Fire wood profiling

Decades ago, particularly in the 60's, wood gathering was really fun. Lots of log rafts on the Columbia River, log barges and log ships losing part of a deck load now and then and miles of beach meant that Saturday's were spent with Dad and friend Ed Chelis hunting down nice logs.  You could have your pick and as the commercial log salvage was pretty none existent, we could pick of any log we wanted. By the age of 12 I could hop out of truck, take a few whacks at a log and know it if was desirable fir or less desirable hemlock or other mystery tree like spruce. I walk a lot on the beach in the late afternoon and nowadays I get to watch modern wood gathers do the strangest things. There isn't as much choice now and any good log will burn given enough drying time. The above pic represents a sort of modern profiling where the wood cutter took one cut right through the middle of a nice hemlock to figure out the wood type, then decided to not cut any more.

Or this one where the woodcutter(s) take a whack and that's not good enough and then cut then end off the hemlock and that's not good enough. This log was 1/2 dry and would burn nicely on a cold February morning when it's the olny wood available, but no..got to have that fir!

But sometimes, there is not satisfying even the most discriminating wood cutter and here's a whack out of nice piece of fir. Nope, not good enough. Got to get back in the truck and look for wood 'cause when you are wood cutting on the beach, it is all about looking for wood.

You Are Here

The tsunami in Japan gave us that live along the beach in southwest Washington a reality time kick in the ass. Here is a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) image that utilizes lasers to measure topographic detail from an airplane. Red is bad and purple to white is good. From our house Dian and I have about a 8 minute trot (well..make that a fast trot) to high ground that gets us above 4o feet. The Japan tsunami crested the tops of beach front trees in some areas, such a tidal wave in our area would sweep well inland. The best way to deal with an event that occurs on a cycle of hundreds of years is to get your mind around the fact that if the earth shakes and the Cascadia Subduction earthquake cuts loose, head for the nearest high ground on a route you've already practiced on.

Sandhenge

Beach walking is great for my health and very entertaining for the mind. It is not unusual to run across ephemeral beach art. Here we see a creation of sand, sticks and the lone claw of a Dungeness crab. Perhaps the central column was taller and the wind eroded it, perhaps the there was a gate entrance to the ramped conical tower. Perhaps this is an temple to the crabs. Or mere whimsy from the fertile mind of a child.

Sandhenge stayed around at the very high tide line for about 3 weeks until we hit a run of high tides and storms.

Dune Blows

I've been walking along the fore dune and ocean beach frontage of Seaview pretty frequently and have noticed the dramatic growth of the dune top this winter. Nearly 4 vertical feet in many areas, new sand blown in this winter has created a very peaked effect.

Equal if not more dramatic are the gap trails and roads, many have grown well over 8 feet high at the immediate area slightly behind the foredune by the local venturi effect of wind blasting through the gaps, then settling down in large mounds immediately behind the fore dune. While they make walking out to and back from the beach a bit more difficult, the loose soft sand makes it nearly impossible for 4wd vehicles to climb the fore dune face. This is a good thing.