The Gardening Story

 Gardening has always been a big part of my life.  Of all the places I have lived I would scratch out some kind of garden plot.   When we lived in Greenville, California we purchased a 7 horse power Troy-Built rototiller in 1977, to till a fenced garden plot that was next to the old ranch house we rented.   After moving into a government house on the Gold Beach Ranger Station in 1979 the tiller came with us, but we were not allowed to develop a garden plot since the station was on the National Historical Register as it had been constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corp or CCC.   A few month after our arrival some friends let us garden on their property outside of town.   In 1981 we bought our first house on two acres along Hunter Creek, two miles south of Gold Beach.    Here we had a big garden, chickens, a sheep for wool, a goat for milk and a fixer-upper house with all its never ending repair projects.   As if I did not have enough to do, there were weekends I helped neighbors and friends with tilling their gardens.   In the fall of 1986 my wife and two children moved to Eugene where she attended the University of Oregon.   In 1988 I was offered a job with the Forest Service in Cottage Grove to be closer to family and rented a house on Lynx Hollow Road where I developed a small garden.    Shortly thereafter the Gold Beach house was sold.  In 1990 my wife and I went our separate ways with a divorce and in order to have my children live with me on a part-time basis I bought a small house in Eugene in 1991 where they were attending school.   Here I developed a blueberry patch that the neighbors and a few homeless people enjoyed who were living in the nearby ash tree swamp along Amazon Creek in South Eugene.  

When I left the Forest Service in March of 1995 a co-worker, who had an artistic talent for drawing, made me a cartoon advertisement which included my phone number and a sketch of me and my dog Jack rototilling.  I hung the poster up at the Oasis Market on Willamette Street in Eugene and the phone started ringing with job offers.   People started telling their friends and neighbors of my rototilling service and at times the phone was ringing off the hook.   Some of those people asked if I would do other work, such as pruning, hauling garden soil, hauling yard debris, building fences, painting, repairing lawn mowers or other power equipment.  There was one woman who wanted me to teach her husband how to do gardening work.   He seemed to be more content watching TV and drinking beer.  Another woman with a plot at a community garden hired me to rototill after dark by the headlights of her pickup.    Then there was the woman with many cats on leashes in her back yard that would hire me once a year to haul a pallet of cat food from a store in North Eugene and help her unload it in her garage.   One of the most colorful clients was an older woman that was always in her bathrobe that wanted to be called Grandma.   I did a variety of work for her from rototilling, cutting blackberries and removing a Willow tree that had fallen in her yard.   When it came time to pay me she would always add a large bonus from a big roll of cash she had in her house.    I tried to refuse the extra money, but she would reply, “never argue with Grandma”.  There was a woman who wanted to sell me her 8 horse power Troy-Built tiller at a cheap price and I bought it thinking it might come in handy when the other one broke down.     All my equipment was hauled around Eugene and Springfield in my old rusty 1975 Ford pickup.    The bolts holding the bed to the frame were so badly rusted out I feared losing it all on some busy intersection, luckily it never happened.

In 1997 I bought a DR Brush mower and took on brush and high grass mowing jobs, many located in the hills south of Eugene.   Some of these elegant homes had acreage with forest land and private driveways in need of vegetation clearing.   A few of these land owners asked me to estimate the value of their timber.   After deducting logging costs from the market value of the logs and adding the expense for cleaning up the mess or logging slash there was little return to the land owners. 

One of the better paying jobs was with the University of Oregon Housing Department that would hire me to do chainsaw work on hazard trees and brush mowing around houses they owned east of the campus.   There was no bidding required.  The housing manger would call me, show me what had to be done and paid me whatever I billed them, no questions asked.    

Most of this gardening work was seasonal from March into June and by fall the phone calls were far and few between.   In the fall of 1996 I enrolled at Lane Community College and studied Agricultural and Industrial Equipment Technology taking courses over four terms in electrical systems, hydraulics, welding and engine repair.   Except for a welding class two nights a week all other classes started at 7am and were out by noon giving me the afternoons to schedule any calls for work. 

