A Golden Marmot is Calling My Name (or A Guide to Northwest Living)
Out here in the west, we take most things pretty seriously when it has to do with the weather. We created an entire sub-genre of names for different types of weather-related disasters. Everyone knows about the "Nor-easter" and the "Gully-Washer", the "Worm-Strangler" and the "Cats and Dogs" type rain events. They also know that we used to call the wind, "Mariah", We don't anymore. Now we called the wind, "Erthudlinger". Don't ask me why. I'm not even sure who makes these decisions.
There are a lot of mysterious things that hold sway out here. Names being only one. This section of the country, the Great Northwest, was the first to use small raised domes on the centerline of roads to give drivers a tactile and sound warning when they were veering into oncoming traffic or leaving the road. In Kansas they just use other cars driving the opposite direction.
The small domes come in different sizes dependent on the amount of damage it is supposed you'll do if you spend too much time driving on the wrong side of them. The largest ones are called "Turtles" and they surround things like pottery barns, nuclear fuel cores, and trees with Spotted Owls in them. The smallest have a name too, I think it's "Frogs" and the frogs usually form the boundary of the centerline, the road edge and things like crosswalks and hospitals.
It's understandable that these were not used in the midwest because they regularly have snowplows out for 3-4 months of the year and the little raised reminders would be scraped off and destroyed with the first violent response to snow. Whereas, out in the "Great Northwest", at least, down in the civilized parts of Washington and Oregon (pronounced Urgun, spoken quickly and never with a short "O" sound, which is found offensive by the Urgunyuns) there is no regular snow to speak of. In the rare cases where a mistake is made and there is snow, people just "shelter in place", the same as with any natural deesasster, like earthquake, tsunamis, or sunny days.
This may sound strange and exotic but everyone in the Great Northwest is expected to have adequate supplies to "weather" a prolonged natural siege. This is the reason why Costco was originated and why there are so many here, Re-supply!
And what goes hand in hand with hunkering down to wait out a Stephen-Kingsian situation? Firearms, of course. Because your neighbor may not have adequately supplied their own compound, they may just be assuming they will survive by raiding your homestead and feasting on the giant cans of tuna and pallets of Top Ramen carefully set aside in your larder. And who wants to wait around to see if the neighbors are trustworthy?
It's not well known elsewhere that while we, the people of the Northwest, are masters of waterproofing our homes by ingeniously using giant blue plastic tarps in multiple layers over our roofs, we also seal the gun-ports in the walls with silicone caulk, every year before the November wind-storms begin, to prevent water damage. I'm sure we keep the ATF busy checking out the articles we submit to the online website of American Handyman with subjects like: "How to Make Claymore Mines using Common Household Items and Igloo Coolers", subtitled, "This Side Toward Neighbor".
We are a hardy folk, and friendly when times are not so desperate. You'll find us in the thousands shuffling through the light rain at the Farmer's Markets, buying those colorful ponchos and knitted Peruvian tasseled stocking caps and browsing the new varieties of moss that are drought resistant.
It is a truism that people who move here and buy a house, will spend the first 10 years and at least $100,000 trying to get actual grass to grow in their yard while the older neighbors shake their heads. Then, when the message finally sinks in, the newbies surrender to the moss, and ferns that naturally cover that part of the ground that is not made sterile but pine and fir needles. The needles dropped by the fir trees form a mat that is thick, soft and resilient and is called "duff", like the beer on the Simpson's (a show created by the Northwesterner Matt Groening, who the interweb says is worth $500 million dollars and probably doesn't live around here anymore).
This unnatural desire to force grass to grow in a Douglas Fir forest has spawned large businesses of Turf Farms here to cater to this insanity. The sod buyers are mostly businesses who can afford to replace the sod almost yearly to make it look like they're doing business in Omaha and a few homeowners who think that a grass yard is the American-Way or they are laundering drug money for some cartel where it's warmer. While it still seems reasonable to buy moss-killer to put on the roof twice a year in hopes of prolonging it's life, it no longer seems sane to throw moss-killer, weed and feed, and grass seed several times a year onto a small patch of ground cleared in the midst of a doug fir forest just to slow the inevitable return of homogenous habitat. We can only win so much in a fight with nature.
