensed water outside. Then the air was reheated by the heating coils back up to the original room temperature. Then heat was added to the room by the electric heat strips to raise the temperature to the dying and bug killing temperature. The temperature, humidity and the rate of heat and final temperature is all controlled by a computer that tells the machine what to do.
The only problem being, that a standard heat pump won’t work in those high temperature extremes, due the fact that the pressure gets too high at that high temperature and simply overloads the heat pump.

Okay, now here’s where the “Genius Factor” kicks in. Voila! Eureka! And Ain’t life wonderful stuff; By simply changing the refrigerant from the standard heat pump refrigerant, to another off the shelf refrigerant, the heat pump runs at much reduced pressures, and it is exactly like shifting your truck into a lower gear to climb a hill that it wouldn’t normally climb! Dang, I love machinery! The best part is, that it is all affordable stuff for the small lumber mill operator.

The Tan Oak came back with a vengence.

Ben Said:
"Redwood Forest Foundation (RFFI) is looking for ideas on how to remove tanoak and have the trees pay for the removal. They have 50,000 acres from Piercy/Legget to the coast. Any ideas?"



Ben as you know, the forest/timber industry considers the Tan Oak to be a weed. Back in the sixties and seventies, Mal Coombs spent a lot of big bucks hoping to find a use for Tan Oak. He had thousands of acres of them choking out Redwood and Fir trees. He brought many of the oak logs into his mill and experimented with them. He already had a steam powered drying kiln for the kiln-dried Redwood products that he sold. He did a lot of experimenting in drying the lumber for high quality furniture. The tan wood proved to be too unstable for furniture. I think that people nowadays would be glad to have it. We have forgotten what quality is.

He developed a baseball bat out of the Tan Oak. There was something wrong with the wood where it wasn’t strong enough, or something like that. I’m not sure what was wrong with the wood, but they even made a bat that was laminated with fiberglass to make a wood quality bat, but it was not approved by the baseball industry. I think that he was just not one of the baseball “good old boys”.

After the bat thing failed, they tried to manufacture various small board flooring options. The only flooring that Mal would approve of, that he would put his name on, was the small wood pieced Parquet flooring. The flooring was beautiful, but it was not as successful as a product as he had hoped it would be.

An interesting story: When Mal was just going into full production with the Tan Oak flooring, the Humboldt County Airport in McKinleyville was just being built, and Mal negotiated a deal with the county to put his Tan Oak Parquet Flooring in the main terminal. Somehow a piece of Chinquapin Oak, that he was also experimenting with, got mixed in with the Tan Oak. It was not noticed until the Varnish was applied to the floor, then the different colored Chinquapin stood out like a sore thumb. Mal had to stand the cost of re-flooring the whole main terminal. He was not a happy camper!

The flooring was in the main terminal of the airport until the recent remodel. It would still be beautiful today if it had been taken care of. Unfortunately, the way the county takes care of things is smear wax on the dirt over the top of the floor until it becomes unrecognizable, then replace the beautiful oak floor with concrete.

Now back to the question that you asked me…
The Tan Oak can only be used for small piece lumber due to the fact that it is unstable, but it might be practical to chip as hog fuel for all of the co-generation plants that are going to run out of fuel with all of the mills closing. The plus there, is that there is a bunch of already trained woodsmen that could do that work if they get right on it. If not they will be leaving for somewhere else, because there is just no work for them here.

Rogan Coombs tried manufacturing firewood out of Tan Oak in piercy. I’m not sure why that failed. One thing that Rogan did was sell logs and put them on a landing for peole to cut firewood out of. I think that it was also an attempt to to get rid of them out of the conifer forest.

I've been told that it makes high quality paper products, but that is kind of a moot point with all of the pulp mills closed.

Sad ain’t it? Such a beautiful wood to be so totally worthless.

Tan Oak

Range of the tan oak. Mostly a tree of the pacific coast of north-western California.

These are a few photos of the Tan Oak. Most of them will enlarge if you click on them. The Tan oak is a tall slender tree that grows to great heights. The tree grows on a single trunk, similar to a fir tree. It usually grows with a slight lean to it, and it is one of the tallest oaks trees. It is an evergreen tree, and does not lose all of it’s leaves at the same time. The tree sometimes grows as large as six foot through at the base, but its average diameter is around one and one half foot.

The tree was valuable back in the late 18th and early 20th Century because of it’s importance to the leather industry. The tree has more than twice the tannic acid of any other tree.
The leather industry, mostly located in the Sacramento Valley, caused a large demand for the tall and stately tan oak. The tan bark is where the tannic acid is stored by the tree, so to harvest the acid all one had to do is peel the bark off of the tree. The tan bark was at first hauled by mule to the coast and shipped by “Dog Hole Schooner” to the bay area.

Dog Hole Schooners were small ships that could sail in and out of small ports along the coast. They would sail straight in toward the shore, then they would send two men in a row boat to attach a line to the anchorage, which was usually an exposed rock offshore. Once the line was attached, the ship would simply swing around and come to rest off the breaker line. The bark was loaded by overhead cables. Once the ship was loaded. They would simply set their sails and sail away. Many times the rowboat crew didn’t get the line to the anchorage in time, and the poor small ship would sail right on into the rocks along the shoreline. Most of the sailors were Scandinavian and they were called the Scandahoovian navy.

Stockton soon became the center of the leather industry because the small Schooners could sail to Stockton to unload. The reason that the leather factories were in Stockton was because that’s where the cattle were. It was easier to bring the tannic acid the leather than the other way around. The tanned hides were then transported from there.

At about the turn of the 19th century the Wagner Leather corporation scouted out a port to land their ships more safely. They decided to build a wharf at Shelter Cove. To further simplify their growing company they decided to build a Tannic Acid extraction factory in Briceland. They went about buying up Tan Oak Forests. They ended up buying over 7,000 acres of Tan Oak forest land.

