Ben Zumeta

Ela La Salle wrote:

Ben Zumeta wrote:Statistics indicate whitewater boating is similarly dangerous to driving. Similarly, alcohol and other coordination and risk assessment impairing drugs, low light conditions, and bad weather increase the risk for both similarly. Learning how to drive or paddle safely, and identifying when it is not safe to do either, is also an effective way to reduce risk. I would not want to force anyone onto whitewater who doesn’t want to try it, but the drive to the put-in is as dangerous as most boating trips get.

I beg to differ. I have breaks and steering wheel to my disposal in my car. No such things on a "paddle boat" Sorry, I just had to say it

I encourage no one to take risks they do not see as worthwhile, but statistics show similar risks, which I learned in my Swiftwater Rescue course from someone very serious about safety. Skills similarly important to safe boating can be learned in a similar amount of time as those for driving. Of course physical fitness is more important, but I have seen paunchy dudes and small women dance in whitewater with remarkably little exertion. In a car, you have a lot more metal, speed, mass, and other drivers to worry about than in river sports. Water is very powerful and must be respected, and Both have inherent risks that are statistically similar. Of course you are unlikely to need to get someone to the hospital or school via whitewater raft or kayak. However, the places you can see with these boats are often much more beautiful and serene than anything reachable by car. Sorry, I just had to say it.

Statistics indicate whitewater boating is similarly dangerous to driving. Similarly, alcohol and other coordination and risk assessment impairing drugs, low light conditions, and bad weather increase the risk for both similarly. Learning how to drive or paddle safely, and identifying when it is not safe to do either, is also an effective way to reduce risk. I would not want to force anyone onto whitewater who doesn’t want to try it, but the drive to the put-in is as dangerous as most boating trips get.

If you are interested in support exploring some of the most beautiful places on Earth, check out:

https://www.redwoodrides.com/

A good friend owns the company, and I guide with them as much as I can on the beautiful Smith River in NW California. This is the largest undammed watershed in the lower 48, and has some of the best boating in North America. Ask for me if you want a permaculture oriented guide.

I do more kayak guiding than rafting, but can do both on class 3 and below (main stem and sections of Middle Fork). We have other guides who are better on the big class 4-5 stuff (North Fork, South Fork, and Middle Fork Gorge). I have learned a lot from those guides though, as several are world class boaters who love to share their skills and knowledge. They have helped me get through much more challenging sections than I would have otherwise attempted, and these are some of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I can say with confidence no river has more awesome swimming holes than the Smith.

I also lead bike trips through the adjacent old growth redwoods and coastal forests. I am a solid boater, but I do prefer to stick to class 3 and below on my own. I specialize more in nature interpretation, with experience as a ranger and educator. I also have a master’s in adventure ed focused on wilderness service learning.

I am working on putting together a permaculture oriented river trip and workshop this October in partnership with Redwood Rides, the Wild Rivers Permaculture Guild, and the nature based performance art, activism and empowerment non profit Dirt and Glitter. It will be on the class 1-2 Redwood Run, with a side hike amongst some of the tallest trees on Earth in one of the largest extant areas of old growth and the world’s highest biomass ecosystem.

The Smith river is as beautiful as any I have ever seen. It is an excellent place to observe the dynamics of water, land and life coevolving, with endless lessons for permaculture design. The old growth redwood forest can also teach us a great deal about how to live in a place longterm, as some of the trunks are 2,000yrs old with root systems over 6,000 (as old as the climate has been conducive to their survival). Amidst the redwoods and along the river lies the remnants of the oldest continually inhabited settlement in North America, a Tolowa village 10-12,000 yrs old. The Tolowa, and the Yurok to the south along the Klamath River, stewarded these forests, waters and the fish they support for millennia. They stewarded expanses of unmatched forests and immense fish runs alongside a higher human population density than we have now.

I can only hope to convey a small portion of what I have learned from this place and its stewards, and I learn or notice something new on every trip. I also learn a great deal from guests’ and students’ insights.

If you are interested, let me know!  

To paraphrase John Hodgman, one of my favorite podcaster-humorists, “paying attention to all the bad things happening, then getting angry and sad, didn’t seem to be helping make them stop”.

I have heard other wise folks point out that if an event is “newsworthy”, it is almost always very novel, unlikely, and far away. So why worry about it? We generally do not have reliable, non-corporate local news anymore, so the likelihood something on the news will be locally relevant is even lower.

