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0:30

What's up, Fungal Associates?

0:35

Welcome to

0:37

Completely Arbitrary, the podcast about trees

0:39

and other related topics. I am one

0:41

of your hosts. My name is Alex Croson

0:44

and I am here with master

0:47

arborist, renowned dendrologist,

0:50

and funky, funky man, Casey Clapp.

0:53

That's because I haven't showered yet today,

0:55

Alex. Casey, there's

0:57

no transition that would make this easy, but

1:01

we have something to tease, you and

1:02

I. We have a lot of big things happening behind the

1:05

scenes right now. Yeah,

1:08

I think we say this every week. Well, there's

1:10

always something happening. There's always something happening.

1:13

But this time we really mean it. It feels a little dramatic is what I'm saying.

1:15

Okay, well,

1:16

there's some foundational changes

1:19

happening to Completely Arbitrary.

1:22

We won't get into those yet. Those are coming.

1:25

But the thing I really want to tease is our every

1:27

December we do a theme month. That's true.

1:30

That's for the holidays. And

1:32

this year I

1:33

am very excited because I have

1:36

bullied you into doing my idea. I

1:38

got bruises on my cheek, my

1:41

eye, my heart. We are doing

1:44

a month that our working title

1:46

for it is Triazaki.

1:47

Yes. This

1:50

is a month dedicated to the films

1:52

of Hayao Miyazaki. Hayao Miyazaki.

1:55

That's right. If you're not familiar, this

1:57

is the man responsible, one of the men responsible for Triazaki.

1:59

Studio Ghibli, the

2:02

Japanese animation studio famous for

2:05

Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke,

2:09

My Pal Totoro. My Neighbor

2:12

Totoro, yeah. Now, I'm

2:14

going to look something up Alex. Keep going. Okay,

2:16

Casey's Googling. So I

2:19

wanted to do something with these films

2:21

for a long time because they are very nature

2:24

focused. A lot of them

2:26

are, why is Casey laughing about it

2:28

over here? A lot of them are sort

2:30

of have Shinto,

2:32

Casey? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shinto

2:35

as a theme, which is the Japanese

2:39

indigenous belief system.

2:42

I think religion is a fine term,

2:44

but also they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Spiritual

2:46

belief system. Exactly, yeah. That says everything

2:49

in nature has a spirit, which I think is very beautiful.

2:52

So we are doing a whole month about the films

2:54

of Hayao Miyazaki. Get hyped. We

2:57

know you want it. We

2:59

heard your calls. Yeah. The

3:02

reason to be today, Casey, is

3:04

the Oregon Myrtle. That's right. I

3:07

said Oregon. Wow. Let me clean

3:09

my voice. I said that one more time. Oregon

3:13

Myrtle. The West Coast Elite's favorite

3:15

tree. Well

3:18

said. We got

3:20

so much to talk about the Oregon Myrtle today. Get

3:23

hyped for Trierzaki. It's happening, everyone.

3:25

But we got to do so after a quick break. We

3:28

will be right back

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5:12

Welcome back to Completely Arbitrary.

5:14

Today we are talking the Oregon

5:17

Myrtle. That's right, Alex. Say

5:20

it again for the people in the back that

5:22

they say on Instagram. The people in the south. Eh,

5:25

nah, I'm not going to actually do that. They

5:27

can have it.

5:28

It is the Oregon Myrtle Umbellularia

5:31

Californica. Wow. If

5:33

you are in other parts of the world, you

5:35

might call it the California Bay

5:38

Laurel. I do notice that it has California

5:40

in

5:41

it. That's actually a curious thing. Somebody

5:43

made the argument that it would,

5:46

because its scientific name is

5:48

California, meaning of California,

5:51

you must call it the California

5:54

Bay Laurel. And

5:56

I was like, eh, that doesn't

5:58

actually make

5:59

any sense at all. It doesn't matter at all. Yeah,

6:01

because we have Western things that

6:03

grow in our perspective, the East. From

6:06

our perspective, this is

6:08

from

6:09

California, because that's where the first one was found

6:11

maybe or that's just where they thought they were. That

6:13

was when they didn't really have this political

6:16

boundary separating Oregon and California. So

6:18

it's kind of like, well, that's I guess just,

6:20

you know, like your perspective, man. That's

6:23

just your opinion, man. And that is just not,

6:25

I don't think that's, I don't think that, there's

6:28

not a one for one there. Yeah, maybe Casey, it could

6:30

be a thing like, you know how like corn

6:33

is Florida, right? Yes. Doesn't

6:35

mean it's from Florida. It means the flower. It does,

6:37

yes. So maybe we could pretend

6:39

that California doesn't mean it's from California.

6:41

It means like something else. I agree.

6:44

It would mean that it is the umbellularia

6:46

that grows in the predominantly

6:49

California floristic

6:51

province. There you go. Which extends far

6:53

further than the Oregon-California

6:56

border. Hey, with globalization, huh?

6:59

Yeah, right? Any tree can be from anywhere pretty much.

7:01

Honestly, you can find this tree growing just

7:03

happy as a clam up in Seattle

7:05

if you really look for it.

7:07

How about that? So, hey, why

7:09

put it in a box?

7:10

Well, Casey, just to upset people, let's imagine

7:12

that you and I, as we do every episode,

7:14

are in Seattle. And we

7:16

come across some... Every two, every episode.

7:19

Oregon Myrtle upset people. No,

7:22

I just like, I love the idea

7:24

is every episode, we're walking through somewhere

7:26

in Seattle. For no good reason. So

7:29

now it's Seattle based podcast. We come

7:31

across some Oregon Myrtle or California

7:33

Bay, if you're nasty. Let's

7:36

ID this tree. Oh, I'm

7:38

so happy that you asked

7:41

to ID this tree. Wow. Such

7:43

a fun tree to ID. Did you not see it coming? No,

7:45

I didn't. Honestly, I thought we were just going to jump right in to

7:47

the bully bull pit we're going to be touching on today.

7:50

But, you know, let's start here. All right. So, Umbellularia,

7:53

California is the Oregon

7:55

Myrtle. Now, it should be noted,

7:57

this tree is neither a Myrtle...

8:00

nor a laurel. So

8:03

that's where it ends.

8:04

It is not a what? It

8:06

is not a myrtle. Myrtle. And it is not a

8:09

laurel. Laurel. It is in the laurel family.

8:12

Ah.

8:12

But it is not a laurel in the genus

8:15

Loras. So you remember a few weeks ago,

8:17

Alex, we talked about the Canary Island

8:20

laurel, which was Loras canariensis.

8:24

I do remember this. He says with

8:26

a furrowed brow. And

8:28

one of the very most common

8:31

plants that we cook with is the

8:33

bay laurel. Yeah. Sweet

8:35

bay, which is Loras

8:38

nobilis. Right. That

8:41

is a true laurel. Those are

8:43

true laurels. Yeah. But of course, what

8:45

is a true laurel is kind of one of those silly

8:47

things we just happened to say, well, this genus is

8:50

the type species for what is laurel. If

8:52

it is not exactly that, then it is not technically

8:54

a laurel. Here is a way for

8:57

some of our more fantasy-based

9:00

listeners. In

9:02

the Song of Ice and Fire, I always have to correct

9:04

myself because I want people to know I'm legit and I've read

9:06

the book. Well, I've read the first three

9:08

and a half. What? You've got to do the rest of

9:10

them? No, I need to go back and reread

9:12

them. You have your Lannisters,

9:15

your Cersei, your

9:17

Tywin, right? Those are like Lannister

9:19

named people. Tyrion. Yes. These are

9:21

people who are in the family. Yeah. They're

9:25

almost like in the genre or the genus. The

9:28

official family. Right. And

9:30

then you have the

9:33

Lannister army, which can come

9:35

from anywhere. They might come from

9:37

Highgarden or whatever. But

9:40

they're wearing the golden lion

9:43

on their chest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're a part of the Lannister

9:45

army, but they're not really Lannisters. They're

9:47

not technically a Lannister. You're

9:49

in the family. Yeah. You're

9:52

also

9:52

maybe one of those side Lannister cousins

9:54

of the cousins who are almost like, you're a

9:56

Lannister, but you're

9:57

not really a Lannister. Lancel. Yeah,

9:59

Lancel. Poor landfill. This

10:02

is I think a very accurate way to describe

10:04

it. Anyway, this is a poor landfill.

10:06

Way too long. Let's talk about the fucking

10:08

trees. Alright, so I'm Bellia Aria,

10:11

California. Yeah. One of my favorite

10:13

names to say by the way. Just pretty good.

10:15

It is a evergreen broadleaf

10:17

tree. Nice. It grows along

10:19

coasts of southern Oregon and

10:21

northern California predominantly,

10:24

but it will in fact go all the way down to southern

10:26

California. You can find this all the way down

10:28

through like San

10:30

Diego. How about that? Wow.

10:32

It's not near as large and

10:34

it doesn't take up as much of the kind

10:37

of floral range that

10:39

it does in the north, but

10:41

you can still find it. It also grows on

10:43

the interior mountains. So if

10:45

you go down into California,

10:48

if you stay on the west side, then you

10:50

are in like their coastal range

10:52

area. Then there's the big Central

10:55

Valley. Right. Then on the east side of

10:57

that Central Valley where it gets a little bit more moist

10:59

again, you can find them also. Okay.

11:02

Now they are big

11:04

trees, but not like you'd

11:07

expect. They get about 80 feet tall. They

11:09

have wide open crowns that get a

11:11

little bit kind of a little bit ratty

11:14

I think. They don't maintain

11:16

this like oak maple,

11:18

huge big perfect round canopy.

11:20

What you'd expect for a sycamore or

11:22

a horse chestnut. Something like that. I see that. It's a little

11:25

Hawthorn-esque. Yeah, it's like a big

11:27

big Hawthorn. It's like a Hawthorn that has

11:29

has grown up but is still wearing its kid

11:32

clothes. I think

11:34

ratty is kind of the perfect. Yeah.

11:36

Now when they're small, they look really handsome. They're

11:38

very gorgeous trees and they can maintain this

11:40

big globular. Globular

11:43

is not the right term. Globe-like

11:46

canopy. But they tend to also

11:48

have multiple stems. Very

11:50

rarely are you gonna find one that is just a single

11:52

stem that grows up with this big thing

11:55

around it. Like I think the sugar maple, right?

11:57

They don't look like that at all. Sure. have

12:00

two or three new straight

12:03

really gorgeous looking stems

12:06

that come up and create this kind of multi-stemmed

12:08

canopy. What are some other trees they don't look like

12:10

at all? Well they don't really look like a Douglas fir. I would

12:13

say

12:15

if you imagine yourself a

12:17

mahogany, you'd be way

12:18

off-beat. And the thing that I want to first

12:23

point

12:26

out

12:26

about this tree is

12:29

the bark.