The larger Tan Oak trees were fallen to the ground, and the bark was peeled. The bark was then dried in the summer heat right where it was peeled. The smaller trees were “creamed” which meant that they didn’t even fall them. They just took the bark that they could reach, and left the rest that was to far up, right on the tree. It was considered to be too small of an amount to bother with. Then the dried bark was skidded on sleds or strapped on a mule and hauled to a landing wher it was loaded on huge wagon loads and hauled into Briceland to go through the tannic acid extraction process.

Now, I know that you are probably thinking that it was a terrible waste to cut a tree and just leave it lay in the woods to rot. You’re right, get over it! Things were a lot different back then than they are today, they did what they had to do to survive.

The good thing about the Tan Oak is that, just like a Redwood tree, it regenerates from sprouts from it’s root system and it readily replaces the forest with many more healthy young tan Oaks. The Tan oak has a tendency to take over if it is allowed. A good example of a Tan Oak takeover is from the Finley Creek fire in 1972. The fire burned from Ettersburg to Shelter Cove in one night. It burned over ten thousand acres and was one of the hottest fires that we have seen on the north coast. The fire killed the fir trees and other small trees, and they had to be replanted. The Tan Oak sprouted from their own roots and beat out most of the other trees. The other trees are just now catching up. So the Tan Oak makes a great “Nurse tree” it provides shade and protection for the Douglas fir. That won’t do as well when exposed to the hot sun.

The tan oak makes beautiful lumber, but it is unstable in larger board sizes, so it make great Parquet Flooring and other small-piece wood products. Sadly the mighty Tan Oak is one of the major trees to be killed by Sudden Oak Death. Massive die-offs are happening as you read this. I hope that they are wise enough to harvest some of the die-off for energy production, by chipping it for co-generation plants. It is my hope that some trees will be found to be resistant, and we will have a healthy forest again.

Again, as with every oak tree that ever existed, it is said to be one of the favorite acorn trees of the Indian people. The fact is, that it has a bitter nut and takes much leaching to get the acids out of it. But, that is the beauty of the Tan Oak acorn, it doesn’t rot because of its high acid content. It has a hard shell, so it is somewhat bug resistant, and it lasts under the tree longer. So the Indians used it when they had a hard time finding other acorns, which was most of the time. So, it appeared that the Tan Oak was their favorite nut. When they probably simply thought of it as being better than starvation.

I have many logging stories to tell about the Tan Oak. Too many to tell here. But, it was a much hated tree because of it’s “Tan Oak Dust”, which is a combination of pollen and the fuzz off the fuzzy leaves. It can darn near choke you to death. If your think that a respirator would solve the problem, you’ve simply have not worked in the woods when it was 100 plus degrees and there was no fresh air.

I take questions!

Addendum:
In researching why they stopped using Tan Oak extract to tan leather; I thought that I would find that a cheap synthetic tannin was developed, but apparently they simply ran out of cheap and easy to get tan bark. In the late Nineteen-twenties they started running out of available tan bark in the quantities that they needed. The Wagner Leather Company requested that Humboldt county build a road down Redwood Creek to access the new highway 101 that was being built north and south, with the hope that they could truck in the still abundant supply of Tan Oak that was growing inland. The County said no, and the Wagner Leather works closed their factory and switched to other means of tanning their leather. After that the road was built

We called them Black Oaks.

If any of the photo's remind you of Humboldt County, it's okay, the California Black Oak is a very common tree here on the north coast. They only grow on the north coast and the western slope of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains. They are straight and leggy when growing in groups, or in shade. They usually have two main trunks after they leave the main trunk. (What the loggers called a "Schoolmarm". I'll let you figger out why. Hint: The loggers liked to talk dirty!) They have darker bark than a White Oak, but it would be hard to tell, because they are usually mostly covered in moss. They have large watermelon shaped acorns. They are probably the meatiest acorn of all of the Oak trees. The ones that I gathered last year were some of the largest that I've ever seen. I laid five of them end to end on a tape measure and they measured eight inches.

Sometimes we called the Black Oak the "Mountain Oak", because they grow on the side-hills and near the ridge-tops. The White oak sometimes called the "Valley Oak". One of the things that the old-timers noticed, that few of the newcomers do, is the difference in the flora and fauna of the valley as compared to the mountains.

There is a "Mountain Quail" and a "Valley quail". A "Mounntain Jay" and a "Valley Jay" (Stallar Jay and Scrub Jay). There is "Mountain Manzanita" and "Valley Manzanita". The Mountain Manzanita is a lighter color, the stems have hair on them, and the blossoms are white. The Valley Manzanita is darker in color and has no hair on the stems, and the color is a beautiful pink and white. Did you get that Robin? Check to see if your Oregon Manzanita, that has white blossoms, has hair on the stems. If so, It’s a “Mountain Manzanita.”

The wood of the Black Oak is dark brown, about the color of Root Beer, almost the same color as Black Walnut. It makes fair lumber. The white oak wood is a tan color and the wood is unstable, and not very good for furniture because it likes to warp and change shape with the weather and humidity.

The Black Oak is said to be one of the favorite trees for acorns for the Indian people. It's funny, but I have heard that same thing about every single oak tree, except the Live Oak, and the only thing wrong with the Live Oak is that the acorns are to small to bother with, but when times were tough, you can bet that the Indian people were gathering live oak acorns.

When used as fire wood it burns long and slow, and leaves a moderate amount of ash. It's a good log to put on the fire before going to bed at night. It will burn slow all night, keep the chill off, and all you have to do in the morning is add wood and open the draft. That's way more fun than waking up to a cold house and having to build a fire.

A lot of people won't agree with me, but Black Oak is one of my favorite woods to use for smoking pork sausage. It has a honey sweet maple flavor to it. When I split Black Oak for firewood I spend more time picking it up and inhaling the sweet smell than splitting.

