Marty Hatfield

Your grandad was a guide up there? Lucky man. Uh...you want to know what lakes? Um....that was like *cough* thirty years ago. I can see them like it was yesterday, but I don't know their names. I see this huge natural bowl of jagged granite at the top of a mountain with one way in...a little stream winding through a meadow with trees around the base and snow on the tips of the ridges...stunning. I want to go back! I need to invent teleportation  poof - there...ahhh

Oooops, forgot my coat.

Oh hey...something I saw up there...what looked like a rock wall. Nobody knew what it was but it definately looked man-made...and it went on for what seemed to me to be hundreds of feet, maybe longer. It was much taller than an adult..I was like 12 or maybe 14 I guess and it seemed huge to me. It was probably like maybe twelve or fifteen feet high and crumbled down in spots. Does that ring a bell? I always wondered what such a structure was doing so far back in the wilderness.

Growing season 90 days?? plus a few weeks? What are you going to do the other eight or nine months out of the year? What are the animals going to eat?

Seriously Paul, if there wasn't a feed store down the road, or a grocery store, wouldn't that be an extremely difficult life?  - it seems like you would need the eight months to recover from the work you would have to do in the four months to store enough food for everyone to survive the winter.

Do you plan to use heated green houses?

jacqueg wrote:....John Day country, the Wallowas, the Blues.

Absolutely! - your post brought back some amazing memories. I spend a great deal of time when I was young in eastern Oregon. I once floated the John Day for a week and have spent a week high up in the Eagle cap wilderness area in the Wallawa Mountains at above 8,000 feet. It took almost two days, some of it going up what felt like miles of switchbacks, just to hike into our campsite.

Probably the most beautiful place I have ever been. I have never again seen such amazing high alpine lakes and meadows, bare granite peaks and ridges and a  never ending abundance of wildlife. Huge elk and mule deer everywhere you turn it seemed.

My challenge now is that I have shifted my thinking from how I have always done things….by myself, for myself and without the need or want of anyone else involved. To now I really want like minded people around me to help me build and grow - and in turn I can help them. I have just recently realized that a great deal of the joy in life is the quality and qualities of the people around me. The times I have been working side by side with people going a similar direction as myself have been the most memorable and rewarding for sure.

The Wallawa’s is a beautiful place. If I could find some people willing to go in on some property, or find an old rancher that is willing to peel off a few acres, or….?

Finding the right people and especially the right property is far more of a challenge than I could have ever guessed.

paul wheaton wrote:
Did waiting work?

Yes. 

paul wheaton wrote:
First, it isn't frozen all year.  It will snow and it will freeze and once in a while it gets freaky cold!  But it seems that the snow is usually on the ground for a few days and then it warms up and melts off. 

No I would not think that it would stay frozen all year...I said my concern was six months out of the year there are lows below freezing. Frankly I was guessing at that point just from an idea I have of that area and research I have done in surrounding states.

Take a look at this page:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/temp_graphs.php?wfo=mso&stn=KMSO

Focus on january.  The average temp appears to be a low in the teens and a high around 32.   This last year, they had a week of the lows dipping below freezing and the highs being around 40.  Only two days in january dipped below zero.  And it looks like that for this year, those were the only two days below zero.

Below zero is pretty extreme cold for sure, but my concern is the low 30's, maybe even mid thirties as that is where the frost comes in right? Actually I have suffered frost damage here in the high 30's when the low was not supposed to be below 40.

I am not sure if you are thinking that freezing is zero or....? It just sounds like from your response that you are not considering that crop damage begins, at least in my experience in the mid 30's. Or maybe just not concerned because you have a solution? I would like to better understand this.

It has been a week I think since I looked at those monthly temperatures, and I went back a couple of years, but if memory serves there are lows that are in the mid to low 30's for five to six months out of the year. Like you said there is a month and sometimes two where the high is barely above freezing.