The genius of the northwest is in the business community. If you stand back and look, you too will marvel at the ability of the real businessmen (and women) to sell the simplest thing back to the people who are either awash already with the material and think they need more or the misguided ones that are working directly against their surroundings. Like "grass", the real thing not marijuana, the sod farms. Ingenous. The same with businesses selling us water, bottled water, tap water.
How about rocks? I live in an ancient river valley from the ice ages. What we call ground here is actually round river rocks, hard suckers too, sized from that of an Idaho Potato to one or two feet in diameter, as an average, and the space between the rocks, that little space is filled with "Glacial Till". Glacial till is a finely ground mixture of rock and organic matter milled over geological time by the glaciers grinding rocks together. If the glacial till is on the surface and dry it blows away on the slightest breeze. It's like talcum powder.
You can't really dig a hole in my yard, not like you see people digging holes in movies. When I first moved here and wanted to put in a fence, I bought a hand held post-hole digger and layed out my line and started digging. An hour later I had my first post hole and I was beaten. I then hired a guy down the road with a tractor and a 12" posthole digger attachment to dig all 120 holes in an afternoon for $200. I helped and I was about as beat when we finished the 120 holes, as I was after the first one. This was not Kansas.
My point with the little side trip above is, what did I buy next after putting in the fence? Rock. I bought a lot of rock over the years to make a driveway, make paths around the place, to make a drainage bed under a shop building. I bought rock to bring to
this rock farm. It's genius. There are natural gravel and rock pits all around here, it's an ancient river bed.
The only other thing on a par with it was the bark I bought to put down around the house. Dozens or cubic yards of bark. I live in a doug fir forest. I bought bark to bring to a doug fir forest. I should
I admit it. I'm insane. But I'm not alone. I should quit now. No one should have to testify this way against his own best interests. But now you know. I hope to don't judge me too harshly. Please. Think about some of the things you've done.
I looked it up; Matt Groening now lives in Santa Monica California in a house that is actually larger than Santa Monica California.
Hah! I used a semicolon in the previous sentence. Bite me!
There are a lot of mysterious things that hold sway out here. Names being only one. This section of the country, the Great Northwest, was the first to use small raised domes on the centerline of roads to give drivers a tactile and sound warning when they were veering into oncoming traffic or leaving the road. In Kansas they just use other cars driving the opposite direction.The small domes come in different sizes dependent on the amount of damage it is supposed you'll do if you spend too much time driving on the wrong side of them. The largest ones are called "Turtles" and they surround things like pottery barns, nuclear fuel cores, and trees with Spotted Owls in them. The smallest have a name too, I think it's "Frogs" and the frogs usually form the boundary of the centerline, the road edge and things like crosswalks and hospitals.
It's understandable that these were not used in the midwest because they regularly have snowplows out for 3-4 months of the year and the little raised reminders would be scraped off and destroyed with the first violent response to snow. Whereas, out in the "Great Northwest", at least, down in the civilized parts of Washington and Oregon (pronounced Urgun, spoken quickly and never with a short "O" sound, which is found offensive by the Urgunyuns) there is no regular snow to speak of. In the rare cases where a mistake is made and there is snow, people just "shelter in place", the same as with any natural deesasster, like earthquake, tsunamis, or sunny days.
This may sound strange and exotic but everyone in the Great Northwest is expected to have adequate supplies to "weather" a prolonged natural siege. This is the reason why Costco was originated and why there are so many here, Re-supply!
And what goes hand in hand with hunkering down to wait out a Stephen-Kingsian situation? Firearms, of course. Because your neighbor may not have adequately supplied their own compound, they may just be assuming they will survive by raiding your homestead and feasting on the giant cans of tuna and pallets of Top Ramen carefully set aside in your larder. And who wants to wait around to see if the neighbors are trustworthy?