12:32

The form? Really? It's fine.

12:34

Whatever. The bark.

12:36

I love the bark. Oh my gosh.

12:39

It breaks itself into

12:42

little plates. And those little

12:44

plates, they kind of look like,

12:48

I don't know, like they kind of look a little

12:51

oaky. They look a little quirky, but

12:53

they do not feel oaky and

12:55

they do not feel quirky. But they

12:57

end up breaking up into like tiny little square

13:02

plates, I guess, is the best way to do it. It's like it's

13:04

ridged horizontally and vertically with

13:07

semi-shallow ridges and then

13:09

these nice straight

13:11

stems that come up and they kind of arc outwards

13:14

a little bit. Interesting. And I just think

13:16

their bark is so nice. It's very

13:18

uniform from the top to the bottom. It's great.

13:21

Casey, this

13:24

isn't like a crepe myrtle where it like

13:26

peels, right? No, it does not. Okay. I'm getting

13:29

two different Google image search photos

13:32

here. Oh, really? Of organ

13:34

myrtle and like a crepe myrtle right next to them. Those

13:37

are the same? No, no, no. The crepe myrtle

13:39

also is not a myrtle. In fact, I don't know why they're

13:41

even called that. Wow. And it's not a crepe.

13:44

It's not any of these things. It's a bait and switch. What

13:46

the fuck? Yeah. It's got flowers

13:48

that look different. Like the whole thing's a problem. And by switch,

13:50

I mean a little branch up a thing.

13:52

Oh, yeah. I see that you whip

13:54

over someone's knuckles

13:57

when they get the question wrong in first

13:59

grade. class in the 19-01? A

14:02

naughty child's hand. How dare you? Get

14:04

me my switch. Oh, my dad has told me stories about

14:07

his dad telling him to go get a switch.

14:10

Really? It's like digging your own grave. You

14:12

gotta go get your own physical punishment. I

14:14

cannot believe that. Stop

14:16

hitting children. I think it's less common

14:19

now.

14:19

You know what you can do? Get your own damn

14:21

switch. Yeah, you lazy shithead.

14:24

Casey, yeah, this bark. Man,

14:26

I love that you love it. I love this

14:28

bark. It's great. Can I

14:31

say something about it? I feel like that is what you say. I

14:34

love that for you. That's

14:37

my go-to. I love that other people enjoy Paul Rudd. But

14:43

I will call it, I kinda wanna call

14:45

it utility plus. Oh, really?

14:48

This genre of bark

14:50

that's like gray and has like white, epiphytic

14:53

stuff happening on it, I'm just not crazy about.

14:56

I kinda lump it with,

14:58

I give it that plus. I give

15:00

it that utility plus. I'm sorry. That's fine.

15:04

For a bark to really like stun me, blow me away, it's

15:06

gotta have something crazy going on. I think

15:09

that's very fair. Alright, well then let me see if I can

15:11

get you with the second thing, which are the

15:13

flowers. Wow, we're going straight

15:15

to flowers. We're going straight to flowers here. They

15:18

look a lot like Linden flowers, in my opinion. They're

15:21

these little yellow things that have these

15:24

like creamy, yellow looking petals

15:26

that are very small, with a

15:28

lot of yellow stamen putting out a lot

15:30

of pollen. I see kind of a lime green

15:33

effect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's somewhere on that like

15:35

realm between like a creamy, yellow,

15:38

lime green kind of mixture

15:41

all together. I can dig them. But like in a nice

15:43

way. Like I feel like that also is like a step

15:46

away from like mucus when

15:48

you're sick. Totally. It is not that.

15:51

Okay. It does not look like that. It

15:53

looks nice. Like a butter yellow. Yes,

15:55

thank you. Like a butter yellow that has

15:57

not gone rancid, but you are maybe a little

15:59

concerned that... Yeah, I

16:01

don't know, Case. The flowers aren't stunning

16:03

me either. Maybe I'm in a bad mood potentially.

16:06

Oh gosh, alright. You know,

16:08

I don't have to explain

16:11

my opinion. No, you

16:11

know what? You can keep it. Then let me move on

16:13

to the fruit. Impressed

16:16

me. I'm going to get you the fruit. So the

16:18

reason it's called um-y-lar-ia, is that these

16:20

flowers are

16:23

in little umbels at the end of the branches.

16:25

Wow. They pop out kind

16:28

of in the axles of the leaves. And

16:30

these leaves, I should also say, are alternately

16:32

arranged so they have like a flower pod

16:35

here, flower pop there, flower pop there, that kind of

16:38

thing. Okay. And their fruit is an adorable,

16:40

like, it's in the laurel family

16:43

so it looks awful lot like an avocado.

16:45

Yeah. It has this little kind of cap

16:47

with this ball that hangs underneath it

16:50

and that is, I believe technically

16:53

a droop in fact. Okay.

16:56

And this little droop

16:57

is just, just adorable.

16:59

It's like a nice little perfectly

17:02

round sphere that's getting held

17:04

on by a little suction cup on top. Yeah, it

17:06

is very cute. Yeah, and they start about

17:09

a greenish color and they end up this kind

17:11

of dark purple which I think is

17:13

really fun because they kind of go from green

17:16

to brown to dark purple. And

17:18

they're dark purple, that is when they

17:20

are fully ripe. And

17:22

they have this like seed on the inside

17:25

with this kind of fleshy coating on the outside.

17:27

And you can take those and native peoples

17:29

used to do this all over this area and

17:32

they would grow or they would pick them all, they

17:34

would set them in the sun or roast them a little bit until

17:36

the outer husk kind of got a little bit dry

17:39

and kind of cracked. Then you could take that,

17:41

you could eat that straight away. You'd usually

17:43

want to eat the bottom half of it but

17:45

then the top half was a, it

17:48

had a very, very, very, astringent,

17:50

it's not the word, but a very intense

17:53

flavor to it. So they would only

17:55

eat the bottom half. Really? Of the

17:58

fruit? Of the fruit. the

18:00

outer kind of fleshy bit. Yeah, yeah.

18:03

When the seed on the inside, they would let

18:05

that also get kind of nice and dry,

18:07

roast it, and they would smash it and turn

18:10

that into a mealy mush kind

18:12

of thing. Wow. That they would add tan

18:14

oak too, and other oaks and other bits and parts

18:16

from other trees. Sure, like a flower

18:18

kind of? Yes, exactly,

18:21

yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about like indigenous energy

18:23

bars before. Yes,

18:28

yeah, yeah, pemmican is what it's called. Pemmican,

18:30

okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very similar to this. This

18:33

is what they call a kernel, it's olive-like,

18:35

and they would dry it and do all that kind of thing, and they would

18:37

also eat it with nuts and clover

18:40

and seaweed and buckeye

18:42

meal. How about that? There's a California buckeye

18:44

that grows down there, so they would eat them all together,

18:47

but they would eat it with

18:49

some clover, apparently to prevent

18:52

bloating, which I think is fun. How

18:54

about that? And they would make it, this is according to the

18:57

USDA plant guide for

18:59

this. It's

19:02

fun, because they say they

19:05

would roast it to get rid of the

19:07

pungency, which is a bit

19:10

of an understatement,

19:11

and it was acrid. That's the

19:13

term I was looking for for that kind of upper

19:15

half. But they

19:18

would make

19:18

it into a coffee-like, and it

19:20

was like,

19:20

they would taste, you can hear in

19:23

the writing, it would, it

19:25

tastes like coffee. And

19:27

if you're not convinced, then below,

19:28

they say that they use that meal,

19:31

like if they just kept it pure

19:33

without having anything else into it. I would smash

19:35

it up and make it into a beverage that tasted,

19:38

quote, like chocolate. And

19:41

again, when you put quotes around like

19:43

chocolate, it immediately makes me think, that

19:46

doesn't taste like chocolate. No, it's

19:48

gotta be a stretch. It's gotta be a

19:50

stretch. Yeah, so they would use it, and that

19:52

was as long as the little drip. How about that? Wow,

19:55

every part of it, too. Every part

19:57

of it, including Alex, the

19:59

lead.

19:59

Well, Casey, can I interrupt this?

20:03

I'm so sorry. That was a great transition.

20:06

Thank you. Thank you. I got to put

20:08

my foot in the door. Mark that on the good transition, Louie. Thank

20:10

you. For the show, period.

20:13

Yeah. One. One. Casey

20:16

got it. Got his side. So here's

20:18

it. If our

20:20

description of the fruit made you curious

20:23

at all, but you don't have

20:25

Google at your disposal at the moment and you want to just

20:27

envision this thing. Here

20:29

is an extremely dorky

20:32

deep cut. Oh. From

20:34

something that this reminded me of almost

20:37

instantly. I saw it and I was like, oh my God,

20:39

that looks just like this other thing. There

20:42

was a 90s, a series

20:44

of straight to video kids

20:48

movies in the 90s called We

20:50

Sing. Oh yeah. They were music

20:52

based videos. Like

20:54

We Sing Sally's Birthday Party.

20:56

We Sing Uncle's Magical

20:59

Musical Mansion. There

21:02

was a We Sing called Sillyville. Yeah. I

21:05

remember this. Do you? Yeah. Okay.

21:09

Like a talking tree or something? Yes, there is a talking tree in it.

21:11

Yeah. There's this one troupe

21:13

of troubadours that sing the song One Bottle of Pop. Do

21:15

you know that song? I remember it. Yeah. Yeah.

21:19

And those characters are wearing these

21:22

hats that are like little like

21:24

the board game sorry pieces. Yeah.

21:28

Like these little curved like trumpet shaped

21:30

hats. I know exactly. So

21:34

if you remember that, that's what the fruit

21:37

of the. Oh my God. The I

21:52

believe they were produced in Oregon, Casey.

21:55

Really? Yeah, because I we at my

21:57

dentist. My dent, one of my dentist's.

22:00

clients as a child was the boy

22:02

from the King Cole's

22:04

party video. Wow. Yeah.

22:07

What a throwback Alex. Celebrity, right? Yeah.

22:10

You got for sure. I don't know why I thought of that.

22:12

But hey, there you go. I love that. I

22:14

think we did exactly what you needed to do. Well thanks. Well,

22:18

I don't know

22:21

how to transition back. So

22:24

the leaves. Oh Alex, I've been right.

22:27

Man, I wish we had a good transition. Work another one.

22:31

Now Alex gets one. Now the

22:33

leaves Alex are really the thing about this

22:35

tree. So

22:36

this is a tree that has the same

22:38

effect that you would get

22:40

by using Vicks Vapor Rose.

22:43

Wow, okay. So if you break the leaves

22:45

and unfortunately I know you would expect that I'd

22:47

have some right here next to me. I

22:49

don't. That's fine.

