Homestead mailing list

[Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>]

Lynda wrote:

> And he would have been on point.  There are thousands of acres of rolling 
> pasture where folks never feed except during severe winters and the hay 
> comes from their own land!  The whole of the West wasn't tree covered, that 
> is a myth.  Just because someone is attempting to raise sheep on old logging 
> land without doing anything to the soil, or planting appropriate grasses 
> isn't something to base an all encompassing statement on.
>  
What nonsense.  Are you really in the Beltway or NY somewhere?

No, only 98% of Coos County was tree covered.  Conifers are here because 
of the their ability to withstand alternating cold and drought.  Why 
would nature necessarily have the ability to substitute good grassland 
where conifers prefer to grow, when open grassland is simply not as 
drought-tolerant as conifer forest?  Isn't that a "nature will always 
provide" fantasy?

Would those be snowfed acres?  Great, but who cares?  I won't live inland.

Of course the hay can come from your own land.  The more acres you own, 
the briefer the interval can be, between winter white and summer brown.  
Without modern equipment you'd have nothing.  By contrast, we expect to 
be able to provide a serving of lamb daily each for two people with 
almost no feeding at all, on only 2 cleared acres.

Find me an "appropriate grass" that will stay green for the summer with 
no rain.  Please also tell us also what to "do" to unirrigated high 
ground to stop it from looking like Livermore in summer.

> Oregon is looks like a nuclear disaster area in a whole lot of areas, so 
> what would one expect.
>
>  
Pity them, that's the land my neighbors have got.  Mine's lucky to have 
some water flow too.  But conifers don't generate "soil" anyway, so it 
doesn't matter much, except that there's no water to improve the soil 
through organic means.

If you weren't such a dolt you'd be able to figure out that I've been 
citing my own reasons for concurring with Tvo's endorsement of 
sylviculture.  Why not grow up?

Bill
S. Oregon coast

P. S. -- It's raining!!!!!