Number 85 - To see a tree asmiling.

Very interesting sumac. Most people don't know or care about pipelines, but, the fact of the matter is that there are oil and gas pipelines everywhere across America - That includes N. Am and S. Am. The pipelines usually begin at a point near where several distilleries are located which produce RAW gas and oil and diesel and other products such as the Propane we use. Now, this RAW gas is pumped across the USA (in my case) from the Gulf area to around the lower great lakes regions. It is all the same RAW gas. Along the line the different gas and oil companies (such as Shell and Exxon, etc) purchase the RAW gas and put their own pecular additives into it to make their product. Then they transport it by truck to their stations.
This stuff is everywhere.
We walk on it and don't even know it.
And certainly we drive across these lines if we drive anywhere.

As I've posted before, when as a High School student with a 1950 Chevy I - and friends would go to a near by pumping unit and draw RAW gas from the separator into 5 gal cans then strain that through filter to get the dirt out of it. Then add some paint thinner (Toluene usually) to make it an octane rating
of about 50 or 60 (that would stop the pinging that RAW gas causes by slowing down the firing of the gas in the cylinder). Ahhh, those were the days. We usually did that on Friday night and the tank full would last all weekend. One fine feature of using casenhead gas is that there is NO carbon buildup on the plugs or in the cylinders... Clean as a whistle.

Happy clicking all.

We are having our last three digit day in a row - for the next week we will be at or around 99 deg F.

Sorry about the heat, Danon, but it is your turn. We are expected to hit 99 today ourselves. Stay cool.

All clicked and good morning everyone. Interesting article that shows how our high CO2 levels can hurt oceanic ecosystems.

One consequence of rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide is an increase in the absorption of CO2 by the ocean. This leads to a gradual decrease in oceanic pH, a change that has been predicted to have adverse effects on marine organisms such as corals because more acidic conditions may inhibit the accretion of calcium carbonate skeletons. Munday et al. show that the recruitment of reef fish populations may also be under threat, due to the effects of higher carbon dioxide levels on the olfactory systems of larval fish. Benthic fish larvae use chemical cues both to locate suitable habitats and to detect and avoid predators. Experiments with larval clownfish and damselfish showed that increasing carbon dioxide levels interfered with their normal aversion to chemical cues derived from predator fish, resulting in riskier behavior that led to increased larval mortality.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107, 12930 (2010).

I hate it when there's increased larval mortality. To all that I say Phhhhhh!

Seriously, that is an increasing danger to us all. Thanks sumac.

Good God, those poor fish! Not only are they threatened by Larval mortality, the experiments can't be to healthy either. sigh

Well, temps are 80's...the forest takes the degrees up further.

3:00 am cats decide "Time to get up, mom"! At 3: something i'm showering, by 4 something lawns watered, by 5 something i'm in bed again for 3 hours.

Weird day beginning...

New neighbors just completed new landscaping...looks awsome! Things are a changin' here in Heather Glen. woop

Have a good day all, and sue, i'm still chanting for rain.

We've been back here in NE TX for the past fifteen years. My neighbor has hay fields that he lets another man make hay from - each year they cut the grass when it's ready, then leave it to dry in the fields - except each year right after the cutting it rains.
Same thing this year - they cut it yesterday - today it rained.
Wow........

We Wildclickers have better timing than that --------!

Rain is probably a safety feature in your neighbor's case: suspended dust from grain or dried leaves or wood shavings is extremely flammable - actually explosive. Never found this out the hard way, but early on in life I got a summer job cropdusting fields in northern Minnesota and was warned before being given keys to the plane that: "....whatever else you do, don't crash against any grain silos - you'll ruin some family's annual crop!" Fortunately I didn't ruin anything except for my hair, which had to be cut at close to USMC length due to fumes from the damn pesticide; no idea what that stinky goop was, but no amount of shampoo would remove it. Water towers are safe to crash into - water gets wasted, but it's safe for the tower

Glad you got some rain, Danon. Read below.

Dear Susan,

It's fantastic news: yesterday a federal court ruled in our favor and restored endangered species protection to wolves in Montana and Idaho!

The ruling effectively returns ALL wolves in the Northern Rockies to the endangered species list and puts a halt to the wolf hunts that were planned for this fall, starting next month.

