leila hamaya

interesting discussion.

i like the "circle cut" as described, that's a good easy way to sum up selective logging. i suppose it's one type of selective logging, but one which simplifies the idea.

there's a good middle ground between truly wild land and meadow like park type landscaping, truly wild, thick forest can always use a lot of thinning.
theres a good middle ground between total "conservation", and clear cut. it is good for the forest to have people tending it on a semi regular basis, by doing things like removing brambles and brush, any standing dead, and limbing the trees. people regularly removing small amounts of the small stuff for wood heat and such...this is a hugely helpful action.

it also minimizes fire risk, as does these "circle cuts" and other ways of selective logging, or selective burning for fire breaks.

something else that should be considered is when a forest is selectively harvested, and frequently harvested for small amounts of wood, it grows in much better.  there's small trees, medium ones, and scattered about huge ancient ones, larger paths made and used by humans and animals alike, and all the trees have a lot more room, and more light is let in for other types of plants, more edibles for animals.

unfortunately, when a forest is clear cut and you have these huge clear cuts...although the growth does come back, it tends to make way for "invasive" type plants and trees, the most opportunistic...and in general - just grow in too thick, all at once.

since a lot of where people is living is like 3-4 generations of clear cuts later...what grows up if left to it's own, is not as desirable, especially in relation to OP, as the way it grows back tends to be way too thick. so yeah it needs maintenance, and frequent gathering of small trees, and branches, making clearings and meadow like areas here and there...and selective logging.

maybe it is relevant to also add i know someone who makes their business doing small scale sustainable logging, similar to some of the above discussion. I put it out there as an idea, i think similarly it could be done.
he makes most of his income running a small scale portable mill, where he goes to an individuals land, cuts trees directly from their land, mills it on site or at his site, and then builds custom designs for them...

...they get a deck or a shed or whatever else they want built, with the wood directly harvested from their land, and they also get an area cleared of trees....i know he gets more work then he can possibly get to...and has built all sorts of neat buildings and greenhouses and a lot of nice decks...

Kali Hermitage wrote:This is so sad, and I don't know the answer! My husband and I are nearly 50, with no kids, and want to retire on property. I'm constantly thinking about how to do it without kids. Is there an organization out there that connects young people who want to farm/work the land with older people who want to find someone to pass their resources down to? Maybe this is something that is needed?

i agree this is an answer. a lot of work and would take many many volunteers/workers to set it up, but its a strongly needed thing.
could also be combined with an organization who places people in WOOF type positions, internships and etc...and all the way to networking ICs, hooking up new farmers with cheap/free ish land...more permanent positions and facilitating land acquisition by beginning farmers.

i have been following a bit about this stuff...and looked into the USDA programs and what might be coming from all this stuff --->
https://landforgood.org/lap3-award/

https://nifa.usda.gov/funding-opportunity/beginning-farmer-and-rancher-development-program-bfrdp

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718313942

Nick Kitchener wrote:I happen to be a practicing Christian who tries to disconnect from institutional religions that use the same label. I thought I'd post because ever since I was a kid the Christmas story bugged me because something just seemed off.
When I started reading all of my bible, I realized that the popular Christmas story isn't anything close to the accounts of Jesus' birth. The first obvious fact is that December 25 is not his birthday and couldn't possibly be at that time of year. Even as a kid I figured that out because I searched for his birth date in the bible and it wasn't there.

The reason you will most often hear is that the date wasn't recorded so that was the date that was chosen (just some random date). As a kid that didn't sit well but I was told to be quiet and stop asking silly questions. Maybe  can answer some of those here because I'm pretty sure lot's of people have the same questions...

Why wasn't his birthday recorded? Because the celebration of birthdays is a not an Abrahamic tradition but a pagan one. OK pretty simple.

Why was a mid winter date chosen instead of a more realistic one? The scriptures describe climatic conditions and human activities around his birth fitting with fall, not winter. Scholars placed it more precisely at around late September 3BC, until computer software that models astronomical cycles was developed and using alignments described in the scriptures identified the date and time of his birth to most likely be in the early hours of the morning on September 11, 3BC which also fits well with the fall prophetic feast of trumpets. So why December 25th? That date is not a chance date at all. It happens to be the Roman feast of Saturnalia (Dec 17 to 23 in the Julian calendar). The Roman god Saturn. The adoption of December 25 by the Roman Catholic Church had a lot to do with that. The word "Christ" simply means "anointed", and there are many "Christs" because an anointing takes many forms. The Roman god Saturn was anointed and is indeed a Christ.

i find your take on this pretty fascinating.

somewhat in agreement, but more would say the holiday was co opted by the church, as the most widely practiced religions were pagan ish / indigenous nature based spiritual practices, and celebrations of the winter solstice were already ancient holidays.

and yeah some people have put forward some compelling theories on the actual birthdate of jesus of nazareth, astrologers and astronomers have figured it out and most agree with your time frame, though there's an alternate theory that it could have been the following spring. the astronomical patterns created what is later referred to as the "star of bethlehem" is the major clue thats been used, as well as knowledge of ancient astrology in calculating what would be jesus birth chart. the "star" is believed to have been a rare planetary conjunction, and even fitting it with...a truly exceptional birth chart, if you would be inclined to think on such factors.

anywho yeah, astrologers use one of 2 dates mostly, BUT do keep in mind the calender was changed since that time, also throwing the date off, from our current calender.

the one used for food is the feral wild type also called the tawny daylily.

