The Term is over

The term is over and it has left a bad taste in mouth. In all my years of school and college I've never experienced this level of B.S... I've run into this type of B.S. on the job but never in a college. This is my first quarter at Evergreen and so far I'm not impressed. I've never had to pay to be treated this way.

Some of the students are very cut throat and I can not believe what I was accused of today. In all of my years of school and college I have never been accused of such a thing and I've never run into such a load of politics. The false accusation can not be proven so it will not hurt me academically but social and emotionally it will have a toll. Next quarter I'm going to watch my back and be very selective about who I talk to. I don't know who my accuser was or if there was an accuser. Perhaps there was no accuser and the prof was just trying to rile me up because I did so well on the final and I'm not one of his pets. I'll never know what really happened but I do know that I'm absolutely disgusted.

Next quarter has to be better then this. If nothing else I'll be getting away from a certain professor's groupies. Yes groupies. Evergreen is so small that students sometimes have the same professor quarter after quarter. My community college was bigger then Evergreen, too big for teacher’s pets and big enough that I had a wide range of professors to choose from no matter what subject I wanted to study.

Evergreen is plenty green (think cannabis) but it’s not so progressive after all.

I busted my ass this quarter but I got stuck with a group who think that getting intoxicated is a prerequisite to doing scientific work both in the lab and in the field. I think those people would be better off taking art classes where being intoxicated could be a good thing.

If people want to smoke pot and eat magic mushrooms every day that are their business unless it negatively impacts other people. There is a time and place for everything.

I learned a new word this quarter it is "Trustafarian" and it rings quite true for me after what I just experienced. For extra credit I wrote an essay on forest ecology but I better not turn it in!

What is a forest ecologist?
What does a forest ecologist do?

A forest ecologist stomps around ripping up the forest floor with their heavy boots. A forest ecologist mutilates and electrocutes trees. A forest ecologist cuts down trees by the hundreds just to watch them rot. A forest ecologist rips moss from logs and plucks mushrooms from the ground. A forest ecologist digs bugs out of their cozy forest floor home and then drowns in salt water so s/he can count them. A forest ecologist draws and quarters (or drills and cores) trees just to count their rings.


But the forest ecologist by dint of their violent destructive work proves time and time again that we need to save our old growth forests for they are a source of genetic diversity and provide the earth with a tremendous carbon sink. A carbon sink that may protect the world from global warming. The forest ecologist martyrs trees and sometimes entire forests to prove with science what we all know deep inside.

Industry and politics do not bow to things we know deep inside. So we need the violent and destructive forest ecologists to provide us with scientific proof.

Still that does not excuse the forest ecologist from admitting that their work is often violent and destructive.

Perhaps the violent nature of the ecologist is not surprising when you consider that the term Ecology was coined by Ernst Haeckel. The Nazi party used Haeckel's justifications for racism, nationalism and social Darwinism.

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Later

Yes, I know that was a bit over the top but writing it was therapeutic
The next two quarter went a lot better but I'm sorry to say that I'm not any less upset about what happened fall quarter. I'm actually more disgusted with my fall program now that I have been in a few good programs.

During my fall quarter evaluation I was accused of cheating on the final, during my Winter Quarter evaluation I was encouraged to go to graduate school.




Sermon of an Elder Catfish

Watch where you’re going, boys-
Light doesn’t dance down here.
Our eyes grow big as half-dollars,
But we still can’t see a fucking thing.
Whiskers, lead the way, pull our bellies
Across the muck we make our beds in,
Steer us clear of the troubles
That shake through the world,
Especially those fast-talking gar,
Their loose lips and flash of gold teeth.
We don’t want any trouble here-
Your skins are slick for a reason.
Depth is the key, gentlemen-if
They can’t find us, they can’t catch us.
I don’t care what those heathen trout say:
The surface is not our home. Heaven
Isn’t above us, the sun on our backs,
Rainbows bursting from our sides.
Heaven is deep, it’s black and cold,
Its still. Heaven is everywhere
Everyone else is afraid to go.


Miles Garett Watson


On Saturday I will go up the 101 to reach my trail head. 101 is supposed to be re-opened by then. The hike I have planned is a boring one but surveying the recent storm damage may make it more interesting.

I've got a fever so I won't be hiking this weekend after all. 101 is open again but is only one lane in some places. There is a sign on the freeway outside of Shelton warning people to expect delays on 101.

Salmon Migration

Lower South Fork Skok After the Flood of 2007

Huge piles of driftwood are lodged against the pasture fences on the Skokomish Valley Road. The Skokomish River broke its record last week, the water has mostly retreated now but signs of flooding abound.

The trail is in rough shape once again. I'm pretty sure that last year's damage to the trail was cleaned up and all the damage I saw today was fresh. Between miles 2 and 4 the trail is a mess with fallen trees, mud holes and washouts. I had to go well off the trail to get around blow downs and mud holes. In one spot the trail is totally obscured and all I could do was simply follow the river until the trail re-appeared. I found some old puncheon that was abandoned years ago when the trail was re-routed. The old route was easier to follow but I did not feel safe walking on old and rotten puncheon so I got back on the current trail as soon as I could find it.



About 200 feet of the trail has been washed out by the river and an extensive re-route will be required to fix the trail. The washout is just past where the camp comfort shelter once stood.

I hiked out on the road via the spur trail just past camp comfort. By hiking out on the road I turn the hike into a 9 mile loop instead of a 9 mile out and back. The 2353 road is washed out in several places. A crew was up there working on the road and the crew tole me that the forest service is going to do some logging up there and then sell the trees to a biodiesel plant. The Forest Service needs to repair the road so they can cut the trees so they can get them money to close the road.


Simpson and other private interests should be footing the bill for road
decommissioning but in actuality the Forest Service is stuck with the bill. Private interests built the roads but the Forest Service subtracted
the cost of road building from what they charged the private interests for the raw timber. So in effect the Forest Service paid to build the roads and now has to pay to decommission them . That said the salmon paid an even bigger price for all those logging roads.



The road washouts on 2353 will not prevent access to the dry creek or the dry creek extension trail once wildlife gates re-open in the Spring. There could well be other washouts on other roads leading to those trail heads.

Forest Service road 23 is washed out before Spider Lake and it will be repaired soon.

I had a lovely hike and got some good exercise climbing over all the blow downs. All the bridges that were good last year are still good this year.





9.3 miles with 450 feet elevation.
This years running total: 302 miles with 70,004 feet elevation gain.

Mushroom Porn

Flood of 2007

Why did the chum cross the road? To spawn on the other side.



101 at purdy cut off road.




Turner Street Down Town