As you know, the states' management of wolves has taken a terrible toll over the past year and a half. Since the Obama Administration stripped these wolves of federal protection, more than 500 of them have been gunned down by hunters or government agents.

In response, NRDC -- in partnership with Earthjustice and 13 other conservation groups -- sued the government in federal court and demanded endangered species protection for all 1,700 wolves across the Northern Rockies until their population is able to fully recover.

A federal judge agreed, saying that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted illegally when it removed wolves from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana but left them on the list in Wyoming, splitting the population along political, rather than biological, lines.

Now that the courts have called off the guns, you and I can breathe a sigh of great relief that the public hunting of wolves will not resume this fall. Hundreds of wolves that would have been killed will instead be spared.

For that, we have you to thank. You sustained us through this long legal battle with your donations, your online activism and your absolute commitment to restoring wolves to their rightful place in Greater Yellowstone and across the Northern Rockies.

We can only hope that the Obama Administration will now go back to the drawing board and come up with a solid plan that ensures the sustainable recovery of wolves over the long term.

But if they do not, you can be sure that we will be ready to come to the defense of wolves once again. In the meantime, on behalf of everyone here at NRDC, I want to extend my deepest thanks for helping to make this great victory possible.

Sincerely,

Thanks, sumac.
Wolves are the most missunderstood animal on earth.
I have met a wolf in the woods here in NE TX and it saw me and ran for cover....... I saw another one pass my house as I was building it - it was bedraggled and very sorry looking. Right behind it was another dog animal that was about two times bigger than the Wolf - don't know how that all passed.
Wolves are great animals.

Good clicking all u
Wild Clickers!!!!!!

Wow, that is unusual! Alfalfa or Oat? The first cuttng of the season isn't the best...i'm assuming the farmers crop was new?

At any rate, the weathers been an adventure to say the least.

Rain forcast for higher elevations...nada though...and the coolers still running since about noon. Still summer here.

Now why can i picture you flying a crop duster w/ aviator glasses, scarf, and pixie quaff?

Way ta go T!

Good news, Sue, thanks.

Do you know how many years we've been taking the federal government to court for wolves, horses, and all wildlife? To many to count.

Word is, with new oil leases being handed out like napkins, horses just are to troublesome to live (although you hear the b.s. that the horses and burrows will starve if left wild...=cows, leases, etc.

Been going on for years. One step forward, two steps back, and sometimes we all catch a break for the horses.

Geese Lady, I did not know that you are an aviator. And a pilot who fuels fields for food........ That's super in my mind.

Holy Cow - you don't say much about yourself .............

You're great.

I joined the USMC in 1960 - a year before I left High School - spent two years with them and afterward was drafted into the USA Army - not much difference between the two - we both had to put bullets down range.

In Vietnam - the range became a lot closer due to the foliage ------- not a good thing.

Sleep tight - and safe.

All clicked and an editorial from today's NYT.

August 6, 2010
Victory for Wolves
Donald Molloy, a Federal District Court judge in Montana, ruled Thursday that gray wolves in Montana and Idaho must be provided federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. This is a welcome decision. The immediate effect will be to spare the animals from hunts planned for this fall that are now illegal. The larger hope is that Washington will devise a protection plan ensuring the wolves’ survival not only in Montana and Idaho but across the northern Rocky Mountains.

Wolves in Montana and Idaho were removed from federal protection under rules proposed by the Bush administration. The rules were upheld by President Obama’s Interior Department, which said that both states had developed satisfactory management plans and that the wolves, in effect, could be released into their custody.

Wyoming’s plan was deemed inadequate, and federal protections remained. But in Montana and Idaho, the first reaction was to authorize limited wolf hunts that — though the states argued otherwise — would slowly guarantee the extinction of the species.

Judge Molloy ruled that protections for what is essentially a single species cannot be different in each state — either the wolf must be removed from the list or listed as an endangered species in every state, meaning throughout its range. Judging by early comments, the Interior Department’s preference seems to be to persuade Wyoming to improve its management plan so that the government can delist the wolf there — thus bringing the three states into harmony.

This is a terrible idea, and could end up authorizing hunts in three states, not two. The Interior Department, instead, should write an areawide management plan. There are roughly 1,700 wolves across the Rockies — far more than when they were reintroduced in the 1990s. But most biologists believe there should be a minimum of 2,000, with enough breeding pairs to ensure the long-term survival of a dynamic population across the range.