If you want to try it, here you go:
Gramma's breakfast pork sausage mix.
2 lbs. ground pork. Use good meat, like shoulder meat.
1 Tbls. brown sugar.
2 tsp. dried sage.
2 tsp. salt.
1 tsp. pepper.
½ tsp. garlic powder, I'd probably use more, but I like Garlic.
½ tsp. onion powder.
1/4 tsp. dried marjoram.

1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes, or if you’re lazy, ½ tsp. Tobasco Sauce. I'd probaly use more but I like hot sausage. It's best to add you own hot sauce later, that way everybody can enjoy your sausage.
Stuff it into a 1/2" sausage casing and smoke with Black Oak over night and eat for breakfast. Be sure to invite Ernie!

We called it a White Oak.

White Oak or Garry Oak distribution map thanks to Betsy Rose.

Carol said...
“We have oaks on the east coast and we call these things "puff balls", because if you stomp on them they made a puff of smoke.”

Hi Carol!
What you call a "puffball", is actually a “puffball mushroom” It grows out of the ground in meadows and pastures, but it is quite different from an Oak Ball. The “Oak Ball” is a “gall” that grows on the oak.

The White Oak is variously called the California White Oak or the Valley Oak. They have one and seven eighths inch long acorns. They are long and slender and sweet. The Old Timers call it a “Mush Oak”, because the Indians used to eat the acorns for mush. When they are small they are called Scrub Oak. These are all names for just one tree, and there are many other oak trees with just as many names for each one, so it's okay to be confused. The large oaks in the Laytonville Valley appear to be Oregon Oak or Garry Oak, because the are a white oak with a small round acorn. Where just a short ways south in the Gyserville area they have the classic California White oak with the long acorns. I tried looking up a few "White Oaks" and there are more than twenty-five varieties, so it is easily confusing for a novice like me to be identifing trees from memory.

The Indians used to burn the valleys, from the edges to the center to kill the small trees and get rid of bugs and fungus and diseases. The small White Oaks (as I call them) are called Scrub Oaks. They spring up around the main tree and take over if they are not burned or thinned out, so nowadays you will see a small Scrub Oak forest, with a rather large Mother White Oak in the middle. The Scrub Oak trees are usually about one-hundred and fifty years old. They date back to the appearance of the Whiteman. The Whiteman didn’t burn out the scrub oaks like the Indians. Many ranchers continued to burn, but they saved the valley grasses for their cattle.

The Oak Gall, or “Oak Ball”, is actually a phenomenon in itself, one of natures great mysteries. The galls develop after the female Gall Wasp lays her eggs on the oak tree. What triggers the gall to form is largely unknown. Speculation says that it is chemical, mechanical, and viral triggers. The hatching larvae nourish themselves with the nutritive tissue of the galls as they form. They eventually get to be about one and one half, to two inches in diameter. The larvae live inside the ball where they are well-protected from external effects. The gall is not a fruit of the oak tree. The oak tree’s seed is an acorn. The galls only purpose is to host the Gall Wasp. When the wasp is mature it chews it’s way out and flies away. I have seen oak balls that are fully formed and look like Styrofoam inside, and I have seen smaller oak balls that are hollow inside like ping-pong balls. I'm not sure what they are. I have not found any experts on these "Bubble Balls" as we called them. I've wondered if they are just an oak ball with the insides eaten out. I don't know.

The White Oak is the only known plant that the "White Oak Caterpillar" lives on. The newcomers call it Bucculatrix Zophopasta. It's a cute little fuzzy striped worm that we collected by the jar full as children. Sorry that I can't find a photo of them as a caterpillar or a moth, but they are cute, and if you have been paying attention, you have seen them.

Puff Ball Mushroom:

The puffball Mushroom Is usually found in meadows and pastures around the Eel River valley and are quite common, indeed they are found in various forms, and found all over the world. The puffball is said to be edible, but they have also said that a young Deadly Aminita mushroon can look like a puffball. I've always said that only a fool would eat a puffball mushroom, so I've only eaten one. I got sick right after, and it scared the heck out of me. I'm sure it was just the flu, but what a fright! No more Mushroom experimenting for me!


The puffballs that we have around here are pure white, with pure white meat inside. The meat yellows as it ages and it eventually turns to a brown powder inside. When you kick one, it releases thousands or spores that fly away the grow new puffballs.


Two plants that look exactly the same but are totally different.

Another Stolen Photo

This photo was stolen from Elaine, from the Willits Daily Photo blog. She has a blog that I check on daily because I like her photography and meaningful commentary.

I stole her photo because the "Oak Ball" was my friend first, and I grew up with it. So thank-you Elaine, for the idea for this post. As usual, most of my ideas come from other bloggers. Her blog is a "Must Visit".

Elaine, you just took a photo of one of my favorite toys as a kid. We were allowed to have "Oak Ball Wars", because we could throw them at each other without being hurt because they are so light. "Apple Wars" were strongly discouraged, so we had to hide from the folks to have apple wars.

The oak balls are not so prevalent in our area up north in Garberville, but they are very prevalent in Willits and Laytonville, where the valley oaks grow, and I grew.

We used to chop them up and put them in steel coffee cans along with steel nails and a little water. We would stir them morning and evening. After a few days we would have “Indian Ink” (Not India Ink) as we called it. They we would make ourselves a few pens out of chicken feathers, and write “Pioneer letters” with the same ink that our pioneer folks used. Another thing that we used to do is make "birds" out of them, by using a nial to make holes in them to place oak leaves where the wings and tail feathers would go. Make two short toothpick or dowel legs, that they will balance on when you weight the front end with an acorn that you use the nail to poke a hole in at just the right spot to attach it as a head. Leave the cap on the acorn for that very cool fuzzy head look. If you are really talented, you can draw in the eyes and lips. Do birds have lips?