Under an apprenticeship program with this class it landed me a seasonal job from June through September from 1996 to 2000 as a mechanic and equipment operator on a grass seed farm near Harrisburg.    Whenever summer rains shut down operations on the farm for a few days I would catch up on a few gardening jobs in and around Eugene. 

In November of 1997 I met Celia, who was working for the Olum Child Care Center at the University of Oregon.   By the spring of 1998 she was helping me with gardening jobs on weekends and enrolled in the OSU Master Gardeners Program.   Thereafter she became a partner and the brains of the outfit we called C & M Gardening Service, a business registered with the Oregon Secretary of State which we operated together until we moved to our property outside of Oakland, Oregon in 2006 when we officially retired.   By the way we also got married in October of 2000 and bought a house in Cottage Grove.

Willows 1947-66

Hot summer days, long dusty roads and a passing pickup truck were the familiar scene in the country side surrounding Willows.    It was usually a farmer going to town to buy parts for a broken down piece of farm equipment or more fuel for the tractor and probably a cold beer too.    Summers here were hot and usually in the triple digits by afternoon.   The foot hills west of town were brown and susceptible to wild fires.   In the summer of 1960, with the north wind blowing a power line failure ignited a range fire burning up livestock, miles of fences and ranch buildings in the hills all the way to the south county line.  As kids we either stayed in the air conditioned house, outside under the sprinklers or at the community pool during the summer.   It was so hot the flies didn’t even fly during the day.  At night when it cooled down into the 90’s the bugs were out in full force.  The only creatures that gained weight were the spiders, some as big as our hand.   My mother was not fond of living here and would say, “the next stop after Willows is Hell”.    After leaving the University of California at Davis in 1947, my dad took a job in Willows with the Production Credit Association, a farm loan company.    There was just the three of us then, including myself at the age of three.  All my other five siblings were born in Willows.   We originally lived in a small two bedroom house on Villa Street, just on the west side of town.    With a growing family dad built a large adobe house on 10 acres out of town in 1952, along County Road H.  Over time dad became a field representative for the California Rice Grower’s Cooperative and eventually got into rice farming himself.  During my teenage years my summers were spent working for my dad and another farmer, when my dad did not have enough for me to do.  The work consisted of irrigating crops, operating farm equipment, and maintaining it.    Much of what I learned was by the trial and error method. 

By late fall the rain would arrive and for the rice farmers who had not harvested all their crop they were in for a muddy ordeal whenever the weather permitted them to return to their fields.   Soon thereafter the ducks and geese would arrive from the North Country, darkening the skies as they settled on the unharvested rice fields of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge purposely planted to keep them from eating the farmers’ rice.   When duck season opened the hunters would gather along the railroad tracts adjacent to the refuge or in nearby fields to shot their limit as the birds would leave the Refuge.  It sounded like a war zone at times and would continue into the winter.  My dad had an equipment shop and 150 acres of rice just northwest of the refuge.  He had constructed a couple of blinds made out of redwood lumber and placed them in some levies where hunters could conceal themselves while hunting.   Every year we would look forward to the arrival of Great Uncle Dan from San Francisco and going hunting with him.  There were more ducks and geese in our home freezer than I care to remember. 

Winters were wet and foggy.  The Sacramento Valley was famous for the Tule fog, so dense at times the geese would land in the streets of Willows unable to navigate the skies.   Highway 99, a two lane highway was known as Blood Alley for all the head on collisions during this time and even when the weather was clear.  People drove like there was no tomorrow.     

In the spring time the hills were green, farmers were plowing their fields in preparation for planting and the weather was pleasant with occasional showers.   A few of us kids from grammar school would ride our bikes six miles out to the hills and fish in Willow Creek on a sheep ranch, where the rancher caught us trespassing as he spotted our camp fire used to cook the fish.    He let us stay, but told us to ask for permission next time at his house down the highway.  About five miles east of town were the gravel pits, where the county road department had extracted gravel for paving roads leaving many large pits that filled with water over time.   Some of the pits were used as the county dump where we would make the monthly garbage run.   Everything you could imagine was thrown in there and burned.   Some of the gravel pit ponds were a popular fishing hole for us kids.    