State plans meant to satisfy hunters rather than protect the wolves cannot do that. The gray wolf may need federal protection for years to come.

Judge Malloy!!!!!!!!!!

woop

peeee!!! (goes with your woop, Stradee)

Great news for the wolves.

And, another tree is asmiling today.

All clicked and interesting story about the second life for some trees.

August 7, 2010

Finding New Life (and Profit) in Doomed Trees

By LAWRENCE W. CHEEK
SEATTLE

THE wooden kitchen bar in the suburban home of Richard and Donna Majer has a canyonlike crack ripping right down its middle, which is exactly what the couple cherish most about it. It’s not just furniture — it’s a story, complete with a moral.

“As I spend time with it, I see the beauty of the hard life the tree had,” Mrs. Majer says. “And it helps me find the beauty in my own life’s scars.”

The crack occurred three years ago in a storm that mortally wounded the towering oak in the Majers’s backyard. It was a family member; Mr. Majer had planted it with his father 53 years earlier. Devastated, the Majers consulted an arborist, who said yes, it had to come down, but that there were a couple of guys in Seattle they should talk to.

The guys were Seth Meyer and John Wells. The pair harvest local urban trees doomed by development, disease or storm damage, and turn them into custom furniture, each piece a distinct botanical narrative.

Their business, started four years ago, bears all the markers that would seem to point toward collapse and extinction in a recessionary economy. It’s founded on idealism and emotion. It’s riddled with huge and unavoidable inefficiencies. And it tenders a high-end product that asks buyers to take risks and have faith.

Yet the company, Meyer Wells, has thrived. It’s been profitable from the start, Mr. Wells says, and revenue has grown annually; it reached $850,000 last year, and the business partners say they’re on track to top $1 million this year. There are now nine employees, and the furniture commissions have blown well beyond suburban kitchens to high-visibility clients like Starbucks and the University of Washington.

“I think our idealism is meeting with the demand to make buildings greener,” Mr. Wells says.

Michael Verchot, director of the Business and Economic Development Center at the University of Washington, says his research backs up that theory. “We’ve conducted two small-business surveys in Washington State in the past four months, and we’re seeing that companies that have a green product are the ones that are increasing sales,” he says. “I can’t speak to the whole country, but our surveys here are telling us that green will be here forever. It’s a permanent shift.”

The Northwest has become one of the strongest markets for nurturing innovative, sustainable businesses, says Alan Durning, executive director of the Sightline Institute, a nonprofit research group here. “In the mental geography of the American mind, the Northwest stands for nature,” he says. “It attracts and retains folks who have a strong affinity for our natural heritage.”

A heart of green is no guarantee of success, of course, even in Seattle. Such enterprises can be as fleeting as ripples on a pond — and Mr. Durning says they often fail for the same reasons others do: they race too far ahead of the market or fail to control costs. It’s especially challenging for green businesses to figure out what environmental values consumers want, and what they will pay extra for, he says.

Janet Pomeroy, board president of the San Francisco-based Green Chamber of Commerce, says the green businesses that do well nationally are those that have an authentic story to sell.

Meyer Wells had those elements from the start. It understood Seattle’s environmental gestalt, and had a product that could spin its own story. Although custom furniture builders are as abundant as mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest, Meyer Wells staked out a distinct territory: the big slab, furniture that could bring indoors the raw power of the environment rather than a builder’s vision.

Mr. Wells says the company also saw trajectories in culture and business worldwide — particularly the locavore and slow-food movements — that suggested the time was ripe for their venture. “We’re starting a slow-wood movement,” he says.

In line with typically idealistic sustainable businesses, they’re trying the whole bouillabaisse of green values, from using nontoxic, water-based wood finishes to offering better-than-average employee benefits. “For a small company, they work hard to make us comfortable,” says Keiku Toutonghi, its one-woman finishing operation. “This is the first place I’ve gotten health benefits and paid vacations.”

Its business model does not depend on tree lovers’ anguished calls, but increasingly on networks with other businesses and design professionals. Tutta Bella, a high-end pizzeria chain, asked Meyer Wells to build a 30-foot-long chef’s table from a century-old city park elm that had split in a windstorm. The table helps the restaurant establish its brand, the owner, Joe Fugere, says. “It fits our culture of sustainability and authenticity,” he says.