I’m in trouble with my wife for not gathering her any oak balls. She uses the Indian Ink formula to make wool dye, she dyes and spins her own wool yarn. She wastes her time spinning, while I accomplish much by blogging. Both are real time wasting, but very enjoyable hobbies.

Addendum: My mother corrected me, much like mothers are wont to do. She says that you have to use unripe Oak Balls to make ink. She’s probably right… again. I’ve never tried dried ones, so I don’t know. Maybe somebody can tell me. They must work a little bit.

Another thing that I should tell you, is not to use the ink any high quality pen, because it will probably ruin it, and the ink will fall off the paper after a while, but it is great for short term fun, or writing love letters that you want to disappear after a few years.

Some of the works of art that were done with oak gall ink in Leonardo DaVinci's day were lost to posterity due to their non permanence.

Fudge

There is nothing scarier than a group of women guarding a plate of fudge.

The man that can control fudge, can control the hand that rocks the craddle, that rules the world!!!

Intermission

My wife says that there will be a short intermission while family’s here for Thanksgiving.

It seems reasonable to me.

I should be back Monday or so.

Meanwhile feel free to comment on anything you like.

And, Oh yeah.....

Happy Thanksgivin' Folks!!!

Mountain Lions and Bobcats.

Okay those that know me, know that I like happy and fun things, so sadly I have nothing happy and fun to say about the Mountain Lion or the Bobcat. My first experience with meeting a Mountain Lion was when I was in school in the second grade, when a person by the name of Floyd Holmes was the government trapper. One day Floyd, the father of my best friend at the time, Charlie Holmes, brought a Mountain Lion to school for the kids to see. The Mountain Lion was quite dead and tied across the hood of an old military surplus Jeep. I couldn’t help but think that it was a beautiful cat, and I was greatly saddened by the experience.

The Cat was killed because it was caught killing sheep. Killing sheep was a capitol offence back in the fifties. Not only was the Mountain Lion not protected, indeed there was a bounty on them. The thinking at the time was that the only good Mountain Lion was a dead Mountain Lion. They were hunted or poisoned with strychnine until they were almost extinct. They used baited “getters” that shot cyanide in the mouths of Coyotes, and they used “compound 1080” to kill meat eating animals instantly. The ranchers didn’t allow meat eaters to be around. If the neighbor was dumb enough to let his dogs run, they were also a casualty. The ranchers thought that was fair, and so did the owner of the offending dogs. Dogs were smart back then and they minded well. They didn’t run off and get in trouble. The ones that did, didn’t come back. I don’t think that people around here today appreciate how smart the dogs were back then. The dogs that people have today don’t mind, and all they know how to do is bite things and crap.

Being raised on a ranch, it was well understood that our livestock was our food and anything that bothered our food died. When it came time to slaughter the animals, the children were not protected from it, and were expected to help with the butchering.

I guess what I’m saying is that I understand why the Mountain lions were killed. The rancher thought of it as “survival”. You’ve heard me use that phrase before.

One of my more humorous experiences with a mountain lion was back when I was in high school, my best friend at the time and I went on a “double date” to the movies, and on the way home we went up to the top of the hill on Old Briceland Road. There was a beautiful grassy point that looked over the whole South Fork Canyon in the Garberville area. The moon was full and we tuned in The Wolfman Jack show on radio station XERB. He was real cool with his wolf howl. And, he played that good old rock and roll music.

It was a hot night and there was a full moon, things were real nice, and both of the girls were leaning on our shoulders. Just when things couldn’t get much sweeter, we heard a blood curdling female scream, It was long and chilling and at the end of it was a cough and a low gurgle, like something had ripped the girls throat out. The girls instantly locked the doors and asked us to roll up the windows real quick.
Well, I thought that it was real humorous that the girls thought that someone was being murdered, and I told them that, no, that was the mating call of a Mountain Lion, and I had heard it before. Contrary to my plan of easing their fears, that only compounded their fears and they had to go home right then. Period. No argument!

My experience with a Bobcat has been similar. Other than seeing them running across a field somewhere. Most of the times that I have seen a bobcat is at the scene of a kill, a chicken, a goose, or a duck. When you find the sign of a cat kill, they are easy to find. Usually you will see their tracks at the scene of the kill. You get your gun and go looking. If you look around near the edges of a log or a rock you will see that they have covered their kill with sticks, rocks, dirt, and grass that they have scratched up. If you go to the spot, you will find that the cat has buried their kill. Then all you have to do is look around yourself in the trees, and you will see a bobcat face peering at you. They will never leave their kill while there is meat on the bones. As soon as they finish that they will kill again. That’s when you take your gun, put the crosshairs between its eyes and drop the hammer.

If you knew me, you would know that I don’t enjoy doing that. But if you knew me, you would know that I have thought these things out, and know that I have to do what has to be done, and accept that I did the right thing, and go on.

So you might guess why I didn’t want to do this post. Cats are not a happy experience for me.

All cats of the north coast are similar in nature, they stay with their kills, and protect it until it is eaten up. Then they hunt and kill again. The Mountain Lion has a range of about a fifty mile radius, and they normally travel a complete circuit once a year. If you see one, chances are you will see the same cat in the same place next year. Cat hunters, that pay attention to those sorts of things usually have no trouble finding a cat to hunt. Due to their speed and agility cats are usually hunted with dogs. The cats will readily “Tree” which means that they will climb a tree. Then the hunter will show up, put his crosshairs on the cats forehead and drop the hammer.

Cats are solitary animals and they call to each other in mating season. The air in the mating season in the country is filled with big scary screams and gurgling, Just like that back alley in the city that’s filled with alley cats. Only the Country cats are much scarier.

