May 29, 2012

We are headed into Memorial Day weekend and it is drizzling this morning, May 25 – even here in Callahan, with a snow level that I can see across the narrow valley. Yippee yahoo. I didn’t get the garden planted and may be a good thing. The ground was pretty dry and there are more weeds that need pulled. It is so much easier to pull them right after a rain and then plant. Boy the bunch grass is terrible in the flower beds. Looks like a lot of work to me to get it out.

My Oriental poppies are finally blooming bright orange and the delphinium is about to bloom as are the Shasta Daisies. Been eating lettuce from the volunteer batch that came up in Feb. and I covered with a clear plastic box through much of colder weather. This variety is pretty hardy. The crop planted in April will be ready soon. Garlic is doing great, I just have to remember to irrigate it as well as the small number of onions that made it through the winter and didn’t end up on our dinner table.

Keeping my purchases to the basics this year: Last week, I purchased six Ace tomatoes, six bell peppers, a six-pack of cabbage was still available and a small rectangle of onions. I did splurge and got a six-pack of bright pink zinnias. But, of course, I couldn’t decide whether or not to plant them; and the tomatoes, especially, needed to be hardened off. So they have sat in the garden by a bush and at night I cover them. I am sure their roots are screaming to be let free, so hopefully this weekend I will get them planted. I just need to make sure I have enough boxes or things to cover them, if frost threatens during the next month.

Thanks to Matt McQuoid for coming out and finding a valve to turn on for my upper irrigation water. We had missed it, when he fixed the pipe line that froze last winter. But it will still take me another month to set up all the hoses, soaker hoses and timers for irrigating everything.

New Mexico

I kinda left you up-in-the-air last week regarding New Mexico’s Otero County Commissioner, Ronny Rardin, who challenged the USFS and cut down an acre of trees in National Forest. This showdown occurred Sept. 17, 2011 after the USFS officials threatened to arrest anyone cutting trees, which included the County Commissioners and a Congressman. So the Otero Sheriff fired back that he would arrest, for kidnap, anyone arresting the U.S. Congressman. A stalemate was made and the trees were cut. But now the USFS has filed a lawsuit against the County for cutting the trees. This is exactly what Commissioner Rardin wanted to happen, because he believes they have enough law on their side for the (this is the important part) county to take back the National Forest within the county boundaries. This is huge.

This is an important lawsuit and could mean a whole new lease on life for Siskiyou County. So we need to watch this closely.

The most important statement that I heard Rardin say is that the USFS works under policy. His county operates under the law of the Constitution. Law should trump policy.

Farm Bureau lawsuit

Just learned that the trial that is half-over has been postponed, again. It is now out to June 26^th. I believe the California Dept. of Fish and Game asked for an extension and the judge allowed it.

Darren Mercier, attorney for the Siskiyou Co. Farm Bureau, really had his ducks in a row during the first week of trial earlier this month. Through his questions, which referred to deposition testimony, DFG officials Mark Stopher and Neil Manji, couldn’t seem to remember a variety of things and changed their testimony. Hum, interesting.

It was also learned that Stopher did not submit his “changes” in regulations, which included wording, to the Administrative Policy Act in Sacramento. Stopher admitted he did not follow his agency’s protocol and it is under Stopher that the word “significant” was re-defined as “anything I say it is,” according to Stopher.

The lawsuit claims that it is not a streambed alteration to extract water under a legal water right. DFG is demanding a new permit by irrigators to obtain their water, because DFG is claiming water removal alters the streambed.

A legislative analyst was also brought in by the Farm Bureau and she testified that the Streambed Alteration Permit never ever mentioned water or water removal. In 1961, the state legislature established the Streambed Alteration 1600 code section and it only dealt with gravel, actual streambed and bank protection.

Interesting how bureaucracies can’t leave things alone, but must always be creating more layers of policy infringing on our rights.

Liz Bowen writes biographies and freelances. Check out websites: Pie N Politics.com and Liz Bowen.com