Despite the increasingly ambitious restaurant and boardroom tables — the latter ironically encrusted with electronic connectivity under the rustic slabs — Mr. Meyer and Mr. Wells seem not to have snipped the emotional roots that led them into the business: a love of raw wood. Mr. Majer recalls the day Mr. Meyer came out to assess their doomed oak. “It’s hard to explain,” he says, “but we knew that Seth could see the soul of that tree.”

MEYER WELLS works out of an 8,000-square-foot, high-ceiling building four miles north of downtown that once housed a Navy swimming pool.

Soft northern light floods in through clerestory windows; bare cedar boughs hang from the open ceiling trusses to cleanse any lingering negative energy from the lumber that enters and the furniture that leaves — a Native American belief that Mr. Wells embraces. A stunning indoor alley is formed by towering slabs of hardwoods the partners have salvaged: oak, walnut, black locust, bigleaf and silver maples, cherry and madrona.

“People who buy furniture here are adventurers,” says Mr. Meyer. “They see the tree and get to be part of the process. They have to have an adventurous spirit, they have to be patient, and they have to trust. There’s an element of risk.”

Those adventurers might be surprised to learn that Mr. Meyer, 40, is a high-school dropout. He radiates a discerning obsession with the details of design and the philosophy of craftsmanship. “Some people drop out of school because they can’t cut it,” says Mr. Wells. “Others drop out because school doesn’t cut it for them. That’s Seth.”

Mr. Meyer says he grew up in a house “with a lot of aesthetic awareness.”

“My stepfather was a furniture maker,” he adds. “There was always a lot of discussion about beauty and craft.” Everything in the built environment was up for critique. “We’d be driving along and someone would say: ‘Look at the back end of that car. What a missed opportunity!’ ”

Mr. Wells is 45, coolly cerebral and stuffed with education. Mr. Meyer describes him as the optimistic force in the partnership, the one who argues for the new tool or venture and sustains the faith that it all will work out. He has a bachelor’s degree in English from the College of Wooster in Ohio, and another in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design. His résumé is also flocked with sawdust. In high school he made a Chippendale desk that scored second in a statewide shop-class competition in North Carolina.

Like Mr. Meyer, he once ran a one-man custom furniture shop. The two met at a mutual friend’s dinner party, worked on a couple of projects together, then decided to form a new company.

Now in production is a large dining table from two storm-felled red elms. At this point, the slabs are propped against a wall, notes and lines chalked on them. A notation beside a two-foot-long crack specifies, “OPEN.” The crack will be cleaned up and stabilized, but not filled or hidden. “I see a bird in it, maybe a heron,” Mr. Meyer says, admiring its form. The slabs will be mated not with ruler-straight joints, but with painstakingly curved cuts in line with the grain patterns.

He suddenly becomes a tour guide to a whole geography embedded in the wood — “islands” and “cathedrals” in the grain. “I’m looking to see how the grain of one board flows into the next so that the composition feels harmonious,” he says. “In every piece, I’m looking for some kind of rhythm and balance. It’s an intuitive process, not something with a set of rules I could ever write down.”

If there’s one rule in the shop, it’s this: Respect the tree’s narrative — including the chapters about its hard urban life. Mr. Meyer once found a steel snippet embedded in a beautiful cherry slab, perhaps a remnant of a nail used to hammer a “lost cat” sign to the tree. He left it in place, a piece of the story.

Nearly all of their pieces feature the trendy “live edge” — an edge of the slab left unmilled to celebrate the topography of the tree trunk. The technique today can be accused of being a cliché, but nature still provides a universe of forms and textures to admire. Some edges seem to ripple with geologic strata; some display miniature badlands of canyons and ridges. The Meyer Wells philosophy is to impose as little human design as possible.

The timber rolls in through motley channels. Some local arborists are plugged in and know when to call. One day, Mr. Meyer was driving near a Seattle lot that was to be the site of a new apartment building. A sprawling bigleaf maple arrested him.

“I had to make several calls, but I finally got to the demolition contractor,” Mr. Meyer recalls. “He said, ‘Oh yeah, we’re just going to take it to the dump.’ ” As usual, Meyer Wells took the timber for nothing, but the cost of trucking it to the company’s yard is typically $500 for an urban tree salvage.