We have bobcats in our front yard in Benbow, they live on ground squirrels, cottontail rabbit, jack rabbit, quail, and turkey. Mountain lion live mostly on slow deer, and occasionally a sheep or a calf. Sometimes they will kill a human that is dumb enough to run from them. Running will trigger their “kill instinct”. A cat usually won’t kill something facing them, and looking big, and making noises that convinces them that you will kick the crap out of them. If you look around and see their buried kill, move as best you can, very slowly in the opposite direction. It won’t make any difference how big and scary you look if you are moving toward their kill. They will kill you if you get too close. People are usually attacked when they inadvertently get too close to the cats “kill”. Even a Bobcat will attack you if you get too close to its kill.

So, there you have it folks, the good, the bad, the ugly, the happy, and the sad. Such is the life of a country boy, it’s not always pleasant.

Often seen, seldom proven Critters of the North Coast.

Picture stolen from "Smalfut" (get it?) they go on and on about copyrights and possible actor royalties. The picture is taken from the, now world famous, Patterson-Gimlin Film.

BigFoot!
Robin Shelly said...
I was told by a government hunter one time that there are wolverines in the Covelo area.

Old Man River said:
Well, I eat my entry on another thread. I did not see this little critter, but saw the darker version, the fisher...It was a little larger than a large otter, body a bit different, and the rear legs clearly designed more for land than water. Thanks for correcting my memory, and I look forward to telling my other witnesses that we blew the ID. Martens and fishers are very different.

"oldmanriver said...
Thanks for opening the can Ross.I elicited a Bigfoot story from a Piercy local in the 80's. Grizzled fellow who had his sighting between Piercy and the coast. If I can recollect without embellishing...the basic story was a nightime encounter with an unknown creature. The usually fearless dog is intimidated and won't go outside while somethin' big picked up a 50 gallon drum and repeatedly smashing it on a corrugated tin roof shed or animal pen(?). The clincher for me believing him was his description of the rank odor, something I have experienced more than once in my own suspicious encounters. That's another story or two.

Many people have heard stories, or have made honest mistakes about what they have seen here in the Eel River Valley. The thing that I like about having this blog is that I get to hear some of these stories. An honest person will have to agree that these stories are fascinating, even if you really don’t believe them. But, if enough people corroborate the story, you began to believe that they are real, and you must reevaluate your position. Telling these stories, and hearing them, is what I’ve come to call “bullshistory”. Or twice told tales, that are fun to tell whether you believe them or not. Any honest historian, or researcher, will tell you that they want to hear these stories, whether they are real or not, or if it was a case of mistaken identity, and that they add to the depth of their research.

When talking about Myth, Legend, and unusual sightings on the North Coast, Bigfoot will always come up. Before we go any farther here, I want to say that I do I do not believe in Bigfoot. Having said that, deep in my soul I know that there is a possibility that Bigfoot exists, and I would be overjoyed if one was positively identified. But, you are not going to get me to say that “I believe in Bigfoot.” I don’t want to join that most maligned group of North Coast Critters called: “The People That Believe in Bigfoot.” But I listen very intently to what people have to say when they say that they have seen Bigfoot. In the back of my mind I listen for that little tiny bit of evidence that says: “There, that proves it… there is a Bigfoot.”

Some people call Bigfoot “Sasquatch”. They say that is what the Indians called him. There has been so many legends and stories that Bigfoot has indeed become real in the minds of North Coasters. There is a division of science that the newcomers brought us. (They have to have a new name for everything, that’s the only way that they can feel smarter than us) The name for the study of Bigfoot is called “Cryptozoology”, formerly known as “Bullshistory”.

Bigfoot is reported to be a giant and up to ten feet tall. The most common tale about Bigfoot is that he stinks. I’ve not heard a good enough description of the stink to put it here, but maybe somebody feels up to describing it for us. Some say that he makes vocalizations. I’ve heard Mountain Lions and Badgers make noises that would scare the living crap out of you, and believe me they sound way bigger than they are.

Now, the people that know me, know that I’m a hopeless romantic, and I like to believe whatever anybody tells me. Well, I been told that I am a descendant of a great King of the British Isles Called “Bran The Blessed”. He was a giant, (I don’t know if he stunk) and he was big enough that he could wade the Irish Sea and move back and forth from Ireland to England. My name is "Branscomb. A "comb" or a "coombe" is a valley. “Bran” is a Welsh name for “Raven” so all of the ravens were named after Bran. Some say that he turned into a raven when he died. So I've been told that Branscomb means "From Brans Valley". All I know “for sure” is that Brans head is buried in White Mount in London, and there is a Castle there today with Royal Ravens that are protected by Her Majesty Elisabeth the Queen of England. "You could look it up". So, she believes the story, and I also really want to believe the story, In my heart I feel that it is real.

"Well now, you'll be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure that they exist... I've talked to so many Native Americans who all describe the same sounds, two who have seen them. I've probably got about, oh, thirty books that have come from different parts of the world, from China from, from all over the place...." Jane Goodall

Photo from anoymous taken in the Yollo Bolly's.

Things that you dont want to see, Badgers!

Badgers!
Don’t let this sweet innocent “Who me?” face fool you. These are the scariest little balls of fuzz that inhabit the face of the earth. They will fight any kind of animal if there young are threatened. Badgers fighting bears have been witnessed many times. They weigh up to twenty-four pounds, with the male being bigger than the female. They can run up to twenty-four miles an hour in short bursts. Okay, you physics students, what is the impact of a badger weighing twenty-four pounds, running at twenty-four miles per hour? Don’t worry about it, you will die of fright before he hits you.