22:51

I forgot.

22:52

It's okay. Thank you Alex. I don't

22:55

care. It's a local spot where

22:57

you have some of these trees and you rip

22:59

the leaves in half and you smell them. It's like

23:02

boom, intense Vicks Vapor Rose

23:05

scent. I can imagine. I think I've done that before.

23:07

You have. I know we have because I picked one up and

23:09

was like, hey, smell this. And you were like, whoa. And

23:11

I said, yeah, there's a bay leaf. But it's not the bay

23:14

leaf, again, that you're thinking of that you cook

23:16

with. It's much stronger. That

23:18

one's called Sweet Bay because it adds in this little

23:20

sweet kind of floral taste to

23:23

the food. Yeah. It's like a little

23:25

orange scent. Exactly. It adds a way more intense

23:27

Vicks Vapor Rubby like a camphor

23:30

kind of smell. Yeah. And it was used

23:32

like that again by native peoples for many, many

23:34

years. They would use it to keep insects out. They

23:36

would add it in a poultice in

23:39

the Spanish when they came

23:41

up on the coast of California. They

23:43

would follow the lead of the different native peoples

23:45

and they would use this with camphor and cinnamon

23:48

and like put it on someone's head or something in case they

23:50

were like they had the chills or they were unresponsive.

23:52

Sure. And it's definitely used in all

23:54

these different ways because like we've

23:57

talked about thousand times,

23:58

you have a

23:59

a plant that

24:02

has an intense smell, an intense

24:04

kind of something

24:06

to it. Yeah. But many people are

24:08

like, that's got to be used for something. Totally.

24:11

And usually it makes a lot of sense because it's something

24:13

that the trees produce to help fight

24:16

against insects or disease or damage of some kind.

24:18

Isn't that beautiful, Casey? It really is. Like,

24:21

I think about the willow, right? Yeah. It's

24:23

kind of the best example, I think, that I can think of right

24:25

now. Like this, you know,

24:28

what is it? What is the acid called? Oh, I'm

24:31

going to get this wrong. Salicylic

24:33

acid. Yes, yes. So yeah, like

24:35

chewing on this willow, it's where we get aspirin.

24:38

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Aspirin

24:41

is the synthesized version of salicylic acid.

24:43

Yeah. Chewing on the willow, you know,

24:45

then like the willow. Salicylic.

24:48

Salicylic. What did I say? Salicylic.

24:51

Ah. Yes. wrong.

24:55

Salicylic. So the defense mechanism that the tree

24:57

has is now humans are using it as

24:59

a defense mechanism. Yeah, exactly. I just think that's

25:01

so amazing, Casey. Like when

25:04

humans genuinely and without

25:06

malice learn from nature. Totally.

25:10

I just, I've more and more been so into

25:12

that. It's very like

25:15

in heartening. I'm like, yes, let's do more of that.

25:17

Let's live that way. This is such a good

25:20

introduction to what we're going to be talking

25:22

about, Alex. I made up for the bad

25:25

transition cut off. It totally is. You

25:27

really did. This is the use

25:30

of the natural

25:31

world in a way

25:34

that is sustainable

25:35

and I guess

25:38

synergistic, you know, both kind of

25:40

help each other. It's not that this tree

25:43

is necessarily gaining from us using its leaves,

25:45

but we went out and we said, yeah, we should keep this tree around because

25:48

these leaves and the properties from

25:50

it are good to have. And we've learned that

25:52

we can use these things. That's

25:54

very good. There you go. Very

25:57

good, Alex. Now,

25:57

do you know anything about the wood

25:58

of this tree?

25:59

Myrtlewood I've heard of. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

26:02

yeah. Is it big in woodworking? It is the

26:05

biggest in woodworking. Okay. This

26:08

is a tree that is, if you've

26:10

been to the coast, here in the Oregon coast, you

26:13

know, yeah, it's great. The

26:18

Oregon coast is specifically the

26:20

southern or the central Oregon coast, probably from

26:22

Mount Florence south. Okay. This

26:24

is where you really see a lot of these, but they are

26:26

the adorable little like

26:29

kitschy roadside shops that say

26:31

like Myrtlewood gifts. Oh,

26:33

yeah. They'll have like a carving of like a

26:35

bear standing on a pine leg. Yeah, exactly. And

26:37

you go in, it's like little driftwood that's

26:40

been carved and there's all these little things. Yeah.

26:42

Very knick-knack-y, but also like you can get some

26:44

really big pieces. Yeah. They

26:46

are all advertising wood

26:49

or rather wooden gifts

26:52

that are made of Myrtlewood. Okay.

26:54

Which is the tree we're talking about right now. Cool.

26:57

The wood from this tree is the

26:59

most popular or at least one of the most

27:02

popular woods you can get in rather

27:05

as a domestic wood. There's other woods that

27:07

you can get from other parts of the world, but as a wood

27:09

that is domestic to the United States, it

27:12

is not only one of the most sought after, it

27:14

is the most expensive wood

27:17

in the US. Why? Because

27:20

it is gorgeous.

27:23

And I say gorgeous in the

27:25

way that has been

27:25

described is you

27:28

can

27:28

cut down a tree, you can carve

27:31

it or mill it into pieces of wood

27:33

or turn it into a veneer, and you will never find

27:35

a tree that looks just the same as another tree.

27:37

I see that they have a lot of like internal

27:40

patterns going on. Yes. And they get a lot of

27:42

big burrows on them. Yeah. People

27:44

make bowls out of them and that kind

27:46

of thing. I see a Myrtlewood guitar here.

27:48

Yeah, there's some beautiful ones that I

27:50

saw. So there's Myrtlewood

27:53

everything. Bowls and guitars.

27:56

If it can be made out of wood, people will

27:58

have probably tried to use Myrtlewood. wood for

28:00

it. And just the same as

28:02

the leaves and the top half of the fruit

28:05

and the twigs, the wood has

28:07

the same kind of smell

28:09

and scent to it. Really? Yeah. The

28:12

vix smell? Exactly. Yeah, this

28:14

camphor kind of this

28:17

smell that just like awakens

28:19

your kind of sinuses and things. So this

28:21

tree is so sought after

28:24

that over the last you know I say hundred

28:27

years or so all of the commercial

28:30

sized wood has been cut

28:32

down. It's very very difficult

28:35

to find a nice saw log

28:37

sized piece of wood that

28:39

you can then use

28:41

for a piece

28:44

of lumber of any kind. Like you wouldn't use it

28:46

to build you know a house like

28:48

a studs or something like that. Something smaller

28:50

like a guitar or a bowl.

28:53

Exactly. Now they get

28:56

pretty big. I think some of the biggest ones are maybe

28:58

five feet in diameter but remember I

29:00

was telling you they don't tend to grow with one

29:02

big single stem. They tend to have lots

29:04

of little stems around as well.

29:06

Yeah. So if you were to cut into

29:09

it then you'd actually be getting more

29:11

many little stems growing together that

29:14

are not gigantic. Not big enough

29:16

that you can make timber

29:18

sized thing out of it. That's less

29:21

desirable in the woodworking community. You

29:23

want like a bigger pallet to work with.

29:26

Exactly. So you end up getting things like you talked

29:28

about these smaller bits. Okay. Now this

29:30

tree also does not grow in a timber

29:32

fashion. We don't grow it it doesn't grow as nice

29:35

perfectly well lined timber. Sure. So you

29:38

have to end up getting it wherever

29:40

you can. Funny enough one of the most common

29:42

places is driftwood. The

29:44

finest is driftwood either on the beach or

29:47

like along the river deltas as they're going in. Really?

29:49

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of the places

29:51

where people capture it. And legally can

29:54

you just go grab some? You know I don't know

29:56

actually about that. I never looked into it but this is what

29:58

I've heard where a lot of

29:59

people I would say Maybe you couldn't do it for commercial

30:01

reasons, but if you go find one, you

30:03

could take home a little piece and you could carve that. Sure.

30:06

I'm not sure what the regulations are 100%. Okay, okay. Certainly

30:09

not from a park. Mm, okay.

30:11

Well, Alex, let me ask you

30:13

this. You're a titan of industry. Wow.

30:16

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought. I got

30:19

my steel corporation. Yes,

30:22

you're- I got my marble corporation. Mm-hmm,

30:24

mm-hmm. You have a

30:27

twirly mustache in the top half. Uh-huh,

30:29

I've got my Baron's hat. Excellent.

30:32

Well, you- I've got my luxury

30:34

car on the train. Yes,

30:37

you do. Just in case

30:39

you have to go somewhere, you can always

30:41

make sure that you have your own purse in the

30:43

car. Uh-huh, my poker table. Uh-huh,

30:46

uh-huh. Well, this is something

30:48

you'll be familiar with then. Supply

30:50

and demand. Sure. Ah,

30:53

yeah. Which says, of course- Give

30:55

me the brandy. I'm

30:59

a Sherry man. Oh, yeah. That's

31:01

my wife. Uh, which of course means

31:03

that the higher the demand, the

31:06

more supply you need. Um-

31:08

And the lower the supply, the higher the demand.

31:10

Yes, exactly. I clearly know

31:13

what supply and demand is. I know it when I see

31:15

it, you know? Yeah, you know what you call it out when you- yeah,

31:18

yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. The lower the

31:20

supply, the higher- or the higher the

31:21

supply-

31:22

the lower the demand, the

31:24

lower the supply. Or the higher

31:27

the supply. Uh, yes. Think about

31:29

it as a yin and a yang. Yes, the higher

31:31

the supply, the lower the demand.

31:34

The lower the supply, the higher the demand.

31:36

Correct. People like rare things. Exactly.

31:39

The more rare it is, the more in demand it

31:42

becomes. Right. Or the higher price you can

31:44

fetch for it. But if it's everywhere, it's

31:46

cheaper and nobody wants it. Exactly, because everyone

31:48

has it. Right. Precisely.

31:51

So this is a case of that. Now, before we go too far, I want to note

31:53

this tree is not- it's not

31:55

endangered. It's not threatened.

31:58

We have plenty

31:58

of them and like they even grow into-

31:59

Portland if we just go

32:02

to a place where there's one nearby You

32:05

will find it. It grows all over the place.

32:07

Okay, however It doesn't

32:09

grow like we said in like a timber waste. We're not

32:11

producing it in a mass market

32:14

kind of situation commercial Yeah,

32:16

factory farm precisely. Okay, so

32:19

this tree is of Very

32:21

high value and so people

32:24

if they can they're saying

32:26

let's not cut

32:26

this tree down We want

32:28

to save it for future use

32:30

maybe we want this tree to get bigger to fetch a larger

32:33

price But

32:34

also it doesn't grow in forest

32:36

situations So we're not even really thinking about

32:38

it like it's it's

32:39

on radars, but as a specialty

32:41

thing Hmm. So what

32:43

we're really talking about today is the idea of

32:47

Conservation. Hmm.