Although the designs are minimalist, the costs add up — for drying, milling, design, joining the component pieces and finishing. Coffee and dining tables mostly range from $3,000 to $10,000, while runwaylike conference tables can easily hit $20,000.

Mr. Wells says they essentially use a cost-plus pricing model, but because each piece — and each tree’s constellation of problems — is different, “sometimes we do well at the pricing, and sometimes we don’t.”

“But it all seems to average out,” he adds, “and we’re getting better at it.”

Where Mr. Meyer still loves to ponder the expressive possibilities of a crack in a slab, Mr. Wells now seems propelled more by the big-ticket issue of sustainability. “I really believe a designer can make better choices, and that can influence people and move us in a direction that’s more sustainable,” he says. “That’s what I’ve chosen to do, and I think it’s what’s made us a successful business.”

SUSTAINABLE furniture isn’t recession-proof. The company’s residential business shrank in the last two years, but increases in corporate commissions more than made up the difference, Mr. Wells said. Now the residential orders are wrenching back up, and Mr. Wells remains a dogged optimist.

“People buy what they believe is right for them to buy,” he says. “If there are options available that fit better with their values, they will buy those options.”

The business’s current challenge is in remaining faithful to its roots. Ms. Pomeroy of the Green Chamber of Commerce notes that one of the universal hazards for green businesses is trying too hard to uphold all their ideals while the gritty realities of everyday economics gnaw away at them. Sometimes, she says, they fail to understand that fully incorporating their values would mean changing the world’s economic systems.

In fact, Meyer Wells is trying to save increasingly large chunks of the world. Early this year, it started a subsidiary venture, Green Tree Mill, that will extend its reach into Puget Sound’s surrounding forests, harvesting and milling trees that the larger sawmills don’t want. Instead of being turned directly into custom furniture, this lumber will be marketed directly to builders.

“I have sleepless nights,” Mr. Wells acknowledges. “The mill is pushing us to a new level of risk, with a potentially higher level of reward.”

Mr. Meyer seems to crave equilibrium more than growth, and longs for more time to put his hands on a fallen tree and massage its natural beauty.

“We’re faced with the not unsatisfying challenge of injecting efficiency into an essentially creative process,” he says. “From the classic viewpoint of American business, it’s probably a fool’s errand. But hey, so far we’re making it work.”




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Wow...a coffee table for 3 thousand dollars!

Here's something new and green for decking, and just about anything you can build from wood...a substitute made of plastics. Looks like wood, and lasts about 30 years (although with new innovations and technology, won't be far in the future when the product will sustain many more years) If after the initial 30 years a person wants to get rid of their deck, house, etc. the company will buy back the materials at scrap prices then recycle.

No dead trees

Just talked to my sib, and she's having her deck stairs replaced with the product "Lumberock", made by adding a mineral to polyethylene and thus have gained greater strength and better expansion / contraction performance while still providing rich looking colored deck boards. You pick a color and voila...there it is.

For me, i see no drawback...except gone is the feel and aroma of real wood...
but after working on a deck that will need replacing a few years down the road...the polyethylene stuff sounds like just the ticket. Best of all? No damned dry rot..........not ever!

And dining on a $10,000 table - probably hamburgers.

There were some guys years ago salvaging lumber from the Great Lakes. Boy did they make out with some expensive lumber. Old logs from around a hundred years ago and most still in good condition.

Well, they didn't let it go to waste.

Even those trees are still asmiling - on some persons floor of course.

Ya don't have to be a pilot to enjoy this one =

A C-130 was lumbering along when a cocky F-16 flashed by. The jet jockey decided to show off.

The fighter jock told the C-130 pilot, 'watch this!' and promptly went into a barrel roll followed by a steep climb. He then finished with a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier. The F-16 pilot asked the C-130 pilot what he thought of that?

The C-130 pilot said, 'That was impressive, but watch this!'

The C-130 droned along for about 5 minutes and then the C-130 pilot came back on and said: 'What did you think of that?'

Puzzled, the F-16 pilot asked, 'What the heck did you do?'

The C-130 pilot chuckled. 'I stood up, stretched my legs, walked

to the back, took a leak, then got a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll.'