They are members of the mustelidae family, the same as weasels, fishers, and martens. The skunk used to be a member of the mustelidae family but they kicked it out and gave it it’s own family name of mephitidae. I guess they just didn’t want the skunk stinking up the family name. One other thing that I forgot to tell you about, Martens and fishers stink, and so does the badger. They smell kind of musky, like a dead skunk. Only not as strong of a skunk smell. Throw in a little rotten meat, then make it smell kinda’ sweet. That’s what they smell like. It’s not a pleasant odor. If you were out of your mind, and had one as a pet, the first thing that visitors would say is “What’s that stink” so you couldn’t fool the fish and game if you were hiding one.

When I was a young man, and had just set up my first household, I had a freezer that I kept all my wild food, and stuff from the garden in. One day a rancher friend of my boss stopped by and asked my boss if he had ever seen a badger. My boss said “no” he hadn’t, so the rancher showed him the badger that he had shot on the ranch. He put it in his Jeep just to show a few folks that he had killed one, because nobody would have believed him otherwise. A man has to maintain his credibility! Anyway, as he was leaving, I was thinking the same thing. I thought that nobody is going to believe that I saw a badger. So I asked him what he was going to do with it. He said he was going to throw it in the dump on the way home. I asked him if I could have it. He said “sure go ahead and take it”>. I put it in a plastic bag and stuck it in the freezer.

After that, when I had friends over, I would start a conversation about badgers, I would talk about how mean and vicious that they were. I’d mention that they would even back down a bear. Then I’d casually mention that “we have them right here in the Eel River drainage you know”. Of course that would bring up doubts about my credibility. I would say “Sure they live here, I even have one as a pet”. Then I would say “wait here, I’ll bring him in”, I would go out to the freezer, slip him out of his bag, wrap him up in a blanket, bring him into the house, hold him up to the persons face, then slip the cover of his face and growl viciously. I just loved doing that, the badger died with his teeth bared. So he was real scary.

Now you are probably wondering why the rancher shot him. Well, he found where the badger had dug up several ground squirrel dens. The rancher thought that it was probably a bear, so he started looking around and saw the badger. We all had guns in our trucks at all times back then, just for such an occasion. The rancher figured if it would eat a squirrel, it would eat a lamb. He was probably right. So he shot it. Better to be safe than sorry.

About ten years after that, I was on a refrigeration service call to Alderpoint, after that one, I had a call in New Harris, so I took the old road around the bottom of the hill. About half way across, I looked below the road and saw where a squirrel den had been dug up. I thought about the badger, but in my mind the ground was just too torn up to be a badger. So I jumped over the fence and walked down to look at the torn up dirt. Just as I looked into the hole, the most vicious growl that I’ve ever heard, combined with the most loud coughing and spitting that I’ve ever heard, came out of it. About then a highly pissed-off badger stuck his head out of the hole. Like Rosanna Rosannadanna said; “I could have died!” I turned around and ran back up the hill, grabbed the fence post, and was over the fence in one big lunge, fully expecting to get bit in the ass as I ran. I dove back in the truck and looked back down the hill. The badger had not followed me. I sat there, mentally putting my heart back in my chest, and thought about trying to get a better look, then I remembered my story about how fast and vicious that they are, and decided to be discrete, as you know discretion being the better part of valor, and I made a valorous retreat. Now, when I think about all of the people that I scared with my “pet badger”. I have to laugh at the come-upance that the badger in the squirrel den gave me.

The badger likes the edge of open grassy fields where they are likely to find squirrels, gophers and mice. The can readily dig squirrels out of the ground, and sometimes they dig themselves a burrow just to sleep in. When they are traveling, they might dig a new burrow every night. They store food for short periods in their dens. They are short and wide, and interestingly that is how you can tell a badger hole from any other. They build their hole wider than they are tall, just like they are.

Just the other day, I told the grandson of the rancher, that I saw a badger on his ranch, and he remembered the burrows and seeing a glimpse of it himself and was glad to have me verify HIS story. He saw it when he was very young, and nobody wanted to believe him.

Hardley ever seen Critters of the North Coast.

The first two photos are Martens, the second two photos (at the bottom)are Fishers. But of course you knew that, didn’t you?

“A Fisher is a bigger, stronger, darker, and browner version of its cousin, the Marten. The Fisher has the same general long and low–slung weasel-like body shape as the Marten, but it’s larger and stockier, with thicker fur and a flatter face.”

The Marten that we have around the Eel River drainage weighs about two pounds for the female and about three pounds for the male. The fisher weighs from four to fifteen pounds and the male is up to twice as large as the female. Both the Marten and the Fisher live in, and indeed are highly dependant, on old and rotten conifer forests. Forests with lots of bugs and little scurrying critters, complete with rotting logs tender shoots and abundant food. In other words, (To steal a phrase from Bush…See he is good for something) In other words, a complete and healthy bio-system, as opposed to a clear-cut forest. It would be interesting to know how many trees could be selectively cut without interfering with the health of the complete forest. I’m sure that anyone would agree that one tree could be removed without much harm. I wonder why they don’t do studies about how many trees could be removed without harming complete biodiversity. We need a few trees to build Fred a house, but we will still need houses for the Marten and the Fishers.

The Martens tend to range in the higher elevations of the conifer forests and like to scurry around in the snow and hunt for mice and critters around the edges rocks and rotting logs, under the snow. They like to pounce from above, they actually make it look like fun. One of the things that I have noticed in most all of the photos of a Marten; the little guy always has a dirty face, with stuff stuck all over it like he just rooted up a rotten log. The Fishers like to range in the lower portions of the old growth forest down near the cricks and streams. Maybe that’s why they call them Fishers, because they live by streams, but they don’t actively fish like an Otter does. They will eat anything if they get hungry enough, they will even eat rotten fish when pressed for food. That’s what I call hungry! They have been know to eat house pets up in Canada.

The Fisher have voracious appetites, they are known to eat porcupines. They attack from underneath, and work on the nose and the belly. It takes them about a half hour to wear them out, and wound the porcupine to the point that they just roll over and give up. Then the Fisher enjoys his nice plump, high fat, high energy food.

