30 Jun 09 07:31, Roger Nelson wrote to Roy Witt:


 RW>> West Texas is like the country one could see in the TV series
 RW>> "Lonesome Dove"...It's also what you could picture in
your mind when
 RW>> you think about cowboys and the old west.

 RN> They have a copy of Monument Valley?  (-:

Almost. This month's Texas Monthly has an article about a guy who lives on
the western edge of the Big Bend National Park. The pictures accompanying
that article would remind you of Monument Valley. Those that he has taken
from his airplane are spectacular.

 RW>> RW>> the next thing you know, they'll try to make like the forests
 RW>> of
 RW>> RW>> California and Montana actually compare to Texas and Lousiana
 RW>> RW>> forests.

 RW>> RN> They can do that.  (-:

 RW>> They can try.

 RN> My mother used to tell me you can do anything with your mouth.  At
 RN> the young age I was, it was some time before I realized the full
 RN> impact of what she meant.

Yeah, but when your mouth is in your hat, everyone knows it's a line of
BS.

 RW>> Maybe 50-60 feet...they're so brittle that they break over in a
 RW>> strong wind. Not to mention that they're the filthiest tree I know
 RW>> of. Not much can grow beneath them because they're so desidious. Not
 RW>> to mention that their umbelliate droppings are toxic to everything
 RW>> else.

 RN> After I sent that message, I googled it and saw some leaning over
 RN> from a CA fire.  The pine trees here are just as bad.  As the tree
 RN> gets taller (some in my area in Mandeville were 120 feet), the lower
 RN> branches break off because they aren't getting the nourishment the
 RN> branches higher up are getting.  I had 11 of them surrounding my
 RN> place and while they offered significant shade, the lower branches
 RN> breaking off became a hazard, especially during a tropical storm or
 RN> hurricane.

My driveway in Poway was lined with evergreens. I deliberately trimmed
them so that there was plenty of room to park under them, removing all of
the lower branches for that. That also allowed the grass to grow under
them too. The one in the front yard was about 60 feet tall and I trimmed
the lower branches so kids wouldn't be climbing on my roof.

 RW>> Maybe they did. I know pecans aren't native to CA...

 RN> Lots of things grow wild in this area.  I remember when I bought a
 RN> house here and cut the grass in the back yard (another story), I ran
 RN> over a watermelon vine because I wasn't paying attention to what the
 RN> mower was cutting.  The vine was growing a small watermelon and it
 RN> didn't grow back. I could have kicked myself.  Also, the bananas
 RN> growing wild here are sweeter than the ones from South America.  Fig
 RN> trees are in abundance and are one of my favorites. They'll be ripe
 RN> next month.

My neighbor has two figs growing in her front yard. She lets the figs go
to seed...figs can be grown in the deserts of CA, but the ground west of
the coastal mountains are made up of decomposed granite, so nothing grows
unless you plant it in a hole bigger and deeper than the root ball. Even
then, the trees that do grow in that stuff fall over easily because the
tap root can't penetrate it.

                R\%/itt

Joy lives in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in
the victory itself.

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