Category: Life & Travels
Most of my personal and life posts are through my Facebook page (facebook.com/mariegale).
For info on our RV travels several years back, see our blog Roaming the Back Roads (www.roamingthebackroads.com).
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Master Woodlands Manager Class (Part 3)
This weekend marked the half-way point for my Master Woodlands Manager training. We covered, on Friday afternoon and Saturday, business, taxes, planning, marketing, logging and roads. About half the time was spent in the field, making a plot in a forest stand, calculating board feet, looking at options (log? thin?) and then bucking a tree.…
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Laying Concrete Slab for Campsite
Over the last couple of years we’ve been cleaning up and building a campsite for family to use when they come to visit. Last year we completed the “structure” (we still haven’t decided to what to call it), which is a 34′ x 18′ roof, giving us a large covered area. As of now it…
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Master Woodlands Manager Class (Part 2)
This week we covered all things having to do with water (hydrology), including climate and weather and the effects they have on the soil, and trees, watersheds, the flow of water in and under the ground, and managing forests along creeks, streams and rivers to protect the water quality and fish. Water is SO important…
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Master Woodlands Manager Class (Part 1)
This weekend (Friday and Saturday) I attended the first part of my Master Woodlands Manager class. It’s a training program put on by the Oregon State University Extension Service to covering the basics of woodlands management in depth This week we covered management planning, forest ecology, inventory, silviculture, and wildlife, both in the classroom and out…
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Finally, Daffodils!
We finally have daffodils! Granted, they are a month late (which is extremely surprising), but they certainly are pretty, and definitely make me feel like there’s a chance spring will come soon. Out in our yard we have several different kinds. Some have frilly inside petals, some just have the standard 6 petals and a…
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ForSoapmakers sold, not closed!
In my last post I mentioned that I would be closing www.forsoapmakers.com. I’m really, really pleased to say that the business was purchased by Kevin Growns, from Star City, Arkansas! The business will continue, and all the existing products will continue to be offered. So far, Kevin is doing a great job filling orders and…
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ForSoapmakers.com Closing December 31
After much thought and internal debate, I have decided to close down ForSoapmakers.com as of December 31, 2011. It was a hard decision, but having made it, I must admit somewhat of a sense of relief. ForSoapmakers had gotten to the point that it had to grow to the next level (or not). I chose…
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Rural Oregon Timber Economy
I recently received a newsletter from Dennis Richardson, Oregon State Representative Fourth District. He’s not the Representative from my district, but his point are so applicable to our area, I wanted to pass this along. For some background, the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan was set up to provide income to rural Oregon counties from logging…
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Life Unconnected and Offline
On June 28th our internet service provider shut down. Since that time we’ve been essentially unconnected and offline (dial-up only). It’s made life, well, “interesting”. As I write this I am in my car, parked on the landing above my house, laptop plugged into a car-lighter converter, connected to the internet using my Xoom tablet…
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Warning – Sunken Grade
Before I moved to Oregon, I had never seen a warning sign saying “sunken grade”. In fact, the first few times I saw one I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. (Trust me, those grades weren’t very sunken, otherwise I would have figured it out much sooner.) Even Yahoo Answers doesn’t have the exact right…
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L. Ron Hubbard 100th Birthday Event
Last week we went to the L. Ron Hubbard 100th birthday event hosted by the Church of Portland. It was attended by several hundred people—it was great to see old friends. Much of the event was dedicated to a retrospective look at the life of L. Ron Hubbard, especially the many endeavors and adventures in…
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Coos Curry Small Woodlands Annual Dinner
Recently I attended (and presided over) the Coos Curry Small Woodlands Annual Meeting and Dinner. We have them every year in February. It’s a great time to have an evening out and meet up with other small woodland owners, most of whom I see just this one time each year.