The business section of Willows, along Highway 99, consisted of auto dealerships, farm equipment companies, part stores, and fuel and fertilizer distributers.   Willows had a Sears, J.C. Penny’s and a Southern Pacific passenger train depot, which all disappeared by the late 1950’s.    The town had a couple of grocery stores, schools, a movie theater, bowling alley and its fair share of drinking establishments.  One that remains is a stand up bar that was called “Rabbitt’s” where people could drive up, park their vehicle, order a beer or soda and drink at a standup bar.   As a kid working with my dad I can remember him stopping there for a beer and buying me a soda.  In all my travels since I have never seen anything like it.   It has relocated off Highway 99 and is now called “The Last Stand Bar and Grill”. 

In 1966 Uncle Sam drafted me into the Army.  A few years later Interstate 5 was constructed west of town and the businesses along old Highway 99 faded away as motels, gas stations, fast food joints and restaurants sprang up west of town to serve the Interstate traffic.   The freeway is less than a quarter of a mile west of our old adobe house.  While I was in the service my dad got out of the farming business due to financial problems, sold the 10 acres with the house and moved to Stockton.    After the Army I could have returned to Willows and worked for a friend of my dad who was a rice farmer, but my interest was in forestry.   Looking back it was a good decision not to return to Willows.   

Today the adobe house is still there, surrounded by a housing subdivision on what is now called Humboldt Avenue.  All you can see of the place from the freeway is all the green trees around the house, just like in the early days when pioneers on horses could see the willow trees adjacent to a pond that was an oasis in the arid valley plains that is now called Willows. 

The Paper War

 After spending 25 years working for the government, the most annoying task was dealing with all the paper work. In the beginning of my government career, I was assigned a mail basket where I received my time sheet every two weeks, or a letter from management on policy or conduct. The most I would receive was maybe 2 pieces of paper per week. By the time I completed my 25 years, I lost count of what I was receiving PER DAY, including both hard copies and e-mail. On the average it would take me an HOUR per day to go through all the incoming stuff. Much of it was junk mail - personnel items dealing with minorities, updated or revised manual supplements that I had nothing to do with, notices on upcoming meetings, surveys on some issue of the day, conduct in the coffee room, or the need for more money to keep coffee in the pot, etc, etc, etc. Other items of more importance, included notices of due dates for some kind of report required from me, a drafted letter from my supervisor wanting my input, or some form in need of having the blanks filled-in. 

It was a daily challenge to keep ahead of it all. A lot of this stuff became so overwhelming, that I would ignore some of it. Much of it ended up in the waste basket. Some of the items required by a certain date were never completed, and never missed by those making the request. One of the most amusing forms was the Negative Report. The actual instructions for this report said, "if there is nothing to report use this". I had a good time with this form... Even the bi-weekly attendance report, required at the end of each pay period became a challenge.

In order to keep my sanity, I would utilized a sense of humor at times. Since my primary job dealt with contract administration, I had to document all agreements, contract changes, acceptance of contractual work, and notices of non-compliance. This was documented on a form called the Inspection Report. This form produced four copies, one of which would end up in the head office. Once or twice a year, I would make out an Inspection Report describing some kind of enormous contractual change, or a list of major infractions on a particular contract, none of which ever happened. About half of these I never got any response on. Of the others, I would receive a phone call from the head office wanting to know what's going on. I would inform them that I was just checking to see if they were reading these things.

Mike Burke

Eugene, Oregon

The Wedding-Oct 7, 2000

 

THE  WEDDING  OF 

Celia Scott & Mike Burke

When:  4 PM   October 7, 2000    (Subject to change without notice)

Where:   Cloverdale Chapel & Meetinghouse   -   2.5 Miles east of Creswell on Cloverdale Road at the corner of Danstrom and Rogers Road.

How:   Quick & Simple  (If Mike has any say in it)

Reception:   Behind the Chapel -  Chips, dip and cake will be provided.   If you hanker for anything else - bring it!

