Liz Writes Life 3-4-2020

March 4, 2020

Liz Writes Life

Garden

Oh boy, a few daffodils are seven-inches high and about to pop open. Yay! I just love this bright yellow during late winter. The Jessie Hammond daffodils, next to the west side of the house, look like they will open in about week. So, I started checking the rest of the flower garden areas and noticed the tulips are also several inches high. Darn, now I really gotta get out there and pull-out all the dead perennial stalks.

My goodness, it is so dry that I worry about the perennials. The little violets near the house have been blooming for several weeks, but look so weak and bedraggled because of lack of rain. My outside water is turned-off, because it runs just underground in a plastic line. Freezing temps are far from over and I don’t want to break a line or a faucet. So, I may need to drag the hoses out of the garage and hook them up to the frost free faucet by the pump house and irrigate.

In checking more of the flower garden, I noticed the iris’ are up along with a few inches of daylilies and coreopsis. The two varieties of lamb’s ears never did die back and neither did the fever few, which is three-inches high trying to catch-up to happy-looking California poppy plants. So I checked the Oriental poppy plants and several of them are up eight-inches with foot-long draping fronds.

Then, I realized I better check the garden. The chives are pushing up through its old vegetation. Yep, they are pretty tough. Surprisingly, some of the garlic cloves I planted in November are up several inches -- and look wimpy. Ugh, they need water too! Oh and there was a four-inch deep hole affecting several new garlic. Hum, it must be a spot the cats decided to claim. I covered it with more chicken wire. They can “go” somewhere else.

I no longer need to worry about the rhubarb as several stems are just starting to uncurl cracking through the soil. Whew! I felt that I over-harvested last fall and was concerned I might have killed the plants. I also looked at the asparagus bed, but didn’t see any sign of life, yet. Good. It needs a good watering.

Because a mild March is projected, lettuce and peas could be planted anytime, but may need irrigation. I do want to plant some lettuce, but will have to keep the sprinkle-water-bucket full and use it quite often.

In checking the recent snowpack situation in the Sierras, it has dropped from 90 percent of average, in early January, to 64 percent of average a few days ago. That is not good. Time to really pray for rain!

POW

Ray Haupt, Siskiyou Co. Supervisor for Dist. 1, spoke at the Scott Valley Protect Our Water meeting last Thursday. He shared there is significant push from government agencies to address wildfire behavior and over-loading of timber and brush in the privately-owned lands as well as the public lands.

In early February, Ray traveled to Sacramento to meet with a Governor Newsom task force, which is transitioning from a beetle tree task force (these were beetles that were killing swaths of trees) to the newly named Forest Health and Fuels Reduction Task Force. Ray was appointed by the Siskiyou Co. Board of Supervisors as its representative and was also chosen by the Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) to serve on the task force. RCRC is a 37-member county organization that champions policies on behalf of California’s rural counties.

This was the kick-off meeting that will focus on specific areas to thin trees and brush, which will coordinate grant monies coming from the state legislature and the Governor’s Hazardous Fuels Initiative.

Ray said this should be extremely helpful for Siskiyou County as it will be a new tool for the county to address specific high-risk areas in the county and coordinate support from the state. For once, the county will have a stronger voice regarding its priorities.

There is also another potential aid or tool that will help the county work on reducing the threats of wildfires and this is in the latest Farm Bill. It provides a Master Stewardship Agreement for county supervisors to directly work with federal agencies on fuel reduction that affects county citizens. County staff is working on a presentation that will be shown and discussed at the March 17, 2020 board meeting.

These programs are a huge acknowledgement that the different levels of government and agencies must coordinate, communicate and actually work together. Ray is hopeful much more work will get done on the ground.

COOL labeling

Frank Endres, who is a rancher in Tehama County, will speak to the Siskiyou Patriots on Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 6:30 p.m. Endres will discuss the need to help beef producers re-obtain “Country Of Origin Labeling” for beef products entering the United States. COOL was mandated through the U.S. Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, but has since seen the repeal of labeling beef.

Endres wants to change that and re-include beef in COOL. Endres serves as a regional director of R-CALF, an organization that represents U.S. cattle and sheep producers with a membership of more than 5,000 cow-calf producers, cattle backgrounders and feeders. Endres will also explain how American family farmers are being priced out of the market. This should be quite informative. The meeting will be held at the Covenant Chapel at 200 Greenhorn Rd. in Yreka.

Liz Bowen began writing ranch and farm news, published in newspapers, in 1976. She is a native of Siskiyou County and lives near Callahan. Columns from the past year can be found at: lizwriteslife.blogspot.com. Call her at 530-467-3515.

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