the others are good tasting too, but they are less prolific. i think one of the main reasons for sticking with the feral types is they are sooooooooo easy and sooooo prolific, they spread vigorously.
plant in any soil, dry wet clay sand, whatever they can hang with anything, produce a lot of food very quickly, thrive on neglect.

the pretty daylilies don't spread very fast, and are much slower growing. i grow some of those too, and occasionally eat them.

but yeah i do have many hundreds/ probably thousands of tawny daylily plants, if anyone is interested in a trade, i am down =)

it's so cool that these days we can just hop arounds internetsland looking up all the artists you havent heard in years and find all of their stuffs =)






and WOWIE! something new ish from Massive Attack...

ah, ok, i see.

and yeah -i do hear your point.
it's not so much that i disagree, but i have a different perspective. i guess i see the whole thinking as compromising too much....like almost a lesser of 2 evils kind of thing...but we have more than 2 options. it's not just - tree farm or strip malls/mcmansions.

who was the smarty pants who said the thing about certain problems needing to solved on a different level than what created them? i think that would apply here.

and when you get into the details and specifics of what's involved, it does get very complex, lots of interrelated particulars.

but in my opinion the whole premise is a bad idea, should not have built up to the epic proportions it has, and so we should take immediate steps to dismantle it and start figuring out a better way.

better to just accept that now, and get on with it!

again, i KNOW that this is an unpopular opinion. i know...people are not just going to hop on board with this.

actually it's quite possible that if it is the case of....land that is privately owned now and managed primarily for harvesting pulp...is instead turned into neighborhoods...maybe that is actually a better potential for the lands to have better management. your average person does enjoy and use their yard in ways that are not always bad.

yeah we gotta get people off the cides and such...but even the most determined yard owner with an army of landscapers spraying small amounts of herbicides here and there is not the significant problem.
these types of things are small, compared to the healing power of the land to regenerate itself. 2 guys with some saws are never going to get to the point of

people on their own just arent able to wreck the havoc that large scale machinery and large corporations are able to do.

so maybe...just maybe....putting the land into the hands of small landowners and encouraging non toxic landscaping practices is better than forest mismanaged by companies growing monocultures of trees for profit.

i think the happy middle road is humans interacting with the land in healthy ways, managing forests for the health of the forest, AND for their own use.
i can say for most people thats through the medium of small land holdings, their own land, where they have that relationship, and even if they stumble by our standards, are looking to do right by their little corner of the world.

ok, apologies if i wandered off topic, to me this is the answer.

it's not one people seem to be jumping onboard with - stop using wood as paper fiber entirely.

on topic - my answer and opinion is current paper making practices are very BAD for the forests, no matter what short term benefits may be on the table.

i would like to see a truly sustainable logging industry, much smaller and done always with the health of the forest in mind as the highest priority. i do believe we can have enough wood products, use wood in sustainable ways, AND have healthy forests.

i just dont believe i have seen many people do this, it involves a HUGE reduction in logging, and a HUGE shift in the methods of logging- it takes more time and gives less profit. but what it does give us is long term healthy forests, and thats worth more...

Tereza Okava wrote:It's a great question, and one that is not simple.
I work in this area, and see a lot of random (and often biased) data thrown around about how planted forests (the only source of paper in this this country) are recovering deforested areas, controlling hydric cycles, creating jobs in job deserts, etc.

Tereza Okava wrote:
On the other hand, what is the alternative?

i think the answers could be simple.

"the only source of paper" does NOT have to come from trees.
tree free paper was the standard norm for thousands of years before the invention and adoption of using wood pulp for paper.

imho, wood is not a suitable material for paper, and it's use as pulp should be abandoned completely.
there are HUNDREDS of other plants that are better suited as paper fibers, and more minimal in acreage to grow enough pulp.
much easier to make paper with these fibers, and so no chemicals are needed to process them, such as with wood...

some other great options are waste fibers, leftover fibers from the production of food crops, rice straw, flax, even banana leaves make s a far superior paper than wood pulp, with far less processing and toxic yuck.

save the wood that's harvested for wood crafts, furniture and building uses, harvest the forest sustainably clearing smaller trees and selectively harvesting for the health of the forest, as a priority.

now i see, people are probably not going to agree with this, so i do think paul's got a good suggestion, at least only use "junk" poles and other smaller undesirable wood for pulp. thats the kind of wood thats good to remove from the forest, importantly for the forest fire risks, and it also clears the way for lots of new growth on what's left after a truly *sustainable* harvest.

yeah priority mail is good for a lot of things...and the PADDED flat rate envelope is good for huge things.
https://store.usps.com/store/product/shipping-supplies/priority-mail-padded-flat-rate-envelope-P_EP14PE

you can order those, and the small and medium boxes, and the post office will ship them to you.

but best rate is for "First Class Parcel" which is from $3- $5 depending on weight. anything under 16 oz. the PayPal shipping is super useful...and figures it out for you after you enter the weight. you can buy and print priority flat rate postage there too, and save a trip to the P.O.

also with PayPal account, you can sign up for a PayPal debit card. this is useful if you want to sell things online, cause then you can access the money you take in with PayPal from anywhere, pay for it with a debit card that accesses the money you have in your PayPal....

and avoid fees to transfer to bank accounts or whatever...

i sell a lot of my own craft work, and so this is my busy time, been doing some craft markets...

currently have mostly bead work...but i go through different grooves and sometimes pick back up some of my other crafts...

my Etsy shop ---> https://www.etsy.com/shop/leilahamaya

i am also selling on ebay --->  https://www.ebay.com/sch/lanihamaya/m.html ~ lani hamaya on ebay