Attire:   Men:  clean pair of jeans, shirt, and shoes or boots, no mud please.   Ladies:  the  same  goes for you, or fancy dress ok too.

Seating:   Anywhere you want.   (Back pew reserved for Mike, in case of feeling faint)

No gifts please,  we've already got enough stuff.  

                   

Tree Planting

 Another story from my days in Orleans for your reading enjoyment on a wet day. (First rain here in 14 days)  This might bring back memories for some of you old tree planters.

My first couple of winters (1971-72) on the Orleans Ranger District of the Six Rivers National Forest involved working on a tree planting crew for about a month.    It was not our favorite job since it was usually wet, cold and miserable working conditions.   There were six of us, including a young forester who was the foreman.    We were expected to plant 500 trees/day/man.   We had to wear rain gear most days and it didn’t seem to matter as we got wet anyhow from rain dripping down our necks or from the sweat of our bodies.   The tool of the trade was a hoedad, a long handled tool with a long straight blade used to make the hole to stick the tree seedling into.  It was also used for grubbing out a planting site when necessary.    After arriving on the job site and loading up our tree bags strapped to our waist, we proceeded to space ourselves about 10 feet apart and began planting trees.   The forester would return to the truck on days it was raining.  This did not sit right with one of the older crew members, a log scaler who went back to the truck and told the forester in a threatening manner that we are all here to plant trees, rain or shine!  The forester reluctantly joined us.  At noon we all retreated back to the truck, consumed our lunches, loaded up our tree bags and resumed where we left off.  

The units that were assigned to us were plantations that had been previously planted, but the survival rate was poor and plantation surveys showed these units inadequately stocked.   The newly logged and burned clear-cut units were put up for bid for tree planting contactors, where they could usually plant a thousand trees/day/man.   Contractors were assigned a Forest Service inspector, who delivered the tree seedlings from a freezer unit on the station to the job site and followed the tree planters inspecting a certain percentage of the planted trees for proper spacing, poor planting practices, better known as a J or L root and how well the trees were compacted in the ground.   For a week I was assigned as an inspector to a contracting company with the name of:  J & L Root Company.   This crew was made up of ex-convicts, who had been in a state conservation camp operated by the California Division of Forestry.   Whenever I came across a poorly planted tree it was reported to the crew foreman, who in an untactful manner informed the member of the crew responsible for this.   At times I thought some of the crew members might resort to their old ways and do me some harm.   At the end of the day we all went our separate ways, the crew back to their camp and me back to Orleans, thankful to have survived another day.

Recluse, Wyoming

 After leaving the Forest Service in 1995 I did a variety of seasonal jobs, such as working for a property management company in Eugene and working for myself as a landscape/gardener.  I also took classes at Lane Community College studying agricultural and industrial equipment technology.  This course of study landed me a seasonal job on a grass seed farm as a mechanic and equipment operator for five summers from 1996 to 2000 near Harrisburg, about 20 miles north of Eugene.   Winter was a slow time of year for me and my thoughts would wander off to moving out of the big city to some rural environment.   Eugene was not my favorite place to live with all the traffic, neighborhood excitement, and also my two children had moved away to attend college.  Now there was just me and my dog Jack.

I subscribed to the Caretaker Gazette, a monthly listing of caretaker jobs offered mostly in the western part of the U.S. and some in other countries.   Many of these jobs involved working on remote farms or ranches.  I did apply to a couple of ads, both in Washington State.  One was on a small farm in southwest Washington, which did offer me an interview, which I turned down hoping for something better.  The second one was on a large ranch in the eastern Cascades of Washington where there was a house offered in return for watching the place while the owners went south.   I never received a response after applying for this job.  As time passed I looked forward to the monthly editions in hopes of finding Shangri-La.    Then I noticed a caretaker job being offered on a remote ranch near Recluse, Wyoming.   I looked on a map to see Recluse was located in the northeast corner of Wyoming and had a population of 10.   The average temperature in January is 20 above and can get down to 40 below.    About this time in my life I met Celia and life took a change for the better.    A few years ago we took a look at Recluse on Google Earth to see a small store with a Post Office, a few scattered buildings, some machinery looking in disrepair and a desolate flat landscape of no trees.    Thank God Celia came into my life.   Where would I be today without her?