32:48

I want to talk about conservation in a sense.

32:51

That is the environmental sense but pitted

32:53

against the idea of Preservation

32:56

see I know Preservation

32:59

conservation. Yeah, I have

33:01

no I don't even have an inkling of

33:04

how these terms differ in Definition

33:07

you are so like not alone

33:09

in that. Okay. Yeah, they seem like the same thing

33:11

They do and they're used interchangeably so

33:14

often that mistakenly, right? It mistakenly

33:17

by some people who don't know the difference and they're

33:19

just like yeah preservation. Yeah. Yeah, we should preserve

33:21

these trees Yeah, we should conserve this area

33:23

right hundred percent but

33:26

What they don't know is that there are other people

33:28

who are using it in a very specific Way,

33:32

okay in those very specific ways In

33:34

fact, there's a an article that

33:36

we have posted on our website about this and our

33:39

show notes It's called a great

33:41

introduction to preservation versus conservation

33:44

on our website The actual name of the article is something

33:46

completely different that website is arbitrary

33:48

pod calm That is right

33:50

and find all the show notes you can go find all those show

33:52

notes click on the show Sign up for our newsletter

33:55

Buy some merch you do whatever you want there. It's really it's

33:58

really it's an open playground look at nice

34:00

photos of Casey and I so you can see our faces.

34:02

Exactly, really nice photos taken by some of our friends.

34:04

It's really good. That's right. So the name

34:06

of it is Conservation or Preservation, a

34:09

qualitative study of the conceptual foundations

34:11

of natural resource management. Bluh, what?

34:14

Eh-heh, exactly. And that's just

34:16

the title. Funny

34:21

you say that, Alex. The introduction

34:23

to this is so, so

34:25

lovely to read. Oh, good. The

34:27

rest of it is talking about a forest and

34:31

how they should manage it in northern Georgia.

34:35

And it's a wonderful conversation.

34:38

It's a little specific for what we're talking

34:40

about, but that first introduction, you would

34:42

love it. I read through it and I'm like, this is perfect.

34:45

This is why I, in fact, specifically wanted

34:47

to include it in our notes. Wonderful. It's by

34:49

Ben A. Nier and Elizabeth

34:52

A. Corley. And they

34:55

are, they give an

34:56

introduction. And basically say, what

34:58

exactly is the difference between these two things

35:01

and how do people see

35:02

it? Because they've

35:04

noted there are these two technical definitions,

35:08

but

35:09

it's used interchangeably potentially,

35:12

and they're really asking this question, is it and how

35:14

much so by the rest of the world? Or

35:16

rather the, let's say the muggles who aren't

35:18

technically

35:20

doing this work. Yeah. Can I, before

35:23

we get into their definitions, can

35:25

I give sort of my definition

35:28

of what I think these things are? And

35:30

then we can see, maybe the listeners

35:33

have a similar quandary, like I've

35:35

been using those interchangeably. Oh yeah. And

35:37

see how close I am. Yes, okay,

35:40

let's go. Let's see what you got. So I think

35:42

that conservation, if you're

35:45

conserving something, you're being conservative.

35:49

So maybe like conservation is

35:51

like, or sustainable practices,

35:54

but you're still using the thing. Yeah,

35:56

yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah.

35:58

And then preservation.

35:59

I

36:00

think maybe is more like you

36:03

know people protecting like old-growth forests

36:05

from being logged like just protecting

36:07

the thing not using it just stopping

36:10

the Destruction or the

36:12

use of the of the area letting

36:15

it be Wild letting

36:17

it be natural without human

36:19

influence. I only have one

36:22

thing to say you're perfectly right The

36:30

note Wow, and you know I don't Yeah,

36:35

no that that is literally it okay,

36:37

you totally hit the nail on the head Well, I'm sorry if

36:39

I if I spoiled the rest of our episode.

36:42

Yeah, we might as well just go to the game I guess

36:46

No, just kidding Alex, I ever not

36:49

have more to say fair point so

36:52

it is the idea

36:55

that you specifically enunciated

36:57

is the sustainable

37:00

use By

37:02

and for people yeah, well

37:04

you didn't say specifically for people, but you said so that

37:06

we can use it I'm glad it was implied. Yeah,

37:09

that's conservation exactly okay conservation.

37:11

We are conserving

37:12

it I I think the best example

37:14

would say we're gonna

37:15

use less water We're gonna conserve water so

37:18

that we have water to use later.

37:20

We're still using the water Yes,

37:22

but we're using less of it exactly

37:24

we're

37:25

essentially making it a sustainable

37:27

use then preservation

37:29

is the exact exactly what

37:31

you said where you are Preserving

37:35

something as it is for its own sake

37:39

Well rather maybe not for its own sake but just

37:42

not for our use sure

37:44

and this is also something that we're gonna have a discussion

37:47

I you'll probably not have time so you have to

37:49

check in on the patreon Wow But

37:52

it is the talk about what are the ethics

37:54

of that hmm? Specifically preserving

37:56

something as it is as we see it right

37:59

now today. Yeah

37:59

unchanged. Sure. Or perhaps

38:02

better said unchanging.

38:04

But everything changes over

38:06

time. Sure. So anyway, then

38:08

we don't have time to jump into that. In fact, today

38:11

we're only gonna have enough time to talk about conservation.

38:13

Next week we're gonna talk more about the idea

38:15

of preservation. How fun! A twofer!

38:18

We got a twofer today. Amazing. And our

38:20

twofer is gonna start back in

38:22

the progressive era. Wow.

38:26

Do you remember that that

38:28

week or two in U.S. world history

38:31

when you were just past the 1800s

38:34

and you started learning about Teddy Roosevelt, the bully

38:36

bullpit, and preserving

38:39

and conserving the American landscape?

38:42

No. Most people don't. It was so uninteresting.

38:44

It was the age that immediately followed

38:48

the Gilded Age. Okay. So

38:50

you think all the the robber barons, yeah, yeah,

38:52

the folks of the world, this is...

38:55

Late 18s, early 19s. Precisely. Okay,

38:57

guild means that everybody, there are a few people that

38:59

got, you know, it's the reason we're

39:01

in the position we're in today, where there are like

39:03

a few billionaires and everybody else has

39:06

almost nothing. Yes. Now don't get this

39:08

confused with the Gilded Age where

39:10

we just cut off all of the testicles

39:12

of the world.

39:15

Gilded Age.

39:21

That was good.

39:27

So the Gilded Age

39:30

was a, was

39:33

this era of exactly that. You had rampant

39:36

industrialization and privatization

39:39

of everything. There was no regulation

39:41

on the world, at least the

39:44

United States. Funny enough, this

39:46

kind of process had already happened in places

39:49

like Europe, but then during

39:51

the last vestiges and kind

39:54

of the industrialization meets

39:57

colonization, we started

39:59

getting these just destructions

40:03

of the land in such a degree that everyone

40:05

was like oh my god what is happening

40:08

and we started getting this these

40:10

ideas these people who were writing

40:13

books like the jungle Upton Sinclair

40:15

yes who's saying look at how awful

40:17

this is like these giant rich

40:20

millionaires which at that point time was

40:22

essentially a trillionaire they were

40:24

using all these different

40:27

labor practices that literally caused people

40:29

to die days later but they

40:31

were making their money yeah it's the classic

40:33

sweatshop the triangle factory

40:36

fire if I remember so it's something like that and

40:38

so you found like these social

40:42

these social people the social what

40:45

is I'm trying to think it would just be social justice today

40:47

I'm trying to get a good term but they essentially

40:50

activists they were activists back then

40:52

yeah and they were saying look at the squalor

40:55

all these people are living in look at all these forests

40:57

that are just completely falling away and oil

41:00

going into the rivers and like everything was just completely

41:02

awful ahead of their time they were way ahead

41:05

of the time which is why they were called the preglossis

41:08

aha okay now it's all coming together

41:10

world history is us

41:13

now it's all coming together US history Alex yeah

41:15

okay so they it what's

41:18

his name yes

41:20

yes yes yes there David

41:22

John Muir yes David

41:25

Muir is the the newscaster oh

41:27

yeah okay yes you got John Muir right yeah

41:30

yeah yeah John Muir is that one of those guys

41:32

he is one of those guys

41:34

cool now

41:35

he is

41:36

one of those guys but

41:39

interestingly we are not talking

41:41

about what he does because John

41:43

Muir for all the things that he was

41:45

it was good and bad is

41:48

a preservationist this

41:50

is why everyone loves John Muir

41:53

yeah you just spit no one likes

41:55

a preservationist yes he was a famous preservationist,

42:01

as opposed to Gifford Pinchot

42:04

and Theodore Roosevelt.

42:07

They were conservationists. I

42:09

see. Oh really? Yeah.

42:11

Okay. And this is, you know, I read that biography

42:14

and I don't think I even made it to that part of

42:16

Teddy Roosevelt. I had to, I, maybe I still

42:18

own it. I didn't know that. I got like

42:21

two quarters, half way

42:23

through this Teddy Roosevelt biography.

42:26

It was a beast. It would be a

42:28

beast just like old Theodore Roosevelt himself.

42:30

Incredible life that man had.

42:32

Wild. Like you, everyone should read up on

42:35

him. He is, he is a good president.

42:37

He's a great president. I actually really appreciate

42:39

Teddy Roosevelt. The

42:40

politics of the social classes

42:43

there were still really rough because

42:45

they're all Republicans and they'd started to think

42:47

saying their way from their

42:50

previous generations, big win,

42:52

which was the civil war. Lincoln

42:55

was a Republican. Republicans used

42:57

to be 100% on the

42:59

let's get rid of slavery side, but

43:02

then they started to kind of back down

43:04

when it said, well, let's give rights to these people too. And they're

43:06

like, whoa,

43:10

I'll meet you at women and that's as

43:12

far as I can go. So they

43:15

started distancing themselves from

43:17

these certain social things, but

43:19

there are other social things like the squalor

43:21

of the world that they were very much on

43:23

board with. So to focus

43:26

in on conservation, this

43:28

is the main way

43:31

that people think about these two things. And

43:33

what you'll find a lot of articles

43:36

kind of saying, where did it all start? It all

43:38

boils down to a big

43:41

disagreement between people like John Muir,

43:43

specifically John Muir and

43:45

what he, his group of people, which

43:47

were the Sierra club.

43:50

You may be familiar with them today. I don't

43:52

know the Sierra club. Oh, the Sierra club. It's

43:54

a huge conservation preservation group

43:57

that was founded by

43:59

John Muir.

