Sherwood's Almanac

Week starting 29 March 2009

30 March

Ads are working.

Some of my efforts to promote the web site must be working. Got a RFQ from a landscape company in Edmonton. Didn't have the size they wanted, but I send them my current inventory. Added the guy to my contacts list.

Got a phone call and an email from a couple near Prince George who are renting a trailer to come down and pick up a bunch of trees.

Got an email from a guy looking for privacy screen trees.

31 March

Computer woes.

I use Linux at home for my workstation. I finally bit the bullet and started the upgrade process from Fedora 7 to Fedora 10. This is roughly like going from Windows NT to Windows XP. Lots of things break. Took me most of the day to get things even half working, and it's going to take another couple of days to download all the updates that will run on the newest and best.

1 April

Report of Meeting with Local Power Generating Company

Background: A mile and a half to the north of our farm is the current boundary of the mine that supplies coal to the LPGC's generating station. The mine is a very large scale industrial operation creating assorted dusts, stinks, and noises.

The power plant is just west of the mine, about five miles as the raven flies from my house. Coal has to be hauled only a few miles.

Last week Laura and I received an invitation to participate in one of the meetings that the LPGC to involve the community in its decision making. In general the community cannot change what they do. Power has to be made somewhere, and as long as it's coal, some people are going to be affected. However community involvement can affect how they do certain things.

These meetings are mostly to inform us of what's in the works, but also to to find out what our concerns are about the process. The LPGC gets kudos for this.

L and I have been invited to two of these. Since each one has one company representative for every 3-4 community members it is expensive for them to put these on. Both sessions have had workgroup segments where a few community members could meet with one or two reps and get everyone's issues addressed. These sessions have been good, although it's too soon to tell if anything will actually come of them.

Mine expansion.

This was the bad news. Nice present for April Fool's Day. The current mine is 28 sections (square miles) of land. A good chunk of this has been mined already. At the current rate of use, the coal under this land will be used up in another 15 years. The process of mining coal responsibly is not trivial.

Clear the trees.
Strip the topsoil, and save it.
Strip the overburden and park it out of the way.
Mine the coal.
Fill part of the hole with the coal ash.
Put the overburden back
Sculpt something like natural drainage back into the landscape.
Replace the top soil
Plant the top soil.
Monitor for several years with crops/reclamation species.

Whew! To give the Large Power Company and the Larger Mining Company credit, they've done a pretty good job. I can fuss about how boring the reclaimed land looks, but it grows decent crops.

Anyway, the company is starting the process to secure a supply of coal that will take the power plant to 2050. For this, they want to add another 16 sections of land to the mine permit area. This will bring the edge of the permit area 800 yards north of my house.

Worse than that, they are adding a mile wide strip to the northeast. This will put me in the wind cone from the mine, with its dust, and dirt.

Some of my neighbors at the meeting are in the present wind cone from the mine. They do not have nice things to say about the constant dirt.

I'm apprehensive about this on several fronts:

A couple years ago I was diagnosed with adult onset asthma. It's not bad yet, but a high dust environment will not help.
Some of the species of trees I grow are pollution sensitive. If it's just dust, it shouldn't be a problem, but my neighbors say that the dust is sticky and has to be washed off with soap and water, not just a swiffer. Having trees covered in sticky stuff won't be a sales feature. This I can at least check by going out to where my neighbors were complaining, and seeing if there is any noticeable stuff on the trees there.
I don't know the time frame for how long it will take before they are working either close to me or upwind from me. When will I have to move? If I could be sure of 30 years here, and that both I and my trees would be healthy, I wouldn't worry. My fear is that it will be just as I'm getting the tree farm going strong, in about another 5-10 years, and I'll be faced with the disruption of moving it, and rebuilding from scratch.

A tree farm has a long crop cycle. 3-4 years for poplars, willows and larch; 5-6 years for some pines; 7-10 years for slow spruce, and even longer for slow growing trees such as bristlecone pine.

I'm now starting to sell the first trees I planted 5 years ago. And currently I do all my growing in pots. Moving my present operation is a lot of work, but it's not impossible. I'm looking at putting some of my larger potted trees out in the field to get big enough to interest landscape contractors. If I do this, then moving the tree farm five years from now will be a lot harder. Fifteen years from now if I have fifty thousand caliper trees worth a couple hundred dollars each, it will be very expensive for the LPGC. Finding similar land the same distance from my markets will also be expensive.

Frankly, I don't want to have to rebuild my infra-structure from scratch 10 years from now, or whenever they decide that the time is right to buy me out.

Stay tuned...

First Geese

3 April

Geese & Ravens

Yesterday after supper I went out to the willow thicket to take a look at pussy willows. While I was working there, I heard honks.
Looking around I spied a couple of geese flying south. Missed that batch with the camera (which I had with me for inventory purposes.) But a couple minutes later, I caught a small wing of them.

I don't know if these are true migrating geese or if they are ones that overwinter on the cooling pond at Epcor.

A while later Abby, our border collie gets in a real tizwaz. I listened, trying to figure out if she was hearing something unusual. Then laughed. The ravens that live in a nest across the road were back, and fussing.

Abby is normally a pretty level headed dog, but something about ravens pushes her buttons. They are nearly as smart as she is, I think, and there has been some teasing.

Pussy Willows

Two years ago, I marked 15 willows in big willow patch, marking them for have better than average catkins. Last year I marked another batch. This year I went out. Some of the marked ones have few catkins. Some unmarked ones are excellent. I wonder if they are like apples, with good and bad years, or if there is enough variation in season that some just aren't ready yet.

I know that last fall I saw some willows blooming in late October. Maybe they are just confused.

If it's a matter of timeing, then by selecting the proper specimens to clone I could have an extended season of superior pussy willows for the floral trade.

4 April

Land anxiety.

This is going to be a common headline until we know what's up with Epcor.

Spent a fair amount of time the last two days looking for possible properties for when we need to move. It won't be easy. I've contacted a broker in Stony Plain, and one in Thorsby. I've given them the following requirements.

80 to 160 acres with a minimum 20 acres of mature bush, minimum 30 acres clear land. (Pasture is clear enough)
No more than an hour's drive to the city, mostly paved.
2000+ sq. ft. house.
Well that can provide 20 gpm OR dugout/pond/year-round creek. In the case of a creek, sale is contingent on having or getting a water permit from Alberta Environment. The watershed upstream will also be a concern to check out.
Water supply must have less that 400 ppm total dissolved solids, and less than 100 ppm sodium.
Because different trees have different needs, we want land with some contour, and patchy soil. (Here I've got clay, sand and peat. I can mix any soil I need.

Almanac re-organization.

Redid the Almanac so it reads frontwards. I'm writing more now, so I've broken it down to 1 week chunks instead of 1 month chunks.

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Sherwood's Forests is located about 75 km southwest of Edmonton, Alberta. Please refer to the map on our Contact page for directions.

Dying isn't difficult. Even a baby kitten can do it.

Robert A. Heinlein