Both the Marten and the Fisher eat Flying Squirrels, in fact they even raid their dens, The bastards! They can climb trees just like a squirrel, their hind feet turn around backwards, and they can scamper up and down trees and logs, like they were on flat ground.

The pioneers would trap Marten and Fisher for their hides. The pioneer and the Martens had a lot in common, if you were in their way, or tasted good, you were dead. I wonder what Martin stew tasted like. The pioneer was the end of the Martin and Fisher on the north coast. When the pioneers started to move cattle and sheep onto the north coast, there was a very concerted effort to eliminate any form of predator, or even the fear that their might be a predator. If an animal killed a cow or a sheep the pioneer rancher would lace the carcass with strychnine; The ranchers little helper. Strychnine killed bears, coyote, mountain lion, bobcat, marten, fisher, squirrel, rats, and mice, any thing that ate meat was dead. Even more than you know it killed Indians, and competing ranchers. Yep, strychnine the pioneers little helper. But, that’s a different story. What is important for you to know is that there was NO meat eating animals left on the north coast, except a few rats and mice, and they were held at bay. Also, ranch dogs were saved. I think that's the reason that the old breed of ranch dogs that we have here are so smart. The smart dogs, that minded good, were told to stay away from the poisened meat and they did. The dumb ones sneaked away and ate the meat anyway. Those dogs helped to prove Darwins theory.

By all accounts, the Martin and the Fisher were gone. So, if we have any here now, they came from someplace else. It causes me great wonder to think about where they might have come from. Do you think that humans would bring that kind of a critter back? If so what would be the purpose? I mean other than the fact that they are cute.

The resident expert on Mustelidea (Martins and Fishers) in southern Humboldt is “Man Who Walks in the Woods”. His friends just call him “Woods“. He showed up here with rest of the newcomers, and immediately started telling us what was wrong with the logging industry. He found many “rare and endangered plants and animals”. Being the suspicious person that I am, I went about finding out, “Who the hell this newcomer was”, and why he is so ashamed of his family. It turns out that his Name is Robert Sutherland, and his father is a PHD and a Nobel Prize winner. Okay, so that threw the “ashamed of his family” out the window, but I kept an Eye open just in case. But it turns out that he is a pretty credible and thoughtful person. But I’d bet he knows something about the re-introduction of the Marten and the Fisher. And, I would bet that he knows that the Marten and the Fisher have been a bigger killer of the flying Squirrel than the logger ever was. Why isn’t there the outcry against the Marten and fisher? What they do to forest critters is nothing short of genocide. The fact that the Marten and the Fisher could be a bigger threat than the logger to the oh-so-rare Spotted Owl doesn't seem to concern them... Huh?


Martens are from the family Mustelidae, and the genus Martes The genus first evolved up to seven million years ago, during the Pliocene period

P.S. “Why can’t we all just get along?” Rodney King

v

Okay, totally off the wall and off the subject.

All of a sudden, I can no longer send an e-mail to anybody with an sbcglobal.net e-mail address. The message comes back as being blocked, and it refers you to this mumbo-jumbo web site that leads you in circles, and implys that sbc global is the greatest because they have figured out how to get rid of spam. I'm not spam.

That web-site takes me here. That one tells me I have to stop looking like a PHISH. That might be all well and good, and I might be able to muddle my way through this, but my eighty five year old mother just wants to e-mail my uncle and her e-mails come back saying she looks like a PHISH, and she doesn't appreciate it. I told her to use the phone. She didn't appreciate that either.

SBC and AT&T say this is for our own good and they are opperating under new government regulations to stop spam. I'm all for getting rid of spam. I get tons of it and I hate it.

So what do I do, change my internet service provider, or fight with SBC to stop blocking me?

Flying Squirrels

Required viewing for Flying Squirrel lovers, Click here





I can personally vouch for these little guys as being friendly. I had some as pets when I was a kid. They are every bit as soft and cuddley as they look like they are. They spend a lot of time grooming. They groom just like a cat, only way faster. To clean their heads they lick their paws and scrub their ears with them. The rest of their body they lick with their tongues. They don’t stop until every speck of their little frame is licked clean. They seem to like being handled. Maybe they like the warmth of the hands or maybe they remember the eyedropper that they were raised with, I’m not sure. They are much cuter in person than they look in the pictures. They are unbelievably soft and silky, they put a chinchilla to shame.

The one that we had was from a nest in a Redwood tree. When the tree was fallen the adult squirrels flew away and the babies were left in the nest to ride the tree down. Dad found a live one and put it in his shirt pocket and brought it home for mom to raise. She raised the baby squirrel with an eyedropper and warm canned milk. The baby was kept in an old bird cage while it was young. It grew up quite fast. Then we fed it mostly peanuts. As an aside we had a small black dog that would steal peanuts from the squirrel. She would bite them to crack them open, then she would roll them around on the floor to remove the brown skin off the nut, then she would eat it. The amazing thing to me is that the dog learned how to eat peanuts from watching the squirrel.

The squirrel became very active and we would let it run around the house in the evening before we went to bed. Then lock it in its cage. The dog never tried to hurt the squirrel and thought of it as a buddy. One of the things that I thought was cute about it was if it wanted to be on me it would run up the couch onto the window curtain and fly onto me. I always wondered why it didn’t just run up my leg.

If we forgot to lock him in his cage, he would run down the counter to the Kleenex box and steal all of the Kleenexes and put them in his cage. In the morning when we came out to the kitchen, there he would be with his cage absolutely stuffed with Kleenex. Some times he would stick his nose out, just to take credit for all of his hard work. Dad liked to put the Kleenex box on one end of the counter, and the squirrel cage on the other just to watch him work to steal all of the Kleenexes. My mother for some reason thought that this shouldn’t happen, that it was a waste of good Kleenexes, and it was teaching the squirrel bad tricks and a few thousand other reasons why it shouldn’t be allowed. Which only made dad enjoy it more.