In general, I doubt it could be good for our psyche or society to be able to instantly find the worst things that happened in the world today at the click of a link.

Looks like a lovely spot. Near my kitchen door, I like to grow herbs, greens and fruits with a long harvest seasons and which I use most often. Thyme and other mediterranean herbs, garlic chives, walking onion for its greens and shallot like bulbs, tree collards as a primary green, strawberries and raspberries that fruit over multiple or long seasons have become perennial or self replicating in my zone 1 garden. Other things I’d like to grow don’t necessarily thrive in my very challenging native soil, but those plants above are a good, hearty base for me where I have built hugel terraces and provided ample compost (4-12”).

Two, hands down. Well, maybe one hand down because in addition to many other massive advantages, a two wheeled barrow can be easily moved one handed. Two wheelers can move 2-4x the mass with much less strain, as one doesn’t have to hold the entire weight balancing it. The extra weight of a second wheel is tiny compared to the benefits of balance. If you want the one wheel experience, just tilt it to get the joy of holding the entire load up. Using a two wheeler is much less work for any substantial amount of mass. I say this having moved hundreds of yards of material with two-wheelers, and having several single wheelers fall apart at the worst possible times.

I absolutely hate single wheelers, and if I were a conspiracy theorist would suspect they are the brainchild of some maniacally misanthropic orthopedist. A single wheeler kills your back and shoulders, and the just falls apart from the strain of the force one has to exert on it holding any substantial load up. Honestly, I think a one wheeled American style barrow is one of the poorest designed tools I can imagine. I would rather just carry buckets or a harvest bag. Maybe if all one is moving is lettuce or feathers down exceedingly narrow paths, it might have a purpose. Even so, it is prone to tipping with the slightest bump onto whatever one is growing beside those narrow paths. A two wheeler still fits down any path that is comfortable to walk down. A path so narrow it warrants a single wheeler has no space for airflow and plants to grow.

When I worked in the Laguna mountains at an environmental ed camp, we learned and taught about manzanitas being a key native peoples’ apothecary plant. The berries are delicious and do make a great tea. It is so tasty one might come to realize the hard way they can be a cathartic laxative in high enough dosage. They are apparently good for many other GI ailments too. The leaves are a natural antiseptic, and chewing them will help heal mouth sores and upper respiratory ailments. They will also make a person produce a very funny face, as they are very bitter, reminiscent of campho-phenique cold sore medication. The leaves can also make a decent toothbrush substitute in a backpacking pinch. Of course, take care when trusting anyone on the internet telling you to put something novel in your mouth!

Send some rain over here please! No significant rain (1/3” total) since May 12th, and we had a few dry weeks before that. Normally we’d get 12-15” in May (got 3”) and 6” in June got 1/3”). This was after 100” in the cold season before planting was possible. On the bright side, tree fruit that we can water off grid has been especially flavorful. The only real solution to this increasingly weird and bipolar climate seems to be biodiversity and undulating the landscape to make diverse soil moisture pockets.

I live off grid on 25 beautiful acres in NW California witht my wife who I met while we were both thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. While I love it most of the time and am very fortunate, off-grid life is not as care free as one might think! Hiring any help has an extra cost to get them here and up to speed on our systems, so I am our gardener, landscaper, plumber and electrician (for most aspects), garbage man, propane and diesel delivery guy, diesel mechanic (a bad one who hates it), emergency medical responder, wildfire preparedness guy…and I am only really good at a couple of these things. Doing them all makes me not great at any of them. Again, we have a great life, but living off-grid is not exactly easier or less expensive!

The woody debris quickly (1-2yrs here) becomes fungally rich well drained but highly absorbent soil for the plants in surrounding beds to root into. It holds 1/3 its volume in water. If you are worried about the wood floating, then an overflow perforated pipe or sill would prevent that. The system I described in the post referred to above has handled 10” (25cm) days of rain with no such floating woody debris problems. The main risk anyhow would be in the first flush of rain hitting dry wood. Once it is waterlogged, it will not float off.  Topping up with more woodchips as the paths decompose and sink a bit is not much work.

Provide 1% gradient for water flow around any hugel bed and it will not float off. Of course, I would not recommend building dams with wood…leave that to beavers.