43:59

year and he basically argued that we

44:02

need to make national parks

44:04

everywhere. Wow! John Muir

44:06

started that discussion. Yeah he totally did. He was...

44:09

Other people were certainly involved. I mean Theodore

44:11

Roosevelt is what he's the

44:13

one who made the first national park which was Yellowstone.

44:16

Okay.

44:16

But then on the other side of that,

44:19

maybe it wasn't him because I thought it was a it

44:21

was a park in the 1800s.

44:23

Roosevelt was the president in the 1900s.

44:26

I feel like I know it wasn't LBJ.

44:30

No that was way later. Is it Bill Clinton?

44:32

I think it was Bill Clinton. The three

44:35

presidents I know. LBJ

44:38

Roosevelt. And well you know there's two Roosevelt's

44:40

so you just get a shoe in for four. Right. Well

44:42

done. On

44:45

the other side of this kind of argument

44:48

was Gifford Pinchot. Now Gifford Pinchot

44:50

is very famous for being the very

44:52

first leader of the nascent

44:55

program the US Forest

44:57

Service. Ah what does nascent

44:59

mean? Nacent means it's new. Okay.

45:01

It's a new fledgling kind of thing. Okay. So

45:04

the Forest Service was started under

45:08

Mr. Pinchot and if you

45:10

go just north of Portland here you'll go into the Gifford

45:13

Pinchot National Forest which is a big

45:15

thing that he would have been 100% on board

45:17

with. Alright. So

45:19

his entire

45:20

scheme was to

45:22

take what essentially is European

45:25

forest management and applying

45:27

it to the

45:28

vast forest reserves that we had

45:31

in the western United States. Interesting. Now

45:33

it specifically needs to be noted

45:36

that this is European

45:38

style management of their

45:40

forests. Is that specifically German? I mean

45:43

we've talked about Germans being kind

45:45

of the forefathers of Germany and French.

45:47

Yeah. Okay. So what they were very very

45:49

good at is managing their forests

45:52

because they had cut them

45:54

down and they were like whoa

45:56

we ran out of everything.

45:58

We live off of these.

45:59

things, let's hire

46:02

people to be very specific and intentional

46:04

with how we're going to grow these trees, how much we're going

46:06

to take, how we're going to grow them back and create

46:09

this sustainable forested situation.

46:11

It's very logical, isn't it? Very logical,

46:13

very well done. And it was by necessity

46:16

they had to figure this out or else they would just

46:18

not have any trees anymore. Their forests

46:20

would just disappear and they would lose this spectacular

46:23

resource. Take

46:25

that over to the United States where we had uncut

46:27

forests and we had companies

46:29

coming through and just demolishing

46:32

forests like nobody's business. I can already tell

46:34

this conversation is going to make me mad. It

46:37

very well makes. Can you see it happening on my

46:39

face? Yeah, I can feel the pressure building.

46:41

It's getting tense. So at the time

46:44

it wasn't bad but his entire

46:46

point is like Gifford Pinchot.

46:49

His entire point was let's

46:52

manage these forests in this

46:54

European way. That said, perfectly

46:57

straight lines with these perfectly square things,

46:59

go through,

47:00

cut the trees and then replant

47:02

them or let them grow back and then you have

47:04

this sustainable youth

47:06

over a long period of time. He

47:09

would say the forest reserves are there

47:11

to be used. They are

47:13

not there to be left alone

47:16

as parks. We're going to go through and we're going to manage

47:18

them and cut them down and we're going to have this constant

47:20

flow of resources. Now he

47:22

also, because he's in Europe, is very

47:25

much someone who's like, hey, this should go to these small

47:27

mom and pop mills and forest

47:29

companies so that everyone would

47:31

come down and be able

47:33

to just very nicely and gently get

47:35

all the stuff that they need

47:36

and then you'd have this nice

47:38

economy that

47:39

starts small and then builds

47:41

bigger.

47:42

He kind of fast forward and go

47:45

read through the Wikipedia page about this. About

47:47

Gifford? The politics of the time

47:49

where there's also these non-progressives

47:53

who are saying, nah, nah, nah, girl, I'm going to go

47:55

cut all these trees out. I'm going to make a bunch

47:57

of money and I'm going to mine everything.

48:00

I'm gonna make a bunch of money and

48:02

so there's like these political systems

48:04

and trusts, you know This is again the the

48:07

the trust busting era all those famous,

48:09

you know lines that everyone had with Justice

48:12

and things. Yeah, so it seems like

48:14

there's a spectrum here on

48:17

one end of the spectrum are

48:19

the the like Capital

48:22

venture ists who are like let's clear

48:25

cut every fucking thing make

48:28

as much money as possible Who gives a shit about

48:30

what happens to nature exactly? It's it's the

48:32

it's the government land So we don't pay any taxes on

48:34

it. Yeah, they'll build the roads to get in there We'll

48:36

cut all the trees down and then we're out of there licky

48:39

split. Love it That's

48:41

the character talking not me And

48:43

then in the middle you have people like Gifford

48:46

Pinch on pin show pin show

48:49

who are like, yeah, let's cut it. Let's cut the

48:51

trees down, but let's do it responsibly

48:54

Let's do it Replenishably,

48:58

what's the word I'm looking for? Is

49:02

the greatest the greatest good for the greatest amount

49:05

of people the greatest the greatest use on

49:07

the far I'll say the far left.

49:10

Oh, yes, please just for the purposes of the conversation

49:13

You have John Muir who's like no, no, no,

49:16

no you guys are you guys are so

49:18

far from what you know Like

49:21

the whole point of this so it's just just to keep everything

49:23

how it is. Yeah build around nature

49:26

Exactly. It has value

49:28

in and of itself. Yes, not just cutting

49:30

it down and selling it for money Yeah, but

49:33

the fact that it exists at all is Valuable

49:37

exactly. Wow. I think I like

49:39

John out of all these people lean towards

49:41

John Gifford, you know

49:44

also the forestry service is important, right? Oh

49:46

my god Yeah, it was it was very important But

49:48

what's interesting and there's another book that I want

49:50

everyone to read. It's called the Big Burn by Timothy

49:54

Egan again Yeah, it's

49:56

about a huge fire in Montana in

49:58

Idaho, that's a good title then Okay.

50:02

A very good time. Sorry. You

50:04

can also

50:06

find it on our website, two

50:08

places, anywhere on our website, or

50:10

you can go back to the Oregon Myrtle page

50:13

if you'd like, and you can read through

50:15

it. Again, we should note though, if you click on that link, it's

50:18

a hot link, and it'll take you to an

50:21

Amazon page? An ironically named

50:23

website, amazon.com. Exactly. So

50:26

that'll give us a little kickback. Just so you know, buy it

50:28

wherever you want, but definitely check the book out if you have the

50:31

opportunity. There you go. So that's

50:33

our spectrum. That's our spectrum. Simplified. Yep.

50:37

Completely arbitrary-fied. Exactly. And

50:39

I think what's reasonable about the way you've kind of phrased

50:42

it is that you have one

50:44

side says, use it all as much

50:46

as we can, we're going to make millions of dollars off this.

50:49

The person in the middle says, how about we don't make millions of dollars,

50:51

we just use the

50:52

resource appropriately for as long as

50:55

possible for as many people as

50:57

we can.

50:58

Then you have someone on the other side who says, this

51:00

has a completely different thing

51:01

entirely. Yeah.

51:04

There are a lot of ethics that are happening here.

51:07

Some on one side of that spectrum is completely unethical,

51:10

but then other people might say that the other side of that spectrum

51:12

also is unethical. Sure. Where

51:15

they're like, we need this, we need these trees,

51:17

we need this resource to build our

51:19

houses. We need it to use

51:21

it for fuel, for things like that. It is

51:23

certainly a matter of perspective. It really is. So

51:26

what Gifford can show and what conservation

51:28

is today and kind of why we're talking about the Oregon

51:31

Myrtle is that we

51:32

are looking at this Oregon Myrtle and

51:34

conservation today, and

51:37

this is also in that same article I was telling

51:39

you about, where I said it's very

51:41

politicized also. Is that

51:43

Republicans are since like 2003 are

51:47

being

51:47

like, we are conservationists.

51:49

And they're using that term specifically

51:52

as opposed to

51:53

preservationists. Because

51:55

they want to say that

51:57

we are all for conserving our natural resources.

51:59

resources, which means

52:02

using our natural resources,

52:05

which is totally great.

52:07

That is what we

52:10

need to do sometimes. But

52:13

you should not, and what a lot of people are arguing

52:15

is that you should not go so far as to say that is

52:17

what they are

52:17

there for. Those trees are

52:19

not there for us to be cutting them down.

52:22

So the conservation

52:25

ethic right now in the United States is

52:27

more on line of the organ and myrtle where,

52:30

oh, whoa, whoa, let's plant these myrtles. Let's

52:33

let them grow

52:34

to cut them down, to turn them into nice

52:37

pieces of wood.

52:38

But we want to do that for as long as possible because A, they

52:40

are nice trees, but B, this wood product

52:42

that we get from them is really special.

52:43

It is really cool

52:45

and we just want to keep using

52:47

them. So we are trying to conserve. In fact,

52:49

I heard years ago that we weren't even allowed to cut

52:51

them down for a certain time, but I couldn't

52:53

find any evidence of that, so I don't know who told

52:56

me. But the idea

52:58

is kind of the same where we want to

52:59

conserve certain things

53:02

for the use of people. And

53:04

that is kind of the crux of this ethical

53:07

kind of argument or this side

53:09

of this land ethic is

53:11

the idea of using it,

53:13

rather the idea that it is only

53:14

good to be saved in

53:16

order to be used. Well, Casey, I am very

53:18

excited to

53:19

learn about preservation. It is going to be a

53:21

lot of fun. And particularly

53:24

regarding its juxtaposition

53:26

to conservation. I keep wanting

53:28

to say conservatism. Don't

53:31

do that. They are not

53:33

a one for one. I know, I know. Yeah,

53:37

but that will be next week. We are going

53:38

to have to wait until next week on that because Alex, we are running out

53:40

of time, Ting.

53:41

I hope we talk about some John Muir. I am going to

53:43

have to read some John Muir in the meantime. Oh, yeah. We

53:46

are going to talk about John Muir and we are going to talk about something that

53:48

I love

53:48

so dearly and it is dams. All

53:51

right.

53:52

Yeah. We have to review

53:54

this tree. We do. It is contractual.

53:57

But we got to do it after a few commercials. We will

53:59

be right back.

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back with completely

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arbitrary.

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Welcome back to Completely

55:43

Arbitrary. That

55:45

was our discussion of con...concert...conserve...

55:52

...ation. Conservation, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm

55:54

overthinking it. Casey, it's time

55:56

for a review of this tree.

