Hawaii; Then and Now

[Deleted User 287]

I'll have to spend a month with you on my way to Australia to live, Tim.

[ME 109]

I'll have to spend a month with you on my way to Australia to live, Tim.

Rob, careful what you wish for.
I had to go to this place for three days with my eldest son.
Got back home yesterday.
There was much wildlife invading the campsite, day and night, there were fish, Australia's best (most awarded) oysters, walking along the beach with no other footsteps to show us where to go,

[Deleted User 287]

That is sad, Jeff. I may have to rethink this...

[Chuey]

There have always been eucalyptus trees around as long as I can remember. In other words, I've always lived near to them. I love their smell when they're in their "hot" mood. It's very organic and invigorating at the same time. There are several eucs in my yard. They do grow fast. The wood is hard, and as firewood, it burns long time.

Red Gum euc is a wood that's been recognized in the US by woodworkers for about fifteen or twenty years as I understand.

Looking at forests or trees as crops may have its place but there has been a lot of opportunistic damage done by the logging industry in some areas. The shop building I lease has magnificent wood in the ceiling trusses, which are exposed. I mean to say that when you look up and focus in on some of the timbers, you can see something Holy. (Not holey) - that is the recently grown wood. Termites infest the younger wood while the older (Holy) wood (from God, not from "managed forests") spans the building in confident splendor. I sometimes show customers how special the wood is by shining a light up at it and pointing out that the growth rings are a fine and tight as a stack of construction paper. It's too pretty to be hidden away up there at this time when we have crap wood to make buildings out of. Wood like that should be salvaged when buildings are torn down and if I had some, I'd build something to look at and I'd appreciate its specialness every time I saw it. I think there is a place for the reverence for wood that some people have.

Chuey

[Deleted User 287]

There are several eucs in my yard. They do grow fast. The wood is hard, and as firewood, it burns long time.

I would not have thought that a fast growing tree would produce hard wood.

We didn't study many [any] eucalyptus trees in central Indiana Boy Scouts.

[Deleted User 62]

I'll have to spend a month with you on my way to Australia to live, Tim.

Rob, careful what you wish for.
I had to go to this place for three days with my eldest son.
Got back home yesterday.
There was much wildlife invading the campsite, day and night, there were fish, Australia's best (most awarded) oysters, walking along the beach with no other footsteps to show us where to go,

Sounds like I may have to follow you to Australia!

[Deleted User 287]

'merikans take over Nimbin!

[enigmaT120]

The environmentalists cried out that we were destroying the forests. I took a ride out Mana Road to the old logging site a few years back, and was amazed to see some of the strongest, thickest growth of new Koa trees I've seen anywhere... I think it's the timeline; I may not see the regrowth in my lifetime, but it will happen.

Around here nobody is re-growing old growth forests. A Douglas Fir can live for several hundred years, and by the time it dies there will be a understory forest of hemlock and cedar, with more fir coming up in openings. The typical cut cycle for my neighbor on three sides, Weyerhauser, is about 40 years or a little more. Then they clear cut and do it again. Once old growth forests are cut here, they aren't coming back in anybody's life time.

Even if we leave the forests stand, just thinning suppressed trees like I'm doing with my property, the species we drive into extinction by destroying their habitat won't come back. A sustainable cut cycle for the mature forests around here would be about .25% every year.

Even now my moronic legislative delegation (some of them) is trying to steal a bunch of federal land and put it under state control for timber management, so that they can look good to the rural counties that have been living off of federal welfare money all this time whilst trying to pretend they are conservative. Yeah my county is one that has been feeding at the public trough all these years. At least the mythical welfare queens don't pretend to be conservative. It really gags me when rough, tough, manly independent rural people act like they have a right to an income from federal land. I wish they would stick with activities like soliciting anonymous gay sex in airport restrooms. It's less hypocritical.

[Deleted User 62]

I should explain, Hawaii has large tracts of native forests that are off limits to loggers and developers. They are mostly state owned watershed, but some are privately owned as well. There are also huge areas of land that used to be forests, which were used for sugar cane and pasture land over the years. With the end of sugar production and the decline of the large cattle ranches, these are the ones that have been planted with eucalyptus and other agricultural crops. It is not an attempt to re-establish native forests. The native forests themselves have evolved over time, as dominant species die out and other non-native species get a foothold. There is a very big problem with lilikoi vines and gorse weed on the Big Island. These are non-native species which propagate quickly and completely choke out all other plants. The area we logged was pasture for over 100 years, and had been logged several times before, as evidenced by old mill sites and slash piles we found. At one point the state was going to make limited logging of Koa Acacia available on state land, but the list of rules and regulations comprised a small book. Basically, they wanted it to look like there had been no logging, which was completely unfeasible. Weyerhauser was involved in some test plots on the island to see if Koa could be grown commercially, but I don't know if they ever did it on a big scale.

[Chuey]

Ed, I've said it before and I can't help saying it again. You are a treasure.

Chuey