Promises, promises!

Thank you to the new folks following Oak Watch!  I'm sorry it's been so long since I have posted.  I am still in the middle of longest and largest (in terms of sheer volume) period of sustained business (busy-ness) I have ever known in the forestry and hort supply business that puts food on our (quarter sawn oak!) table, but the backlog of posts (at least inside my noggin) has grown to the point where I need to get back to writing.  My basic sanity demands it as well.

So lots of posts are coming soon, all long overdue:

The Good Samaritan of Grand Junction, CO

The Wizard of West Point

The Quercus Formerly Known As...

And more!

So I will firing up the Bic ballpoint (I can't compose at the keyboard and I still haven't gotten around to making oak gall ink - although that has now moved up into the #257 spot on the to-do list, putting its completion date at approximate two years after I retire.  And I expect retirement to come approximately 2 years after I die.)

In the meantime I will leave you with a few photos:  Pygmy coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia) taken at the Elfin Forest in Los Osos - Baywood, CA.  These trees are twelve to fifteen feet tall.  They are several hundred years old.  A combination of cool temps, constant coastal fog and the fact they are growing in a soil-less sand dune approximately 3,000 ft deep have combined to stunt - bonsai - their growth.  Project number #592 on the to-do list is to grow acorns from these trees under better/warmer growing conditions and determine the degree to which their diminutive size is due to genetics versus environment - in other words is this truly a separate variety/sub-species, or simply garden variety live oak stunted by a lack of resources.

Enjoy, and see you soon!