56:00

Here's how it works. We're gonna have some final thoughts on the

56:02

tree and give it a rating of 0 to 10. Golden

56:04

Combs of Honor,

56:07

Casey. Yes, Alex. As our resident

56:10

expert.

56:11

The Oregon Mayertel.

56:14

I love this

56:14

tree. I love it for a couple different

56:16

reasons.

56:17

So, namely, I love to

56:19

teach people how to identify it. Mm-hmm.

56:21

I love to be hanging out, having a good time, and

56:24

be like, Hey, here we go. I'm just walking over and then just

56:26

pop something out of the ground. Everyone's like, what are you

56:28

doing? I'm like, oh, hey, smell this. Everyone's like, whoa.

56:31

That's a good strong ID characteristic.

56:33

Very fun. And it's scent-based,

56:35

which is one of the strongest, like, senses

56:38

associated with memory. Yes, that's totally true. It's

56:40

totally true. They're beautiful trees. I like their

56:42

leaves because they're very, like, skinny,

56:46

very quintessential, laurel-like leaves.

56:48

They're long and

56:49

skinny with these little drip tips. They're very smooth.

56:52

Their edges are entire. They're just a

56:54

handsome tree. Again,

56:56

I love the bark. I love

56:58

that they are randomly found

57:00

around everywhere. So if you go down

57:03

into State Park, National

57:05

Park, you just go down along the coast, you'll

57:07

be walking and hanging. You'll be like, whoa, look at that

57:10

funny little thing. They just kind of come out of nowhere.

57:13

So I think they're a tree that are not necessarily

57:16

underplanted because they kind of see themselves in, but

57:18

they're not invasive in a technical sense because

57:20

they are kind of native in this area.

57:23

But they might be expanding their range

57:24

as we've expanded their range. So

57:26

I'm going to give them... I'm going to give them...

57:28

How

57:30

much would I... Where would I... 7.9.

57:32

7.9. Wow. I know.

57:35

I thought it was pretty high. Okay, good. All

57:37

right. Then I have no more justification. Oh,

57:41

anyway. 7.9 Golden Stones of Honor

57:44

for the Oregon Myrtle from Casey Clab. I do like

57:46

this tree. I think it's beautiful. All right. That's

57:48

what I have to say. Okay. What are your thoughts?

57:51

The Oregon Myrtle by Alex

57:53

Croson. I love this plan. That's

57:57

how you start every single one, Alex. I

58:00

am going to approach this tree from

58:03

the wood angle. Because

58:05

I think it is its most pronounced feature.

58:08

It is. It's kind of wacky, interesting,

58:11

flowy looking wood. I'm

58:17

not a huge fan. Of the wood? Of

58:19

the wood. Of the wood? Yeah. Have

58:22

you... I think it's a little early

58:24

2000s looking. Oh my

58:26

God. It's a little passe. This is a

58:28

little in sync for you? I think it's a little tacky.

58:31

I think it's a little... I know Casey's

58:34

aghast. His jaw literally

58:36

dropped. I'm stunned. I think it's

58:38

just a little... And I know we're gonna get an email

58:40

saying, I could show you some tables

58:43

that you would totally change your

58:45

mind. But Nick Offerman built

58:47

a table of organ myrtle and gave

58:49

it to Stephen Colbert. Live

58:51

on TV. Good for Nick Offerman. That's

58:54

so great that he has different tastes than mine.

58:57

But my tastes dictate that

58:59

the organ myrtle looks a little tacky. I'm sorry.

59:02

Wow. It's true. For me

59:04

it's true. For me it's true. That is my opinion.

59:08

That is my opinion. I have said

59:10

nothing for or against this ad.

59:12

Oh yeah. Yeah.

59:16

Tragedy. I don't know. It is

59:18

tragic. Not feeling inspired by this one. Could you not imagine

59:20

playing a guitar made of myrtle wood? I

59:22

think... I do... Specifically

59:25

the photo of the guitar made of myrtle wood.

59:28

I was like I would never be seen

59:31

with that guitar. I'm sorry. I'm

59:33

stunned. You don't need to apologize Alex. As you know

59:35

your owns are your cone. It's a little too

59:38

like... I think the person... I'm

59:41

gonna offend someone here but that's fine.

59:43

I think the person who buys the myrtle wood guitar

59:46

it probably like keeps it on display

59:49

and like doesn't really play it all that often. Oh

59:51

wow. And it's like a collector's piece. Like

59:53

I don't think it's like... It

59:56

doesn't stun me. And

59:58

I also it's not like... tone wood

1:00:00

I don't think so I don't think it's like practical

1:00:03

for the instrument itself I

1:00:06

think it's like a decoration sort of

1:00:08

thing so you don't like this tree because it's just decorative

1:00:12

potentially yeah but I also don't like how

1:00:14

it looks exactly so yeah

1:00:16

one of its only functions is to be decorative

1:00:18

and I don't like that how it looks okay

1:00:21

so what use does it have to me

1:00:23

right very fair 5.8 you 5.8 yeah

1:00:26

stunning I know well

1:00:28

I knew that you would be I knew that you would be upset

1:00:30

we're all upset I think everyone's upset that

1:00:33

was our review of

1:00:35

the Oregon Myrtle we hope you enjoyed it tune in

1:00:37

next week for part 2 Casey

1:00:41

it is time to play a game Casey

1:00:43

this week we are playing a game

1:00:45

that we've tried a couple times okay we

1:00:47

have a new version here oh this is the

1:00:50

six degrees

1:00:52

of wicked treat yeah alternate

1:00:55

title the sticks the

1:00:57

trees of wicked treat yeah

1:01:01

let's go with the let's go the

1:01:03

let's go with the office like five puns in one

1:01:05

you know yeah exactly in every single one

1:01:07

of them are gold that's value

1:01:09

for money if you ask me here's

1:01:12

how it works Casey I've gone to wicked

1:01:14

treaty excuse me Wikipedia org

1:01:18

I have clicked on a random article you

1:01:21

and I have six hyperlinks

1:01:25

to reach a species of

1:01:27

tree okay do I need to get this on my computer

1:01:29

no I'm gonna be sort of I'm

1:01:31

gonna be sort of moderating and reading these things oh

1:01:34

yes okay that is okay okay okay okay okay

1:01:37

what is

1:01:39

our random article

1:01:41

our random article is very interesting okay

1:01:44

King Sunny a day discography

1:01:47

so this is the artist King Sunny a day oh

1:01:49

who's a Nigerian musician

1:01:52

I have never heard of King Sunny a day I

1:01:55

have not either okay but this is their

1:01:57

we get it can we get a little of the music that might help

1:01:59

No, sorry.

1:02:04

It's fine, Alex. I get it. I just want to play the game. So

1:02:06

this is their discography, Casey. Okay. This

1:02:09

is the discography of the modern Nigerian

1:02:11

world music artist, King Sunny

1:02:13

Ade. Oh, world music. I got that. Okay.

1:02:16

Yes. Whose

1:02:18

career has spanned for more than 40 years. And

1:02:20

guess how many recorded studio

1:02:23

albums this guy has? Ooh, for 40 years?

1:02:25

And we'll play 25. Quintuplet, 123.

1:02:32

What? Yeah. Oh my God.

1:02:35

So this, a very prolific musician, spanning

1:02:38

back to 1967. So

1:02:41

our hyperlinks available to us here

1:02:43

are discography, Nigerian

1:02:47

world music, and the artist

1:02:49

himself, King Sunny Ade. See,

1:02:51

the first thing I want to do is click on the world

1:02:53

music. Okay. But

1:02:56

I don't think that's going to be very good. Well, that could bring

1:02:58

us to some instruments and then some woods. Yeah.

1:03:01

Okay. And what are we trying to get to? A species

1:03:03

of tree. A species of tree. Any tree. Yep. A

1:03:06

species. So I think it would be either that

1:03:08

or Nigerian. Yeah. I think we should try

1:03:11

Nigerian. I agree. Okay. Let's

1:03:13

go to Nigerian. Click one. Nigerian. I

1:03:17

should say Nigeria. Okay. Okay. So now

1:03:19

we're on the page for Nigeria. Ooh. Officially,

1:03:24

the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a

1:03:26

country in West Africa. It is situated between the

1:03:28

Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea

1:03:31

to the south. Now, the Sahel is where you

1:03:33

get a lot of umbrella thorn. It's the

1:03:35

kind of plains area below the

1:03:37

Sahara. Casey, should we click on that one?

1:03:40

Yeah. Oh, definitely. Okay. Let's go to Sahel.

1:03:43

Go to Sahel. We're going to take you straight to Sahel. Kind

1:03:46

of sounds great. I love that region. It's really beautiful. SAHE double

1:03:48

hockey sticks. Yeah. Single

1:03:51

hockey stick. So that's two

1:03:53

we've clicked on. All right. Second click

1:03:56

Sahel. The Sahel region or

1:03:59

Sahelian. Acacia savanna. Oh

1:04:03

baby let's get on that savanna.

1:04:05

It's a biogeographic region in Africa.

1:04:08

It is the transition zone between

1:04:10

the more humid Sudanian

1:04:13

savannas to its south and the drier

1:04:15

Sahara to the north. It has

1:04:17

a hot steppe

1:04:19

climate and stretches

1:04:21

across the southernmost latitudes of North Africa.

1:04:24

Those are actually the workouts that I do hot steps. I

1:04:28

knew it was coming. So here

1:04:33

we have you know we have Africa

1:04:35

which is maybe taking a step backwards in terms

1:04:37

of the game. I think it would be. Transition

1:04:40

zone which is like you know that's

1:04:42

a that's a an ecological

1:04:45

zone right? Yeah I think it would be. We also

1:04:47

have the Sudanian savannas. I

1:04:50

like the Sudanian savanna. Okay

1:04:52

let's go to Sudan savannas. That's a little bit more

1:04:54

specific. I think we can get there. And I think there there

1:04:56

would be more trees there than the Sahara.

1:04:59

I think you're right. There's one tree

1:05:01

I know of in the Sahara and that's it. That

1:05:04

was three.

1:05:05

It's hard to find.

1:05:07

That's right. We are on the Sudanian

1:05:10

savanna. Oh right. The Sudan region

1:05:12

is a broad belt of tropical savanna

1:05:16

that runs east and west across the African continent

1:05:18

from the Ethiopian Highlands in the

1:05:20

east to the Atlantic Ocean

1:05:23

in the west. All right. So

1:05:25

weird to have the Atlantic Ocean in the west. Right.

1:05:28

Anyway. So here we have we have tropics.

1:05:30

Yep. We have savanna but we're already kind of

1:05:32

on savanna. Yeah. We

1:05:35

have Atlantic Ocean which probably would be

1:05:38

taking a step back also. I think you're right. We

1:05:40

also have bio region as a

1:05:42

potential. Ooh and we're at four or three.