One night when we left the cage door open, he filled his cage with all of the Kleenexes, then scampered down to my bedroom, went under the door up the curtain, and flew over to my bed. Apparently the fastest route isn’t as interesting to a squirrel as the fun route. Then he proceeded to find his way under the covers and I was awakened to him running down my backbone as a I was laying on my side. I never allowed him to run around the bed for two reasons. First he was nocturnal, and kept me awake, and second I was afraid that I would squish him. So, I would get up and lock him in his cage. This happened every time that we left the door open, so it became a game to him.

Many redwood loggers had pet flying squirrels for the same reason. It’s darn hard to just let a baby squirrel die. So, we had a friend that had a couple of flying squirrels and we came up with this plan were we would put them all in a cage together and have baby flying squirrels. The cage was large and it had a big hamster exercise wheel. They put the cage in my room because that was the only place that it would fit. The wheel never stopped turning all night long. They would take turns keeping it going. When one would tire, another would take over, or sometimes all three would be in the wheel. One would hold on and the other two would propel him over the top time and time again. What fun! Anyway if their was any thoughts of making babies it didn’t show. We think that they were all males. We moved their cage outside under the protection of the porch to give then more privacy, but still no babies. They all eventually died of old age.
One of the little squirrels developed what we thought was rickets, and the vet gave him some vitamins and calcium. He got better but he never really got over it. I know now from the research, that anybody can do on the computer, that a squirrel needs lots of bones and especially deer horns for their calcium.

If you ever decide to keep one of these fluffy little critters as a pet you must accept that they are nocturnal and they like to play at night. I actually enjoyed their little noises in my bedroom and slept better. Play time for them is sundown, up until you go to bed, so there is plenty of quality pet time for a kid.

If you are still reading , don't go away while I drag out my soapbox. As everybody out there might have guessed. I hated what the corporate logging and lumber companies did to the industry. I hated even more the phony "Environmentalist". I say that as opposed to the Environmentalist that knew what they were talking about which was damn few. Talking about the flying Squirrel Reminded me of one reason why I had no respect for the protesters that were here to "save the Redwoods'. they had absolutely no idea of what they were doing. They didn't know anything about the life cycle of a Redwood tree. They didn't know that if you cut a Redwood that many Redwoods come up from stump shoots and suckers. They didn't know that the average Redwood's original plant went back ten thousand years or more. They didn't know the difference between a second growth and an old growth. Most of all, what bothered me is they didn't know that the main loss to falling a Redwood is the Flying Squirrel. They chose the Spotted Owl as their icon critter. When they were not really endangered. When the old growth is cleared, the Spotted Owl starts catching the mice that thrive in the overcut. The poor flying squirrel is the main critter to be hurt, but they are not endangered.

Probably more of these little critters are killed in the logging of a Redwood forest than any other. They are arboreal. They live in the treetops and nest in cavities found from a rotted limb or other hole in the tree.

These little guys are very common in the Redwood Forest, they are so common that the Northern Spotted Owl feeds almost exclusively on them:

"Diet Of the Northern Spotted owl:
Northern Flying Squirrels are their most common prey, but they also eat rats, mice, voles, rabbits, and bats. To a lesser extent they feed on small birds, reptiles, and large invertebrates"

It always smacked as being phony of them to try to save the critter (The Spotted Owl) that wasn't really being harmed, while ignoring the flying Squirrel. And I often thought that if they would just take a few of these sweet little critters to a classroom, or a public meeting, and saying that this is what is being killed when the forest is cut, especially a clearcut. They could have stopped logging overnight.

But, I was raised on a ranch, and I knew all about life and death. We raised the animals that we ate and it was all part of agriculture. Logging is important for our future, as we are all about to find out. Some of the critters will have to be sacrificed for the good of us all, but I think that we should be realistic, and not rape and clearcut, like the cut-and-run corporations did. And, leave some room for my Squirrels!

A Rarely Seen Critter of the North Coast

Photo from Wicapedi. Cick to enlarge. Gemboy, check out the rock.




So you think that you have seen everything that there is to see here on the north coast?

This sweet little animal is a Ringtail Cat. They are quite tame and friendly if taken from their mom before their eyes open and hand fed with an eyedropper. They live to about fourteen years of age. They are raised by the mother while the male feeds her. Their eyes open when they are about one month old. They are hard to keep because they are loners, and if they get out of the house they will never return. Which as I understand, can be quite heartbreaking.

They were trapped by the early settlers and kept as house cats to catch mice. The settlers kept them in a box by the wood stove, where they enjoyed the warmth just like a kitty cat does. Most people that kept them as pets, kept them in a very large cage, and only took them out to play with them when they were under close supervision to avoid their escaping. Although they are friendly and fun, they make poor pets because of their desire to be free. The other reason that they make poor pets is because they are extremely active and can climb anything, and nothing is hidden from them. Oh, did I mention that they are nocturnal? And like to scurry and play all night?

The big reason that you have probably not seen them, even though they are said to be plentiful on the North Coast, is because they are very nocturnal. I have only seen three in my whole life.

Back in the early sixties, I built a walk-in refrigerator for a person that lived on a ranch in Honeydew by the name of Bob Shinn. He had one in a cage by the back porch. He took the Cat out several times while I was there just to show me, but they are VERY nocturnal, and the light hurts their eyes. The cat couldn’t wait to get back in his box. Bob said that the Cat was extremely active at night playing in his cage.

They are most closely related to the Raccoon family, but they can scamper around a tree like a grey squirrel. Their hind feet turn around backwards for climbing down trees going forward. They are just a little smaller than a house cat. They are seldom run over in the road because of their desire to be secretive, and because of their dexterity. They are quick like a kitty.