Homestead mailing list

[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 11/1/2004, you wrote:
> As for matches ? Tell that to all the folks whose homes have been torched 
> by kids playing with 'em - and the kids that have died in those fires ... 
> Bad day here today - I wanted to finish painting outside - but it's 
> raining. Again.

Try buying strike anywhere matches.

I fought a fire on my property last year while my son's house was 
burning.  The fire here was started by some kids on the reservation having 
a drunken party and lighting a fire.  The police have a very good idea who 
did it but the reservation is not being very cooperative.  Three people 
died in that fire and about 300 homes lost.  An idiot hunter started the 
fire that burned my sons place.  HE was out for less than 8 hours, was 
lost, dehydrated, delirious,  and started a signal fire in dense brush in 
high winds.  19 people died in that fire and 0ver 2000 homes lost.  The 
hunter was charged about a month ago.

Back to invasive or weed plants, they are related tot he fires.  Grasses 
are very invasive and provide a very fuel rich understory.  Some imported 
plants escape and naturalize and provide a much hotter fire, killing the 
local fire adopted species.  Most native plants are designed to burn after 
about 20 years.  Invasive species are usually not fire adopted so will burn 
much more easily.  The native plants do not recover, leaving more room for 
invasive plants.

After the fires all you could hear was how the environmentalists had 
prevented burn offs.  As is much of the right wing rhetoric it was 
wrong.  There were two major reasons for not burning off excessive 
brush.  One was the owners in high end housing developments would drag out 
lawyers every time someone wanted to burn off non native plants or cut down 
oil rich eucalyptus.  Another reason was the budget cuts imposed by the 
state.  Budget cuts imposed by tax cuts supported by high income people in 
expensive housing developments.

The California Native Plant Society is a good source of information.  Many 
plants are weed plants here because so much was imported.  Ivy is one of 
the worst but there are others such as Salt Cedar or Tamarisk.  Moves are 
being made to restrict the sale of many of the more invasive weed 
species.  These moves have hard going because people want the place to look 
like Boston and it is above all else a desert here.

Don Bowen
Awl Knotted Up Woodworking
Valley Center, CA             http://www.braingarage.com