The Bachelor Diet

 Another short story from days gone by for a little humor and an escape from the here and now.  Forest Service in Orleans and others Districts from 1969-95.  

Back in the days of working in those far off remote places, such as Orleans, in northwestern California, Hamburger Helper was the food of choice for us single men.    We would stock up during those monthly grocery shopping trips to the big city, usually at the Arcata Safeway, clearing the shelf of this prized product.   In addition, we would buy 10 or more pounds of hamburger and I don’t remember any of the lean stuff.    When a pound of hamburger was in the frying pan it would produce an inch of grease or more.   There was no need for cooking oil.   After adding the box of Hamburger Helper ingredients it could all be consumed right from the skillet, saving from having to wash more dishes.    

Other items that were purchased to round out the diet, including cold cuts, usually bologna, cheese, white bread, apples and cookies for those lunches out in the woods.   Bacon, eggs, cereal and milk for breakfast.   A few canned goods and potatoes for those times when the main dish of Hamburger Helper was depleted.   Due to a limited budget steaks and pork chops were rarely purchased.   On some weekend occasions eating at the Samoa Cook House outside of Arcata was a real treat.  

The beverage of choice was beer and at times a little wine.   Most of the wine was in gallon jugs with no need for a cork screw.   Quality was not a consideration back then.  During the wet winters in Orleans there would be slides along Highway 96 leading to the outside world, cutting off traffic for a week at a time.   The local store would run low on basic items, including beer and wine.  It was not good, as panic set in.

After getting together with my first wife, she introduced me to whole grains, fresh produce, chicken and brought a new word into my vocabulary, “Organic.”   I must give her credit for saving me from doom.   I feel lucky to have made it this far. 

Green Jello with Hot Dogs

 During the summers of the early 1970’s there would be potluck dinners at least once a month on the Orleans Ranger Station for the employees, including seasonal employees living in the bunk house.  Everybody was asked to bring something.  The wives of the staff, living in the family houses on the station would provide hot dishes, fried chicken, salads, deserts and other items that single people would dream of.    Seasonal employees usually brought bags of chips, can of olives, beans or a large bottle of pop.   The local market did not provide much in terms of gourmet items or even deli food.  It was pretty basic shopping there with bread, cold cuts, some dairy products, can goods, limited produce, soda and plenty of wine and beer.    Serious grocery shopping was done by most people once a month in Arcata or Eureka, about a two hour drive from Orleans.   Upper management would chip in and have a keg of beer available for all to enjoy.  Since alcohol was not allowed in the barracks, most beer drinking was done at one of three bars in the community or down at the river.   There was one fellow who lived in the bunk house that would always put together a dish of green jello with hot dogs lined up in it.   He would place it on the long row of picnic tables lined up on the lawn in the center of the compound, where all the food was served.   This dish was only popular with the young children of the families living on the station.   The adults always got a few laughs seeing it there on display with all the other dishes.   As the evening wore on and the beer consumption increased, most of the families retreated to their houses leaving the bunk house people to finish off whatever remained.   By the time the keg was empty, and all the food eaten it was well into the night, and the seasonal employees slowly made their way back to the bunk house or stumbled down the highway to wherever home was.  Even the green jello with hot dogs had been devoured.  