1:05:44

This is our third one. We just had our third one

1:05:46

so this will be our fourth. A bio

1:05:48

region would be kind of fun because we could get to a very

1:05:51

specific tree bio region.

1:05:53

Yeah. But then that also the

1:05:56

we talked about

1:05:58

what was the other one? Savannah's

1:05:59

Sudan? What was it? We're on

1:06:02

Sudanian Savannah. There's also

1:06:04

African continent, Ethiopian Highlands. Yeah.

1:06:07

That would almost certainly get us to a tree. Yeah, they

1:06:09

very well could, couldn't they? But bioregion

1:06:12

might be a little more broad

1:06:14

in a good way. Let's try that. Let's try the bioregion.

1:06:16

That's number four. We're on bioregion. All right, number four,

1:06:19

bioregion, everyone. Now, if you're playing

1:06:21

along and you've already got there, don't tell us. Yeah.

1:06:24

This would be a fun game to play along with. Yeah. Okay,

1:06:28

Casey, a bioregion is an ecologically

1:06:31

and geographically defined area that is smaller

1:06:33

than a biogeographic realm, but

1:06:36

larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem.

1:06:39

Honestly, I don't like

1:06:41

this. Yeah, this doesn't look great. I

1:06:44

think we can do this. Well, I mean, also, I don't like

1:06:46

the idea of a bioregion.

1:06:49

I get it. We got to categorize everything,

1:06:51

but it's so superficial. And

1:06:53

everyone will go smaller and smaller

1:06:55

and smaller and be like, well, this is a completely undocumented

1:06:58

bioregion or bio... Oh.

1:07:01

And it's like a single rock in the middle of the place.

1:07:04

I'm like, oh, guys. Fascinating bioregion.

1:07:07

Exactly. So, yeah, we're at... We

1:07:09

have ecology, basically.

1:07:12

Okay. The World Wide Fund

1:07:14

for Nature. Ooh. Ecosystem.

1:07:18

Yeah. We also have

1:07:19

environmentalists, which is like a person.

1:07:21

Yeah. See, what I would want to do is

1:07:24

like be able to scroll down to find a list

1:07:27

of the bioregions. Well, Casey, funny you should

1:07:29

ask. We have them. A huge list. Ooh.

1:07:32

Okay. Just pick me a forest one. Okay.

1:07:34

Well, we have... Let's see. Let's see.

1:07:36

Let's see. The Central Andes. Okay.

1:07:40

Okay. The Caribbean. Okay.

1:07:42

Okay. Oh, see. I

1:07:45

think Caribbean might get us there because I believe it

1:07:47

talks about the flora and the fauna.

1:07:50

All right, Alex. I say we just choose one. This

1:07:52

will be a number five, right? Oh, Amazonia.

1:07:55

Ooh. Let's go to Amazonia. Okay. We're going to Amazon. Ooh.

1:07:57

That might be rough. This is our fifth

1:07:59

one. Okay. We have

1:08:01

one more. The Amazon biome contains

1:08:04

the Amazon rainforest. Exactly.

1:08:07

Now, if we can scroll down

1:08:09

and find a tree that

1:08:10

they say is in the

1:08:13

Amazon rainforest, we've done

1:08:15

it. Well, let's see, Casey. If

1:08:17

I go down to moist forest,

1:08:21

we have the Amazon basin contains

1:08:23

several large areas of moist forest. Okay.

1:08:26

These are the, then there's a huge list

1:08:28

of names of moist forest.

1:08:31

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

1:08:33

Casey, there's, I don't

1:08:35

know how to say this. Oh, no.

1:08:39

It's too big. There's one tree

1:08:41

that is hyperlinked in this

1:08:45

paragraph. What is it? I put,

1:08:48

I put invisible quotes around

1:08:50

tree because it is bamboo.

1:08:53

Oh, no. We couldn't possibly, right? We

1:08:55

couldn't possibly. No, no, we

1:08:57

can't. If we do, then everyone

1:08:59

would stop listening. So

1:09:02

now we have six. It needs to be on the sixth

1:09:04

one. I'm going to say that we can land on a sixth.

1:09:07

Okay. And we have one more to get to the tree.

1:09:09

Oh, okay. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, uh, it's

1:09:11

like rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Yes,

1:09:14

exactly. Okay. Uh, we also

1:09:16

have a link to the terra firma forest.

1:09:19

Uh, uh, firm ground forest.

1:09:22

Yeah. Uh-huh. Bamboo and palm

1:09:24

forest. Maybe the terra

1:09:26

firma forest would get us there because

1:09:28

it is a literal forest. We're right now

1:09:30

we're just on the Amazon biome. Yeah, yeah,

1:09:32

yeah. Let's do it. Okay. We're on terra firma

1:09:35

forest. Oh, this was a link

1:09:37

to later in the page.

1:09:39

Oh, well that doesn't count. No, that

1:09:41

does not count. Excellent. Oh my God. We

1:09:44

do have a link to high

1:09:46

forests. Okay. To tropical

1:09:49

moist forest. Okay. To

1:09:51

peat swamp forests. Okay. Should

1:09:53

we go to peat swamp forests? I also

1:09:56

jungle. If we, uh, well,

1:09:58

no, either

1:09:58

one of them would work.

1:10:00

Jungle? Well, theoretically, yeah, they're all gonna have trees

1:10:02

on it, right? Let's go to jungle. See, if we can do this

1:10:04

and we can prove, in fact, that everything does have to do with

1:10:07

trees, including Nigerian artists. That's

1:10:09

right. That is kind of the point of this game. Let's

1:10:12

click it. Okay. Number

1:10:15

six. We are now on a page for jungle, so we must

1:10:17

find a tree here. A jungle is a land

1:10:19

covered with dense forests and tangled

1:10:21

vegetation, usually in tropical climates.

1:10:24

Oh, Alex,

1:10:27

we failed horribly. Hold on, we

1:10:29

haven't failed. Monsoon forests

1:10:32

and mangroves

1:10:35

are commonly referred to as jungles of this

1:10:37

type.

1:10:38

Now, they might be talking about a

1:10:40

mangrove. See, this is what I thought,

1:10:43

but when I click on mangrove, here we

1:10:45

are. A mangrove is a shrub or

1:10:47

tree that grows mainly in the coastal, serene, or

1:10:49

brackish water! Alex,

1:10:54

does it have on the right side the species?

1:11:01

Because, remember, there are many

1:11:03

different mangroves. We

1:11:06

have the black mangrove, we have the red mangrove.

1:11:08

I think there might be a blue mangrove.

1:11:12

We didn't do it.

1:11:14

This is generic mangrove.

1:11:16

I don't know if that counts.

1:11:19

It doesn't count.

1:11:19

No!

1:11:21

All right, Nigerian artists are just a little

1:11:23

too far away. They're

1:11:25

basically there. On this page, there's

1:11:28

a bunch of different species. We would have

1:11:30

to have a seventh click and we can't do that. We

1:11:33

can't do that. That would be inappropriate. Well, we

1:11:35

tried. We got pretty damn close. We were really

1:11:37

good about it, though. At least we got certainly deforestes.

1:11:39

Yeah. This just goes to show

1:11:42

that if you're really dorky

1:11:44

like us, this would be a

1:11:46

fun game to play by yourself. Exactly.

1:11:49

At like 11.30, you can't go to sleep. I

1:11:52

was thinking you were going to say something

1:11:54

completely different. Which is that this

1:11:56

proves that we have a reasonable

1:11:59

premise for our party. Hey,

1:12:03

I also believe that, Casey. That

1:12:06

was the Styx de

1:12:09

Tres of Stichatredia,

1:12:13

so to speak. It is time for our completely

1:12:15

arbitrary Q&A. Disgusting,

1:12:17

Alex. Casey. This week's

1:12:20

question is from Socks. What

1:12:22

up, Socks? It's good to see you again. Hi,

1:12:25

Socks. Socks says, Hi, Casey and Alex.

1:12:27

I work at a board game store in

1:12:30

Sonoma County, California. Hey, I heard that.

1:12:33

We just got news that as

1:12:35

part of the construction outside for the sidewalk,

1:12:39

they have to tear out the big,

1:12:41

beautiful street trees. Casey,

1:12:45

they want to replace them with myrtles.

1:12:49

With crepe myrtles? I do not

1:12:51

like myrtles for many reasons. It's gotta

1:12:53

be a fucking crepe myrtle. I can email

1:12:55

a plant rant if you want. If I email

1:12:57

the city arborist, is there any information

1:13:00

or public suggestion available, or

1:13:03

is it simply up to the powers that be? Thanks. Also,

1:13:05

Alex, if you ever need a DM for arbitrary D&D, I'm

1:13:08

available. Oh, hell yeah.

1:13:10

Hell yeah. All right. Yes.

1:13:13

So what is the best method of approach for Socks? The

1:13:19

best method of approach is tie yourself up

1:13:21

to that tree. And actually, you know what? We

1:13:23

have a newsletter

1:13:23

that we're going to be sending out here in a second.

1:13:25

Give us, get on

1:13:27

our list, or if you're not already on it, get on it now,

1:13:30

because there is an art installation

1:13:32

that my friend Luke did that's literally

1:13:34

on the same exact subject. Wow. Like

1:13:37

to a T. About stopping certain

1:13:39

trees from being planted? Exactly. Not

1:13:42

planted, but removed. Removed? Okay.

1:13:45

So the first thing is don't remove that tree. Like, what are you doing

1:13:47

with the sidewalk that requires that a tree needs to

1:13:49

be removed? If the tree is actively causing

1:13:51

the problem, that is one thing.

1:13:54

I mean, if it's like tearing up the sidewalk. Yeah.

1:13:57

If you can't walk on it and it's like it's not meeting ADA requirements

1:13:59

and that's That's one thing. I've also seen sidewalks

1:14:01

go around trees. Exactly.

1:14:03

Like there are other options. Yeah, and

1:14:06

it's more likely that they're just like well

1:14:08

We got to rebuild the sidewalks. Well, we got to take down those

1:14:10

trees to rebuild the sidewalk. Oh, we'll replant the

1:14:12

tree Yeah, we're cutting one down. We're planting one.

