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Jim,

you're not going to start believing in them "studies" now, are you?

Scientists perform them things, or worser, academicians!

Sometimes both, working for the gooberment too!

Better watch it, or your reputation around here will plummet.

Geno

I never had much to lose!

OK, I laughed at that one, a good laugh, too.

Geno

PS, couple of kinds around here. Over on the other side of my seasonal creek, in the good dirt, I have some champion Big Sage! Not sure what the other varieties are, but one here on the property has grayer leaves and a different smell.

Yes. My NRCS Govt. type friend informed me that Big Sage was what I wanted ......or didnt want if that was the case.


Mountains may be attractive to some people......but nothing smells better the the high, dry prairie.

Ever been to the Mojave?

I think nothing smells better than the desert after a rain when the predominant smell is creosote bush.

But I'm weird....................see signature line.

Geno

PS, I loved the smell of the Palouse.................when they weren't spraying ag chems that is.

Freshly crushed sagebrush, juniper in the fireplace, paper shotgun shells just fired, the world is full of wonderful aromas..

No lyin' there.

Pine/fir trees on a warm day. The redwoods. Fall in the big woods back east. The coast of CA, OR, WA and SE AK. (Can't speak for the rest of AK as I never managed to get north of the Juneau area)

Losing eyesight and/or hearing would be horrible, but so would losing my sense of smell.

Geno

In Arizona where I have Property and hope to live full time soon.
The Local Rancher with the Grazing Rights has ether to clear cut the Cedar trees or loose his Grazing right.
He clear cut the Arizona State Trust land OK then he left the dead trees where they fell calling it an Bio-climate or something like that for the new grass to come back.
We have scrub Oak Cedars and Pinion Pine and some scattered Cactus at around 5000 to 5800 ft sea level.

We property owners called everyone we could about the Fire hazard of all the dead trees laying everywhere.
The Rancher has moved to another area in Arizona leaving all the dead trees.
And I have been told now that the Rancher is selling harvest permits for people to come in and clean up the dead trees.
Our Local Arizona State Trust over seer will only give out the Harvest Permit to the Rancher he says that it is to much trouble for him to give out permits to everyone that wants one.
It is kinda funny that the Rancher and State Trust guy went to school together.
The Rancher when he sells an Harvest permit also tacks on another Recreational permit fee for the people to enter State Trust Property's to Harvest the Cedars.
There has to be a Federal push to clean up the Junipers and Cedars because when I started investigating why our rancher was clear cutting the trees I found out that is is going on all across the Western part of the USA.
Cedars suck up all the water and pretty much kill the ground for anything else to grow and they are very invasive and spread quickly.
U where I have property it has been reported that we have approx. 300 to 400 trees per acre and we have been in a drought situation for many years.
I have cut out several dozen trees on my property to clear for building and roads. The Cedars are so thick in areas that you can not even drive a Quad threw some areas on my property.
Tat can not be to good for the Rest of nature to grow other plant life.
I keep the Pinion Pine like everyone else up in the area because there are not very many of them considering how many Cedars there are.
When I get up there at the right time I hope to be able to harvest the Pine Nuts but I have never been u at the right time so far to do so.

Don't EVER cut a juniper for a Christmas tree. I made that mistake once about 45 or 50 years ago. It was beautiful for a couple of days with just a slight hint of juniper odor. Then it started coming out of dormancy in the warm house. The smell was beyond livable. After a couple of days, it got so pungent that it was giving me a splitting headache. I had to throw it out.

There's a long list.

They use the hell outta ground water. I've seen a place in Blanco County here that was consumed by juniper, ranch was DRY... the creeks quit running, wells went dry, grass was choked out. Bad ranch.

New owner hired dozers to take out the juniper, and it all came back. creeks and springs started running, grass was good...

Here's an article on junipers in Oregon and an experiment conducted.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/cutting-down-desert-junipers-save-precious-water/

Here in so. Idaho, the BLM has renovated a bunch of land by removing juniper and replanting sage. It's taken over some old burns.

Juniper cutting is a good thing in most areas of the west. The invasion of junipers has hurt range land. People here need to remove the junipers, and be careful not to destroy the bitterbrush in the process! Many places in southern oregon , blm let the contractors destroy bitterbrush along with the junipers! The result was deer not having food to hold them over the winter! But the way wet juniper smells like cat piss, nasty smelling stuff!

That’s my soap box that my wife is tired of. San Antonio is constantly talking about how they want to increase absorption to the aquifer but they passed an ordinance against cutting trees including juniper. Some of the stuff I’ve read is that a mature juniper can suck up to 30 gallons of water a day before you get in to Their increasing runoff due to lack of ground cover

No Jim, calves are shipped just the outlaw cattle are grazing free.

They Graze year round up on Arizona State Trust lands
The Cattle are sick skinny and look like walking dead.
no grass to talk about. All they have to eat is Scrub Oak. I do not think they eat the Cedars and Pinion Pine.

One of the Guys that I know up there told me when we were driving around that he Purchased one of the Local Ranchers Cows to eat and show support to the Rancher.

He told me that he could not eat it and he would not even feed it to his dogs it was so bad.
they ground it up and used it as fertilizer. He said he had never tasted anything so foul in his life and tough as rawhide.

That sounds like what the longhorns looked like before they started importing Herefords and other English breeds. I've never eaten longhorn but they sure look scrawny.

That sounds like what the longhorns looked like before they started importing Herefords and other English breeds. I've never eaten longhorn but they sure look scrawny. I know they'd live on pretty sparse ground if they had to.

We finish our Longhorn or Corriente roping cattle with barley and are excellent eating

My Son in Law bought five Longhorn cows and a Longhorn bull about six years ago. We raised three generations on the place, and just this month put the last cow and heifer calf Into the freezer.

They eat pretty well if kept on good short grass and clover all summer. We grass finish ours and butcher just as the irrigation water goes out of the ditch.

My only problem with longhorns is rebuilding fence behind them. They will stick a horn under a five wire fence and lift until they pull three T-posts in each direction, then get on their belly and crawl under. If you have enough solid wood posts so they can not pull them, they will pop staples and T-post ties.

Did I mention that Longhorns are extremely athletic and can jump six feet vertical if motivated?

Sneaky basturds.

Funny there RC.

I split my kindling ahead of time, let it sit in the woodshed for a few weeks and it still is pretty powerful when I bring in a boxload to use.

Next year I may just split a years worth and leave it out in the sun all summer.

Never thought about using one as a Christmas Tree though, that would be rough.

Geno