A Lost Weekend

As we approached the fire from the south we could see the smoke rising from the green forest canopy on the steep slopes north of the Salmon River, just about a half mile from where it flows into the Klamath River. This is near the small community of Somes Bar, which consist of a store with a post office, the Ukonom Ranger Station and few scattered houses. Our first impression was this won’t take much time to extinguish and we can get back home by dark and enjoy our weekend off. It had been a 10 mile drive up the Klamath River highway from the Orleans Ranger Station where we had just completed a day of cruising and mapping timber on a proposed sale area. It
was a warm Friday afternoon in July of 1973 when we got back to Orleans
and looking forward to the weekend. A few minutes before quitting time the
radio speaker from the fire warehouse crackled with a fire dispatch for all
personnel to respond to a fire near Somes Bar.
We arrived and parked our truck along the highway where other Forest
Service and state highway vehicles were parked. The 6 of us were combined
with others to form a 20 man crew, assigned a crew boss and given a variety
of hand tools to start constructing fire line below the highway. It was about
1000 feet from the highway to the Salmon River below as we started cutting
brush and digging a 3 foot fire line. The fire was confined to the ground and
slowly spreading up hill where the highway would serve as the upper line.
Within an hour or so we had constructed about 500 feet of line when the wind
picked up causing the fire to explode up into the canopy of the large fir and
pine trees. This also caused spot fires to start outside our contructed line
where we tried to chase these smaller fires as the wind speed increased.
Soon the fire was spreading over the top of us and our crew boss yelled,
“head down to the river”. Within a few minutes the entire crew was safely
in the Salmon River where the stream flow meandered through a gravel bar
that was about 100 feet wide. A few seconds later the fire had jumped
across the river with a deafeny roar as the entire world around us went up in
flames. In addition, we could hear the explosion of the some of the vehicles
that were parked on the highway above. At this point we knew our weekend
was shot as we started walking up river toward the bridge.
OFF Fire July & August 1973 Klamath National Forest. Named after
Offield Mountain where a lookout is located.
Here is a summary of what happened before and after.  There were 3 or 4 crew trucks with people and 1 tanker that responded from the Orleans RD, a tanker and not sure how many people from Ukonom RD and some people with the state highway department, who were doing road work at the time the fire started.  (they may have caused fire?)   More people arrived from the Happy Camp RD later, not sure how many and may have been another tanker.   Our 20 person crew constructed fire line down the east side and another crew went down the west side.  Only the tank truck operators remained on the highway to operate the pumpers as the tanker crews went down the fire lines laying hose line.  When the fire blew up and over ran the highway the tank truck operators could only drive the tankers out.  Some tried to go back and drive other vehicles out, some were removed, but ours and others were totally destroyed.  The tanker from Orleans barley made it as the spare tire mounted on the back caught fire and the plastic on the rear tail lights melted.  The hose leading off the truck burned as he drove away.  There were some houses along the highway that were destroyed and we could hear the propane tanks explode.
About the weather:  the winds in the heat of the afternoons goes up the Klamath River, and since we were on a south slope into the Salmon River, within half mile of the Klamath, the wind ran up the side canyon in all directions.
Our escape:   walking up the Salmon River toward the bridge on highway 96 there were vehicles to take us back to Orleans, also our District Fire Management Officer with tears in his eyes thinking we were burned up.  
This fire was turned over to a Regional team, a fire camp was set up in the Orleans school yard with kitchens, shower units and crews brought in from all over the region.   I ended up being squad leader on a fire line crew, mostly on night shift on Somes Mountain.  Took a month to contain, not sure number people assigned or acres burnt, maybe 80k.  It did burned into the Marble Mountain Wilderness.  There has been other fires over the years since the Off Fire over the same area.  
Google earth might be the best place to see the geography of the area.   The Ukonom Ranger station is no longer at Somes Bar, since it was built on Indian burial ground and the ground under it was moving as cracks were showing.  The two Districts are now in one office in Orleans. 

In Search of Bigfoot

 The Orleans Ranger District of the Six Rivers National Forest was the center of Big- foot country.   It was here where the Patterson-Grimlin film was made in 1967 of a female Bigfoot in the upper portion of Bluff Creek.   A frame from this film was made into a popular post card, sold in many tourist traps and gift shops, showing the Bigfoot walking and looking at the camera.  The Indian name for Bigfoot is Sasquatch and there has been a few stories passed down through generations of local Indians about their sightings of Bigfoot. 

