Mojave Junipers (A Dig)

Arnie

Alaisdair. Go back and read my post again.....you seem to of twisted it the wrong way.

I can understand some of the passion in this thread, I've recently discovered how hard it is to find a helpful landowner who sympathises with our obsessions.

Will, great potential there, are you going to carve the main straight trunk??

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Will_Heath

Got me! In that sense, I am a thief.



darn, I hate it when I give that impression.

Wasn't intentionally being hard on anyone, I was trying to make the point that when you take your time and do things the right way (and we all agree on what is right) that you not only get much better material but you also feel a whole lot better about it.

For the record, I don't stomp on spiders, I release them outside so they can continue to eat the more damaging pests. I am not a pacifist however, deer shake with fear on the mere mention of my name.

Just because I disagree with collecting without permission does not mean that I have anything personal against you, I just dislike the method. I collect thousands of mushrooms every year on state land, on my land but I draw the line at trespassing. No one may ever know this, I have never once been comended for it, but I know.

I walk the woods alone most times although this last year I took my three year old daughter out on a few short hikes. The many things that I am beginning to teach her about the woods and mother nature pale next to the most important thing of all...respect for nature and all things in it.

Will

rockm

What I am angry about is the creeping attitude that "entitles" someone to something. That thinking can grow into something pretty ugly if it's not checked. This "no one's gonna miss it since its a scraggly little tree in a sidewalk" attitude has contributed to places being closed to responsible bonsaists who have worked to develop relationships with landowners, state parks and federal lands. What's fair game in the future with this thinking, as people progress in their bonsai experience and tastes? That juniper growing on the least used path in a national forest would seem to be out of sight, out of mind. Why not? No one would miss that pine below the sign at the overlook...

Abuses have already happened. Some people assumed it was OK to dig every last dwarfed bald cypress out of a Fla. bog a few years ago--hey it's only a swamp---and now the area's closed to collectors. Someone assumed those seedling elms weren't necessary along that farmer's fencerow. They probably weren't, but the cows that twisted their ankles in the holes left behind didn't make that distinction. Neither did the angry farmer.

What I'm arguing is be responsible, for crying out loud. DON'T DIG WITHOUT PERMISSION. I've stopped making the leap that people will act responsibly. There is alot of greed among new collectors.

Alasdair

Thats where were lost in translation. They werent in a national part, federal reserve etc. They were on my housing estate, growing through a footpath. There was no beauty, just functionality. Its all about living in your house and walking this path, past hundreds of other houses, to yet another house. If it was in a nature reserve then i wouldn't have taken them, but they were on a piece of unloved nothingness!

My attitude has already been 'checked'. Four pages of a thread and links to another where someone was banned has sorted that, there is no need to be angry. Whats done is done, you just live your life and cant do anything about it apart from apologise. which i have.

__________________
I can feel another "I wish that was my tree" moment coming on...
Currently studying BSc Plant Biology at the Universty of Wales, Aberystwyth

rockm

"Thats where were lost in translation. They werent in a national part, federal reserve etc. They were on my housing estate, growing through a footpath. There was no beauty, just functionality."

Well, that's kind of the point. Doesn't make any difference if they weren't on federal or reserve land. How do you know they were in an "unloved nothingness?" Someone could have passed that way everyday looking forward to seeing the trees' persistant stubborn growth. You never know...

Look--I understand the saplings were growing up through the sidewalk and were probably mower bait anyway. You didn't do any harm in taking them (other than the fact they're probably dead now from being ripped up with no roots, but hey, you have to learn somehow). However, what I am getting at here is don't let it become easy to rationalize taking trees without permission. It's a dangerous thing ethically, and physically, if the landowner has a shotgun and it's dark out

imyerhukleberry

hehehe