2/19/24…Just got back from a visit up to my mountain property along the Columbia river near Goldendale WA USA.
You can see in the image below the Columbia River I drive along for about 100 miles to get to Goldendale. It is such an impressive river, and a beautiful drive. My property is about 20 miles behind that ridge you can see below the cloud cover. And, you can see the snow line this time of year…just a couple hundred feet above sea level.
It can snow 4 ft up there, but so far this year it has been a pretty mild winter, and there has not been more then a couple feet of snow build-up at any given time. And what snow has accumulated has all melted off this year.
The two seasonal creeks are running full, and of course so are my 3 ponds. It was very wet up there, and I was just a bit worried (I have been stuck right in my road 3 different times in these kind of conditions) but I did not need to be…after all the rock I, and now my new neighbors (who we call the star-gazers) have had put on the road it looks like it is truly all season now.
I had not been there for a few months and was curious that everything was good, and it was. No one gets back in there at all for much of the year.
Got the sim cards from my 9 trail cameras, and not a single person to be seen, but lots of critters. The deer are looking healthy, saw lots of yoties, one beautiful bobcat, and a young cougar. I also saw an animal I admire, and I feel mixed blessings on having them there in these numbers. And that is elk, about 30 head, and about 5 bulls.
Here they are….
The reason they are a mixed blessing is for one I love seeing them, have hunted them for years, and have harvested maybe 15 over those years. I once had a 6 year span when I got an elk every year….which is hard to do in this country. Elk can be devastating to the plants I am trying to get established up there, and if they decide to they can bust through about fencing you put up to deter them. You can see a few in the back of the video easily jumping over the brush I piled up as a deterrent.
I pretty much plant something every time I go up there. And this trip was no different. I bought two bags of dry land wildflower pollinator mixed seed from Amazon and broadcast planted them. I also took a fairly large bag (20 lbs) of wild bird seed mix and broadcast that as well. That is over 60 different cultivars planted this trip.
I have done this before with wildflower seed and was amazed at how successful I was. And what a joy to watch all the native pollinators enjoy all the new flowers! I will likely do this all again before spring sets in, and will cover even a wider area.
I also have a 100 lb bag of 60-0-0 nitrogen I will throw everywhere. Nitrogen is the only thing missing from that mountain soil, and even though I am opposed for the most part on chemical ferts, this is just so fast and easy it is a no-brainier at this point. Once I am up there and established I will make enough compost to fertilize things.
I am excited about this spring, I expect a ton of wildflowers, and a ton of new trees (I have planted a few hundred walnuts and tons of other seeds) Some of the trees I planted 3 years ago now will be hitting 20-30 ft tall this year I would think. Just about big enough the animals will leave them alone.
I have not asked this I do not think, but what the heck….do you want to be a part of my food-forest? There are a couple ways, one is to buy my cannabis seeds, all monies generated will go to just a couple of things….one, supporting me, the other my food-forest. So it is safe to say, buy my seeds, and you will have a part of my food-forest!
But, if you really want to be a big part of all this, and truthfully reduce your carbon footprint, send me a donation. If anyone wants to go that route just contact me and lets discuss. I will promise every penny will go to plants for my foodforest, I would love to have some cash to buy fruit trees, I want to get lots of them growing up there. Over the next several years I want to create about a two acre watered foodforest…and that will likely end up being a few thousand dollars worth of store bought trees, bushes, and plants.
Thanks for sharing my passion of the outdoors, foodforests, and off gridness (hehe made a new word), and thanks for reading my writings. And as a special thank you….put in a seed order, leave me a note with that order, saying…‘extra freebie please!’ And I will do just that….