It's not well known elsewhere that while we, the people of the Northwest, are masters of waterproofing our homes by ingeniously using giant blue plastic tarps in multiple layers over our roofs, we also seal the gun-ports in the walls with silicone caulk, every year before the November wind-storms begin, to prevent water damage. I'm sure we keep the ATF busy checking out the articles we submit to the online website of American Handyman with subjects like: "How to Make Claymore Mines using Common Household Items and Igloo Coolers", subtitled, "This Side Toward Neighbor".
We are a hardy folk, and friendly when times are not so desperate. You'll find us in the thousands shuffling through the light rain at the Farmer's Markets, buying those colorful ponchos and knitted Peruvian tasseled stocking caps and browsing the new varieties of moss that are drought resistant.
It is a truism that people who move here and buy a house, will spend the first 10 years and at least $100,000 trying to get actual grass to grow in their yard while the older neighbors shake their heads. Then, when the message finally sinks in, the newbies surrender to the moss, and ferns that naturally cover that part of the ground that is not made sterile but pine and fir needles. The needles dropped by the fir trees form a mat that is thick, soft and resilient and is called "duff", like the beer on the Simpson's (a show created by the Northwesterner Matt Groening, who the interweb says is worth $500 million dollars and probably doesn't live around here anymore).
This unnatural desire to force grass to grow in a Douglas Fir forest has spawned large businesses of Turf Farms here to cater to this insanity. The sod buyers are mostly businesses who can afford to replace the sod almost yearly to make it look like they're doing business in Omaha and a few homeowners who think that a grass yard is the American-Way or they are laundering drug money for some cartel where it's warmer. While it still seems reasonable to buy moss-killer to put on the roof twice a year in hopes of prolonging it's life, it no longer seems sane to throw moss-killer, weed and feed, and grass seed several times a year onto a small patch of ground cleared in the midst of a doug fir forest just to slow the inevitable return of homogenous habitat. We can only win so much in a fight with nature.
The genius of the northwest is in the business community. If you stand back and look, you too will marvel at the ability of the real businessmen (and women) to sell the simplest thing back to the people who are either awash already with the material and think they need more or the misguided ones that are working directly against their surroundings. Like "grass", the real thing not marijuana, the sod farms. Ingenous. The same with businesses selling us water, bottled water, tap water.
How about rocks? I live in an ancient river valley from the ice ages. What we call ground here is actually round river rocks, hard suckers too, sized from that of an Idaho Potato to one or two feet in diameter, as an average, and the space between the rocks, that little space is filled with "Glacial Till". Glacial till is a finely ground mixture of rock and organic matter milled over geological time by the glaciers grinding rocks together. If the glacial till is on the surface and dry it blows away on the slightest breeze. It's like talcum powder.
You can't really dig a hole in my yard, not like you see people digging holes in movies. When I first moved here and wanted to put in a fence, I bought a hand held post-hole digger and layed out my line and started digging. An hour later I had my first post hole and I was beaten. I then hired a guy down the road with a tractor and a 12" posthole digger attachment to dig all 120 holes in an afternoon for $200. I helped and I was about as beat when we finished the 120 holes, as I was after the first one. This was not Kansas.
My point with the little side trip above is, what did I buy next after putting in the fence? Rock. I bought a lot of rock over the years to make a driveway, make paths around the place, to make a drainage bed under a shop building. I bought rock to bring to
this rock farm. It's genius. There are natural gravel and rock pits all around here, it's an ancient river bed.
The only other thing on a par with it was the bark I bought to put down around the house. Dozens or cubic yards of bark. I live in a doug fir forest. I bought bark to bring to a doug fir forest. I should
I admit it. I'm insane. But I'm not alone. I should quit now. No one should have to testify this way against his own best interests. But now you know. I hope to don't judge me too harshly. Please. Think about some of the things you've done.
I looked it up; Matt Groening now lives in Santa Monica California in a house that is actually larger than Santa Monica California.
Hah! I used a semicolon in the previous sentence. Bite me!
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