From 1971-74, I worked on the Orleans District timber sale preparation crew, doing harvest unit layout, mapping and timber cruising.   Most of our work was on the northern portion of the District where it was mostly a roadless area.    Due to the daily driving time and the distance it took to walk into the proposed sale areas, we were required to live in camp trailers during the work week to save on travel time.  These trailers were set up at the end of the existing road.   At the end of the week we would drive back to the ranger station in Orleans, about a distance of 30 miles.   On one of our return trips we encountered a man wearing a black hat, no shirt, ammo belts strapped over his shoulders, a revolver and a big knife walking along the Lonesome Ridge Road.    It was a hot day and he flagged us down asking for a ride back to Orleans and a drink of water.    Feeling a little sorry for the man not having any water or even a pack with him we let him ride with us, plus he looked like a man not to argue with.   He informed us he was a Bigfoot hunter employed by the University of British Columbia and needed to get back to town to pick up his paycheck at the post office, buy supplies and return to his camp somewhere in the upper Bluff Creek watershed.    The previous winter a plane flying over that portion of Bluff Creek reported smoke coming from a large washed out culvert on a snow covered gravel bar and this could have been his camp.  We dropped him off at the Post Office and returned to the station.   We told other Forest Service people of our encounter upon our return.  The foreman of the silviculture crew informed us that they encountered the same man one evening while eating dinner at their camp, where they had been doing plantation surveys in the upper Bluff Creek area.  They invited him to have dinner with them around the camp fire.   During the dinner he suddenly dropped his plate, stood up and said that he smelled Bigfoot and had to go in search of it.   The crew came to the conclusion he had been smoking too much “Humboldt tobacco.”

Other sightings our crew saw were foot prints in the snow on the Camp Creek Road.  They looked like large human prints, but could have been bear.  We reported this and as the word got out the San Francisco Chronicle sent reporters to interview us and our names appeared in the article.   On another occasion, two of us were mapping a harvest unit off Lonesome Ridge when we came across a large nest where rhododendron branches had been broken off and bear grass was used to line the nest.   The Forest wildlife biologist was called to analyze the hairs and his conclusion was they were bear hairs.  

The scariest episode for me was when I was working alone locating a harvest unit boundary in the East Fork of Bluff Creek.  I was a mile from my work truck down a slope flagging the boundary when I stopped to look at the aerial photo showing the proposed unit location.   This was when I heard something tearing up a log down in the ravine below me.  At first I thought it was a bear, then I could hear heavy breathing as it was coming up slope toward me.   As it got closer I got behind a large fir tree to hide myself and soon it sounded like it was too close for comfort, so in a panic I ran uphill.    After running up to the ridge as fast as possible through the dense brush, I stopped to look back, there was nothing.   I figured it must have been scared when hearing me and took off in a different direction.   After telling my story in the office a timber sale administrator said a logging crew near that location had seen a bear whose breathing was abnormal due to an old head wound, probably caused by a hunter.

Who knows what is fact or fiction on the existence of Bigfoot?

The Brush Picker

 Thinking back on some of the colorful characters that lived in Orleans, in northwestern California where I worked for the Forest Service from 1971-77, there is one that stands out by the name of Fred Starnes.  He lived across the highway from where I lived, next to the brush shed in a small camp trailer.   The brush shed was operated by Evergreen Flora, based in Washington State.    It was a long old building with a covered deck, where trucks backed up to for loading or unloading their bundles of huckleberry.  No fancy landscaping around the shed, just some oak trees and dry grass.  The Evergreen truck would arrive once a month to collect the huckleberry to be used in floral decorations.   Fred was a brush picker, a timber faller and a security guard during the night at the brush shed, which provided him a place to park his trailer free of rent.  He was a tall skinny man in his 40’s and drove a VW bug with big tires for better traction on some rough forest roads.   Fred had a family living in Willow Creek, about 40 miles south on Highway 96, where it intersect with Highway 299.    Brush picking on the National Forest required a permit, and permittees were assigned an area exclusive to them.  There were other brush pickers in the community and some acted as graders, working in the brush shed for Evergreen.  Huckleberry had to be picked in a way that passed the grade and pickers were paid by the pound.   It was hard work walking through the woods, searching for the perfect branches to pick and pack it on your back, usually up steep mountains slopes back to your vehicle.    At the end of the day pickers would unload their bundles at the brush shed for grading and weighing.   There were a few times when I saw Fred walking along a forest road with his pack frame so loaded down with huckleberry you hardly see him under it all.   Whenever Fred had a timber falling job, he always worked by himself.   He had a couple of power saws and timber jacks.  He worked on some of the timber sales I had to oversee.   After a day of cutting timber he would walk back up hill to his VW bug with a load of huckleberry on his back.   This was not his permit area, but who really cared since it was going to be a clearcut eventually.    Like many timber fallers, Fred would take some empty plastic jugs with him in the morning to place next to freshly cut sumps to collect the tree sap, which was sold to pharmaceutical companies.     