My concern again is that if the lows are consistently below freezing for say even four months (The soil we be frozen solid for a lot of that time right?), and the temp will drop below 40 for another three to four months....I am curious how people have done it or just even how they feel about the sustainability and developing permaculture in such an environment where outside growing is limited to four months, maybe five?

My idea of permaculture is having edibles growing all around me, and hopefully producing something for us to eat year round as the seasons change.

I love the look and feel of Montana...I plan to drive up there in the next couple of weeks. It reminds me of Frontier House the PBS series...I really want to watch that again! Wasn't that Montana? I remember how badly I wanted them to allow the homesteaders to actually try and make it through the winter! If anyone knows of other shows like that please let me know...We really enjoy those kinds of programs.

If I just thought of Montana in summer and fall I would probably want to spend the rest of my life there. However if winter came on strong in November and did not leave until May......

paul wheaton wrote:
Well .... I just tried all sorts of stuff and it didn't go crazy for me. 

Maybe I'm doing it wrong.  Do you have a simple recipe that I can follow so I can see it?

I just click to reply to a message like always and sometimes when I type it jumps around and other times like now it doesn't. Cannot give you anything more than that. I noticed last time that it started as I filled the message box and I needed to scroll to keep typing. I am at that spot right now and it is fine. I am using IE 8 today.

paul wheaton wrote:
I have to admit, I don't really like the PM stuff, so it could be extra crappy.

I found something that made it so nobody should be able to write PM's.  And I changed it so people could.  But I suspect I had it set to "off" for a reason. 

Does it work now?

YES! PM is working - I think...at least the buttons are there and I was able to reply.

But now here at this thread it says my last post was 60seconds ago and therefore I cannot post again?? .....okay well I guess waiting a few minutes takes care of that. 

rusty wrote:
I have 28 acres w/ two creeks near Horseshoe Bend I'd consider trading for the right piece of land. Of course, I'd certainly sell too but I digress.

Hi Rusty,

I am interested in your property. I am heading out soon to make a trip in the ole motorhome up through Utah into Idaho and Montana. We need to move our little urban farm by the end of November and my single biggest challenge has been finding property with pure running water....and a little forest.

I have been unable to use the personal message feature here so if you could email me the particulars on your property at
our Scottsdale Urban Farm address. ScottsUrbanFarm@yahoo.com


Thanks!
Marty

Hi, I have been unable to respond using private message.

The only buttons I have on the page I am taken to when I click on the link in the upper right by my name that says I have a message are delete all and reload. Nothing to reply.

paul wheaton wrote:
Please describe the problem in as much detail as you can.  And tell me what browser you are using.

I am using IE8 and I was using Chrome last week and it did the same thing. Basically the edit box will not allow you to type into it normally. I am typing into the message box right now and so far it is fine, but when I was editing my chicken post and removing the part about needing to find some land it jumped around so bad that I simmply could not edit and had to leave it for another time.

When you click in the box to start to type it jumps up in the message and then back down...ok now it's doing it here. I guess it starts when you hit the bottom of the edit box. It will not scroll. It bounced back up to it's original setting and you need it to scroll, you want to type down below that but it wants to be back up to starting point. So it jumps with every keystroke. I have to hold the sidebar down to read what I wrote and make sure it is readable.


Oh it stopped there for a bit and ....nope now it's jumping again. After I hit enter for anew paragraph. It seems it jumps as you are typing on the bottom line of the edit box. I am typing without being ablle to really see what I have written because it willnot stay scrolled down.

polyparadigm wrote:
I also think more-isolated areas could be harmed more by the changes we're going through than places with a moderate population density.

....might I humbly suggest the edges of the suburbs? 

I would really like to know more about your thinking on this. If you could clarify what you mean by "changes we are going through" and if you are thinking of a natural disaster, man made disaster, just some food shortages, unemployed people, or what. If I understand you correctly you feel that is would be safer on the outer edges of a large city than a couple of hours out in the forest?