From here across the world...

If there is one thing that never ceases to amaze me it is the range of people who write to me, either from this blog or after encountering http://www.highmountainranch.com
through some sort of word search or random linked trail on the Internet.

I am lucky to receive these letters from all over the globe. And these letters give me great hope. Despite the current tricky political climate, the dark spirit of war that has fallen over so many countries on our planet and despite the sometimes difficult dialogue sexual orientation issues often present, in numerous circumstance I see new beginnings when I encounter this community. An unlikely pairing of strangers, people linked by random electrolisis so to speak...

That is what these pages represent...I have never made a living off of my writing...but I've always felt that words when written from the heart had the power to spark change, create dialogue, and offer hope-especially when the darkness of our current condition stagnates what little optimism we have...So here are a few excerpts from recent letters...accompanied by shots of the beautiful scenery I am surrounded by...

"Although it is late I am feeling the need to let you know that I finally saw Brokeback Mountain this evening. I brought it with me from NetFlics and it was my carrot for the week of studying. Wow, my heart is breaking! I am glad I did not see it in the theater because I would have been a snotty mess in public. What a beautiful and tragically sad love story. I cannot even imagine the level of heartache between Jack and Ennis. I am feeling profoundly saddened and nauseous at the reality their relationship and circumstances brought to light in this movie. It is one thing to understand the love, the struggle, the fear, and that feeling of not being able to breathe without the person you love. It is quite another thing to be awakened in the heart with this unbelievable reality for men who love men, then and now. I am sorry I waited so long to see it and I am glad I finally did. I hope it is okay that I have shared a few brief thoughts with you at this late hour!"

Susan, Seattle

"My name is Lena. i was born in romania 25 years ago; I worked a bit in the US and enjoyed every minute of my life travelling. I am currently in Indonesia, teaching english.
I ran into your website while looking for Brokeback Mountain. I found you and then started reading your high mountain stories... or should I say reading you? Because it is really your soul put there in front of us.
The fact that you are gay caught my attention and kept it awake for awhile. I see myself as open-minded - most of my best friends are gay and they could testify to that. I believe in love and in freedom and it hurts me to see how many people have to suffer just because the rest of us are so ignorant. in my crazy moments I even secretly hope that some day I'll have a gay son, so I could prove what a cool and understanding mother I can be."

Lena, Indonesia

"What’s up? I just wanted to talk to you about what you have done for me. I am gay but a major closet case- so much so I’m not even a practicing gay any more. But coming to your website and reading about you and your friends is changing me. I sent an E-mail to my best friend the other day and told him about the real me and that I hoped it would not screw our friendship up. He wrote me back and told me that he already knew and that he was glad that I was starting to come out. He wrote “David you can’t live like you are living without anyone in your life” He is right I can’t live like this.

You know I think our Lord brought me to your site. I think we have a lot in common you having a father that is a minister and my parents being one of the founders of our church...I see a lot more of me in you..."

David, Texas

What my trucking career has come to...

Yep that's me...proudly driven around by a (at the time) three year old...
Ms Kelcy is dang proud...and so is uncle Tim...
Sort of...

"Got Wood?" II

These shots were taken on land the county purchased from me and that was recently logged to make way for the LeClerc Road widening project...Under local regulations, the timber revenue from the project goes to the former land owner with the county providing the loggers. As long as I've owned land in Pend Oreille County, I've been an adovocate of sustainable forestry.

Many members of my family are directly or indirectly supported by the Timber Industry. Some of my relatives work in the mills up near Colville, some drive logging truck, and some build log homes.

It goes without saying that I get very tired of loggers being portrayed in the media as earth destroying savages. Most loggers I know truly care about the environment and are just as disgusted by the land management practises of the larger timber corporations as folks are in urban areas.

The big timber companies have time and time again shown little concern for local communities, and often use the tired "global economy" excuse as the reasoning behind their decision to ship local log commodities overseas for processing. Despite slick public relations campaigns, these huges corporations are quite content to let the local mills go belly up, clear cut everything they can get their hands on, then lock up what remains of the forests, gating all access to prevent future public use.

The large timber companies have been irresponsible in their forest practises. The growing endangered species listings raps are entirely theirs to be held accountable for. It certainly isn't the local logger who is callously destroying the environment.

We who live in these woods respect their beauty, understand the fragile balance created by mother nature and we know full well that these rugged places are also our hunting and recreational escapes. No one wants to see the land abused. Yet the wholesale timber managers and the United State Forest Service, charged with overseeing these vast tracts of public and private lands, do so from afar. Often with little concern about what their actions do to local economies, watersheds and the environment.