On a few summer evenings a couple of us would gather around Fred’s campfire by his trailer and listen to his wild stories, while sitting on log rounds he provided for chairs as we all contributed to his pile of empty beer cans.   Some of his stories were a little on the far side, such as sightings of Bigfoot or a man he called Garlic Man, that lived in the woods and survived by eating garlic.  The thought occurred to me at times that maybe Fred had spent too much time alone in the brush.   There were a few times I could hear Fred talking to himself when I was at my place across the highway.  Looking back maybe we all spent too much time working in the brush while living in Orleans.

Shopping Madness

 Went shopping at our local Bi-Mart yesterday in Sutherlin.  Place was beyond madness with people stocking up, could hardly find a parking space, never seen that many people there at once.   Got the last bags of Bob's Red Mill bean mix, so many ways it can be served; on toast, with veggies or just mixed with what ever, better known as swill.   On the way home went through Oakland to check out the Oakland (Bart's) Market, lot of parking space, no crowds, good supply of beer and assortment of veggies, so loaded up.

Time to stir the swill

Potato planting time

 Time to plant those potatoes that have been way back there in the dark corners of the pantry along with other hidden surprises.   Might be nice to have in a few months when you can't find em in the market.

Cheers!

GREEN GOLD: the cultivation of marijuana in Humboldt County

Short story of my experiences with the pot growing culture of the 1970's, while working on the Orleans Ranger District of the Six Rivers National Forest.   

Could be many more days of writing as the Corona virus sets in and we become home bound to avoid contact with the outside world.

Be safe out there

GREEN GOLD

 

Back in the 1960’s and 70’s Humboldt County, in northwestern California was known as the pot growing capital of the country and the revenue it generated was a major factor in the economy there.   Much of the marijuana was grown on the Six Rivers National Forest under the disguise of mining claims, both legal and illegal.   These claims were established under the Mining Act of 1872, which is still applicable today with some revisions.    Other marijuana or ‘pot plantations’ were established in remote areas of the forest, where a good water source could be tapped and there was abundant sunshine available during the growing season.   It was not uncommon to stumble across a black plastic pipe while working in the woods for the Forest Service cruising timber or doing tree plantation surveys.   During the winter of 1972 the tree planting crew I was working on came across an abandon greenhouse frame located in an old tree plantation that we were replanting.   The Resource Staff Assistant on the Orleans Ranger District of the Six Rivers National Forest had the job of keeping inventory of mining claims on the District, in addition to other duties of this position.   At times he would visit some of the claims to see what progress was being made.   On one occasion some of these claimants made an office visit to the Resource Assistant and threatened to kill him if he ever returned to their claim.   These characters were easy to identify in the small community of Orleans as most had long hair, beards and the general appearance of being rough individuals, sometimes packing guns.    After having a few beers in one of the three drinking establishments some of these people would show off their big rolls of cash after harvesting their crop.    There was an old building across from the post office, known as wino hill where many of the pot growers would make deals selling their goods.   It was also a place where some of the local Indians gathered to consume liquor, mostly in the form of wine.   My only encounter was on a weekend, while hiking alone cross country back to my truck, parked at the end of a logging road from a hike into the Trinity Alps Wilderness, when I stumbled through a pot grower’s camp where the occupants were sitting around a camp fire.   I was packing a 357 revolver and as I passed through their camp they just said, “how you doing?”   I don’t remember my reply, just kept moving and nothing happened.   They must have thought I was another grower with the sight of my revolver.   Who knows?