LIVING IN A PINE FOREST

I was walking home the other day after meeting with a friend realizing I lived in the middle of a pine forest, a real pine forest. Yes we have paved streets, lots of houses and many non native plants growing in people's gardens and yards but it is still a pine forest. I like that. I have to make a disclaimer here, Kathy will not agree with everything I say here, but we don't agree on everything anyway.

So, I like living in a pine forest, it is like being on permanent holiday. I was born in Montana where there were lots of pine trees but I grew up in California in the Bay Area and that is not a pine forest. The pine forest was up in the Sierra Nevada my favorite place to go when I was a kid. I remember seeing Yosemite for the first time, I must of been around 10 and I was absolutely blown away. I wanted to hike all the trails, climb all the peaks ride all the roads and I loved the smell of the pine forest. I couldn't get enough of it. I can remember every trip we took to the sierra.

Later in life I went to Humboldt State College, which is in the middle of a Redwood Forest. Now I like a good Redwood Forest with all the amazingly tall and old trees, but I still prefer a pine forest.

My first Forest Service job was about 100 miles east of here in the Ochoco National Forest. This was really my first time to central Oregon and as I drove along the Crooked River to where my job was I wondered if I was going to see any trees. Finally at the last turn the Pine Forest returned and I knew I would be OK.

Many Forest jobs later Kathy and I were living out at Cabin Lake, this is about 75 miles south and east of Bend. This is one of the most amazing places I have ever lived, it is on the edge of the pine forest and the high desert. Look out the front window and there was a forest of old growth Ponderosa Pines, out the back window and it miles of sage brush and high desert.

So back to Bend and the west hills home we live in. Aubrey Butte is covered with pretty old growth Ponderosa pines the kind I like. It smells and feels like my holiday days from when I was a boy enjoying the Sierra Nevada mountain. I even like the deer. They are what really makes me know I am in a forest and not a sub division. The deer were here before we were and I am pretty sure they will be here after we are gone. We have also had bears and mountain lions in our neighborhood, like I said a pine forest.

Don