Wells... important stuff on an island... relatively limited aquifers, potential for salt water intrusion near shorelines, longer recharge times. And in our case, we will need to make a decision between installing a well or hooking up to city water lines that are available on two different sides of...
Nice milestone this evening: I completed my Forest Stewardship Plan, the one that I started 6 months ago. Finally prioritized picking it back up again, and it feels good to be at this point. It's a healthy 26 page report, and I can say that going through the process of creating it was helpful on...
The Puget Sound LIDAR Consortium provides high resolution topographic data for land throughout Washington and especially the Puget Sound area. It is mostly of interest since it shows topographical...
I found a 1990 black and white satellite view of our property on Terraserver, which show US Geological Survey imagery. Interesting to see how little development was in the area just 18 years ago. Fortunately our area above Long Point is still mostly forested, but certainly less so than in these...
The University of Washington has a detailed online topography database that shows both land topography and underwater bathymetry of the Puget Sound area. The visual representations of the data are interesting since...
I participated in the three day Game Of Logging course in Oakville, emphasizing two days of tree felling technique and one day of yarding and bucking. It was a great learning experience and...
Since TopoZone was recently bought by Trails.com, I didn’t know of a good source for free online topography maps. Where’s the dotcom freeconomics...
In a couple months I'll be allowed to wear flannel checkered shirts, and talk about Paul Bunyon like he's family. I'm signed up for two courses sponsored by the Northwest Natural Resource Group's Northwest Certified...
Our property was very likely heavily forested from before the time that the first white settlers came to Whidbey. The open prairies of central Whidbey Island and some other similar areas around Oak Harbor were the most valued locations. Trees were extremely difficult and labor-intensive to remove,...
In reading the book "A History of Whidbey's Island" by George Albert Kellogg, originally published in 1934, I came across some additional tidbits of information about our property's first white neighbor to the east, John Kineth: "John Kineth (Nov. 26, 1853), a native of Springfield, Illinois, had...