I know people don't usually expect a gay guy to hold a pro timber position. I also believe in local natural resources accountability. I am proud of my family's legacy and the reality that my family has been and still is supported by the fruits of the land is a heritage that deserves no shame. But I also readily admit that I am disgusted with the large, unaccountable corporations who have created so many eyesores, and whose greed has abandoned the very landscape, and communities who allowed them to prosper in the first place.

Anyway, for those of you who don't come from "big timber country"...here's what happens when trees are logged...First the trees are felled....usually a logger cuts a large notch on one side of the "stick" and a smaller notch is then cut on the other side. If all works right, the tree will fall toward the larger notch...Often times though wind, fate, distribution of branch weight or other unseen factors contribute toward the tree falling in an unintended direction-these events are better known as "widow makers". Sometimes the pressure on the cut is so great, the cut travels up the trunk and becomes a "rocking chair" or "craddle rocker"...which is extremely dangerous.

Sometimes the chainsaw gets hung up on the cut and as the weight of a 100 foot tall stick rests on the chainsaw, the whole blade becomes stuck. This is also often the beginning of a very bad day.

Once the trees are sawed down, they are sorted by variety. Pictured here are Fir, White Pine, Lodgepole, Bull Pine (Ponderosa) and Larch logs. The sticks are cut to specific lengths, usually "short sticks" that start at 12 foot 6 inch lengths and go all the way up to 33 foot, 6 inch lengths. Short logs are preferable log lengths because logs are scaled (valued) by the diameter of the smaller end of the log. The shorter the log, the better the chance the log won't vary much from end to end.
The logs are then "bucked" and cleaned up, which means that the protuding branch ends are sawed down as close to the log trunck as possible. Sometimes logs will need to be set with a choker, or a series of chokers (known as tags) and then "skidded" down to a deck or landing where the logs are further sorted and readied for loading onto a self loading log truck.
Here my cousin Mike is shown sawing off a "butt cut". Log Yards require that each end of the log be uniform, ensuring that the "scale" of the logs won't get docked in value by the log yard or whoever the timber broker eventually markets their bulk timber to. Once the logs are loaded, the log truck driver secures the load and heads off to the log yard. In this case the sorting yard is only six miles from here, but the cost of transporting the logs runs about $300 per trip.
In some cases, the topography of the land dictates the logs end up some distance from where the trucks can load them...In cases like this, logs might have to be skidded more than once to a safer, more accessible location or in extremely remote locations, these sticks are picked up by helicopter and transferred to more convenient locations.
Here is a shot of the truck returning for another load, and an example of the "stinger" riding piggyback on the tractor...Local timber harvests are extremely efficient and nearly everything is used. Tree tops become fence posts. Smaller branches and limbes as well as small trees are chipped and become pulp, which is used in paper, newsprint, and toilet paper. Bark becomes landscaping material. So next time you head to home depot, or grab some Charmin, you'll have a little better idea of just how those products arrived on your local shelves. And that you might actually be using a 2x4 that once grew in Pend Oreille County.

The Great Missoula Floods and the creation of Scablands...

The map above illustrates the territory affected by the Great Missoula Floods. Here is a recent story discussing this amazing and destructive event, the same geological history that shaped Palouse falls featured a few days back on this site.

So with all the current global warning hype and debate, maybe we should require all the politicians to hike the entire length of the proposed trail system-so that these folks could get a visual of just how powerful these forces can be. Sorta makes Yellowstone and Yosemite seem like small potatos, eh.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/275362_floods26.html
http://www.iceagefloodsinstitute.org/

The voting rollercoaster continues...

Here's more on the current Republican led rush to install non-paper trail and easily tampered with voting machines (e.g. election rigging): http://www.pamspaulding.com/weblog/2006/06/will-your-vote-count-at-all.html


Hmmm...and at the same time notice how renewal of the "fair voting act" is suddenly stalled in congress? Seemingly because certain good old boy southern state congressional reps are feeling a bit "singled out"...Representing states like Florida and Georgia-places where all kinds of statistically impossible results have plauged elections do you think they just might have something to fear?

Signs of the times...

 

Lane and Travis cast a few lines...

 

Celebrating Travis' Birthday

These shots are a few weeks old...A bunch of us went up county to go camping to celebrate Travis' birthday...Here Malinda and Misty introduce Jackson to the joys of watermelon... 

 

 

 

 

Getting advice from experts...Tim and Misty offer their coaching skills...

 

 

 

 

The goal of the game...

 

Kevin offers a response...

 

Travis goes for the gold...