Historic Hidden Forest Cabin getting facelife

http://www.lvrj.com/news/45285857.html

http://www.lvrj.com/news/45285832.html

Kent Olson, 68, a historic log cabin restoration expert, on Tuesday checks out the Hidden Forest Cabin in the Sheep Mountains. The Hidden Forest Cabin is undergoing a $30,000 restoration. Historians believe the cabin was built in the late 1800s and was used by hunters, trappers, prospectors and maybe outlaws. Kent Olson flipped open his pocketknife and jabbed it into the bark of a log inside Hidden Forest Cabin. The blade stuck with ease.
"None of this lasts forever," he said, pulling the blade back out. "Pine doesn't do good getting soaking wet. Then you have the summer heat."
Olson, a mountain man from Husum, Wash., just north of the Oregon border, is the 68-year-old saw-slinger the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent last week to replace four rotting logs in the rare, century-old cabin and repair its leaking roof...

"Click on link for photographs of historic cabins in the Las Vegas, Nevada area"

FORESTS: 'Lightning rod' undersecretary looks back without regrets

http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2009/01/20/12

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/05/06/06greenwire-career-conservationist-picked-to-oversee-fores-19116.html

Career conservationist picked to oversee Forest Service.
President Obama nominated a career Agriculture Department employee yesterday to a political post overseeing the Forest Service and farmland conservation programs.
If confirmed by the Senate, Homer Lee Wilkes -- currently the Mississippi state conservationist and a 28-year veteran of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) -- would be undersecretary for natural resources and environment. The post directs the Forest Service and conservation projects at NRCS.
The selection of a career NRCS employee for the job is a shift from the previous two administrations. Jim Lyons, who had worked on forestry issues on Capitol Hill and for the Society of American Foresters, held the post during the Clinton administration. A former timber lobbyist, Mark Rey, held the job in the Bush administration.

We are the Few, the Proud,
We are the ARCHYS.

(top center: Aggie waits patiently to go four-wheeling on the airfield trails. left: Matt Punke and Amanda Sanchez can't seem to get ARCHY ATV #2 to start up)

--aggie castronuevo johann

Old Packwood Ranger Station

http://www.columbian.com/article/20090424/NEWS02/704249948

"According to the newspaper article published in the Columbian and the Seattle P-I, the old Packwood Ranger Station in Gifford Pinchot National Forest is being sold after a 45-day waiting period. I first learned of this Ranger station in the 1980s while reading Tatoosh--female fire lookout, Martha Hardy's account of life atop Tatoosh Mountain watching for forest fires and enduring the loneliness inherent in that job. Like all old ranger stations, Packwood will be remembered as a part of Forest history; and this one as a part of the history of Gifford Pinchot NF, Mount Rainier, Tatoosh, and Packwood Ranger District.--aggie castronuevo johann"

Invasive Species: Pepperweed

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/news/2009/04/pepperweed.shtml

This invasive plant is native to Europe and southwestern Asia. Accidently introduced around 1900 through a shipment of sugar beets, the plant is aggressively spreading throughout the west, including California.--aggie castronuevo

R3 Lincoln National Forest: Perk_Grindstone Stewardship Project

http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/lincoln/news/Perk_Grindstone_III_DEIS_Response_to_comments_05_06_08.pdf


The objective of Perk-Grindstone is to restore fire-adapted forest systems to structural characteristics that would reduce large-size crown fires to more manageable surface fires. See link for DEIS Response released by the Forest Service May 2008.

Storing Carbon in Forests

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7235/full/458151a.html

"Planting, conserving and managing forests are key for attaining long-term mitigation of greenhouse gases, yet the land-use and forestry sector barely features in the Kyoto Protocol. In Climate Change and Forests, some 50 experts analyse the forestry-based discussions within climate-change negotiations, and offer technical and political reasons for why the Kyoto Protocol handles forestry in such a cumbersome way..."