1:14:14

What's the difference? This is a classic case

1:14:16

of throwing the baby out with the bathwater

1:14:18

Exactly, and it's just a classic case of

1:14:21

you can't figure out another solution because the

1:14:23

easiest solution It's just get rid

1:14:26

of everything and start cleaning fresh again. Yeah,

1:14:28

but clean and fresh again is literally

1:14:30

killing our entire planet So

1:14:33

this is a situation where

1:14:35

if the tree is healthy big and there's not a good

1:14:37

reason that it needs to be removed in Order

1:14:39

to rebuild the sidewalk gently take

1:14:42

the broken sidewalk that you're placing up and

1:14:44

then Rebuild it right on top

1:14:47

try to get an arborist there So you can make sure that

1:14:49

you are not completely destroying the tree

1:14:51

because it would be just as bad to

1:14:53

rebuild the sidewalk in a Dumb way and then kill the

1:14:56

tree and now you went through all this effort to save it But

1:14:58

you didn't really put the right effort into it. Now the trees

1:15:00

dead now, you're just you know You

1:15:02

have a dead tree you have to remove anyway That's also

1:15:05

not good But it's better

1:15:07

to retain a big living tree

1:15:10

in order for it to provide

1:15:12

the benefits that you are receiving

1:15:15

Currently, yeah, so Luke Project

1:15:18

is there's a living tree and there's

1:15:20

a dead tree and they just left the dead tree and they said

1:15:22

whatever We're just gonna remove this sidewalk anyway, because

1:15:24

we're rebuilding this section of the the road

1:15:26

for this other thing They

1:15:28

don't need to remove the trees. It's just

1:15:30

yeah Put it next to those trees because we got to rebuild the sidewalk

1:15:33

So one of the trees was already

1:15:34

dead and he painted it the

1:15:36

colors

1:15:36

of a heat map red to

1:15:38

yellow Going up the tree just took spray paint

1:15:41

and spray painted it then on

1:15:43

the ground below it He made

1:15:45

another heat map

1:15:46

where the shade would have been

1:15:49

for that tree But he did it in reds and

1:15:51

yellows

1:15:51

around the dead tree and then he did

1:15:54

Greens around the living tree that they

1:15:56

were gonna remove right next to it. So next

1:15:58

to the tree is

1:15:59

green as it goes out it becomes lighter

1:16:02

green to yellow and then as it

1:16:04

gets closer to the other tree it Transitions

1:16:05

to red down to yellow back

1:16:08

to the tree. Okay,

1:16:09

so essentially he's saying look you have

1:16:11

a dead tree That's not providing any shade and

1:16:13

this area is hot You

1:16:16

have a tree that is providing lovely shade and

1:16:18

it is cool. You live in Sonoma

1:16:20

County It is a county that has way

1:16:23

more hot summers now than

1:16:25

it used to have Maintaining

1:16:28

your trees will help keep your shade Maintaining

1:16:31

your trees will help keep shade along your road

1:16:34

It is the benefits that trees provide it is the

1:16:36

the definition of conservation in this case

1:16:38

because you are conserving your trees For

1:16:41

your literal health. Yeah.

1:16:43

Well Casey

1:16:44

I can have that opinion Yes, but

1:16:47

if I just keep it to myself and

1:16:49

don't speak up nothing is gonna happen

1:16:52

Yes, so how do I get the attention

1:16:54

of the city? To say hey,

1:16:56

we we not just me

1:16:59

or or just me. Yeah, you know that that every

1:17:01

every vote counts or whatever Why

1:17:04

we don't want this to happen send an email email

1:17:07

email

1:17:07

Okay,

1:17:08

put a sign on that tree. So when people

1:17:11

are walking by they're like, oh, wait What someone's

1:17:13

gonna cut down this gorgeous tree and I don't know

1:17:15

again We don't know the specifics this tree might be dead

1:17:17

dying or dangerous It might have some issue with

1:17:19

the sidewalk where they're like, no, no the tree must go

1:17:21

because the sidewalk is important

1:17:24

So ask the questions and see

1:17:26

if it's just some random person

1:17:28

in the sidewalk department who's like, yeah We don't want

1:17:30

to have to deal with this tree when rebuilding

1:17:32

a sidewalk easy route

1:17:35

cut down tree, so you're gonna be calling the

1:17:38

Department of

1:17:40

Urban forestry

1:17:42

or whoever whoever is if there's a

1:17:45

city arborist give them a call Okay, if

1:17:47

there is whatever project the

1:17:49

you know, the Department of Transportation

1:17:51

or public work Whoever's redoing the

1:17:53

sidewalk Oh give them a call. Okay and

1:17:55

ask questions and get the bottom of it Can

1:17:57

you give us a little can you improvise a little?

1:18:00

Script

1:18:01

Casey I've been calling my representatives

1:18:03

a lot recently Yeah When it's something I found

1:18:05

very helpful was to have somebody posted

1:18:07

a script But I could read and fill

1:18:10

in my name and all that gotcha. Can you give a little script?

1:18:12

Yeah, I think so what you might say because

1:18:14

I would call and be like Do

1:18:17

I like this tree? The

1:18:20

what I would say is hey, I

1:18:23

work at the business

1:18:23

Just next door to

1:18:25

where this tree is this tree is

1:18:28

an integral part in getting our customers To

1:18:31

come to our business because it

1:18:33

provides a little bit of shade. It's beautiful

1:18:36

and it is shown scientifically There

1:18:39

are many studies that show if you have more

1:18:41

trees along your streets more

1:18:43

business goes to the adjacent businesses

1:18:46

If this tree is cut down, it's likely we will

1:18:48

see a reduction in our business and an increase

1:18:50

in our Cooling costs because

1:18:52

this tree is no longer providing shade on

1:18:54

our sidewalk and it's gonna radiate onto the

1:18:57

building So

1:18:57

on and so forth this tree is

1:19:00

important to us

1:19:01

Have you guys looked into retaining

1:19:03

this tree in any other alternatives

1:19:06

to rebuild the sidewalk without removing

1:19:08

the tree?

1:19:09

Perfect. That's the first thing I would say

1:19:11

then I would talk to the city arborist and say

1:19:14

have you guys got any bit

1:19:16

Have you guys got any plan in place

1:19:18

to? Preserve

1:19:20

trees where they are preserve

1:19:23

large old big trees

1:19:25

because they are providing Exponentially more

1:19:27

benefits than a smaller tree. Have

1:19:30

you talked to other bureaus to say?

1:19:31

Hey, do you realize that planting

1:19:33

a tree does not replace an already

1:19:36

existing tree

1:19:37

on paper a dot for a dot makes

1:19:40

sense But this is not a dot for a dot.

1:19:42

This is a big tree That's already established

1:19:44

that is doing good work versus

1:19:46

a tiny little tree that will never

1:19:48

ever get as big

1:19:49

as the one that's existing there today

1:19:51

And it's probably

1:19:53

going to die before I even

1:19:54

got the chance anyway

1:19:55

Second, why are you planting a teeny tiny

1:19:58

dumb tree where you're at?

1:19:59

I'm sorry, am I yelling at you guys now? Sorry,

1:20:02

don't accept it yet. This is where they say, I think you have the wrong

1:20:04

number. Yeah, you called the urban forest department

1:20:07

in like Sonoma, Arizona or something. Yes,

1:20:09

so. You

1:20:11

called the. So

1:20:15

guys, basically just ask the questions and say,

1:20:17

what do you guys have in place? Why are you letting

1:20:20

this happen? Have you done any work

1:20:22

to look at other alternatives? Also,

1:20:26

can you remind me of the emergency that we're in right

1:20:28

now? And how you are,

1:20:30

or how cutting down this tree

1:20:31

and rebuilding a sidewalk and planting a smaller,

1:20:33

dumber tree

1:20:35

is in any way getting us towards

1:20:38

a solution

1:20:39

to the emergency that we're in? Finally,

1:20:42

can

1:20:42

we plant any other tree? If

1:20:45

something comes down to the point where, no, this

1:20:47

has to happen, this and that, blah, blah, blah, ask

1:20:50

for literally any other tree

1:20:52

than the world's tiniest crepe

1:20:54

myrtle, if that is in fact what it is, which I would

1:20:57

right now bet a whole $10 bill

1:21:00

on that. I'll take that bet. All right. Let

1:21:02

it know, Socks. Just in case. I

1:21:05

take every bet, just in case. Thank you, Socks,

1:21:07

for your question. And good luck out there.

1:21:09

We wish you luck in your journey. If you've

1:21:12

got a question for us, join on the Patreon,

1:21:14

patreon.com slash arbitrarypod.

1:21:17

At the $3 tier, you unlock the Qs and As,

1:21:20

the questions and answers, the Quercus and Alders. You

1:21:23

could possibly get a question

1:21:25

on the episode here, or if we don't

1:21:27

choose your question, and we'll answer it in a Patreon

1:21:30

exclusive, big-ass

1:21:32

Q&A episode, there's

1:21:35

plenty of other tiers there, too. If you wanna

1:21:37

support this show, if you get to the end of your month and think,

1:21:39

you know what? Casey and Alex have

1:21:41

given me five, $10 of information

1:21:45

and edutainment. Edutainment.

1:21:49

This month. Think about supporting the

1:21:51

podcast. Every little bit helps, and

1:21:54

it all goes back into, ultimately, making

1:21:56

this show possible. Yeah, you know what, Alex?

1:21:58

No one has ever said,

1:21:59

You know what, actually I have listened

1:22:01

to you, but you guys have cost me a lot of money,

1:22:03

actually.

1:22:03

I've taken your ideas. All

1:22:07

the bad advice. I know you've thrown in prison

1:22:09

for tying myself to a tree. So,

1:22:11

where's the bail at? The crown

1:22:13

jewel of the Patreon, of course, is our Cone

1:22:16

of the Month club. Every month

1:22:18

we send you a sticker of a conifer

1:22:20

cone, illustrated by an independent artist.

1:22:23

A different species every month, and they all come with an

1:22:25

info card. You can collect them all, just like

1:22:27

Pokémon. Casey Clapp. Until next week,

1:22:29

Alex. That's right. This was our conservatism.

1:22:33

Nope, conservation. Yes. Next

1:22:36

week, we're talking preservation. Precisely it.

1:22:39

With special guests, the ghost of John Muir.

1:22:42

I'm so excited to talk to you. Can we get

1:22:44

a Ouija board in here? Yeah,

1:22:48

we sure can. Yeah, yeah, we sure can. I bet

1:22:50

you he'd be so angry right now. Like,

1:22:53

he would be... Oh, about the state of the world. I

1:22:55

agree. Yeah, for sure. I mean,

1:22:57

I think he would

1:22:58

have... If he didn't die... I think he died

1:23:00

in 1946.

1:23:00

Mm-hmm. If

1:23:02

he didn't die then, then he probably would

1:23:04

have just shot himself into space in the 80s

1:23:06

and 70s. Wow. Pretty positive.

1:23:09

You know what?

1:23:09

I'm glad he died.

1:23:12

How? John Muir, he

1:23:14

avoided all the pain of seeing the

1:23:16

redwoods being destroyed, Casey. Oh,

1:23:18

God. It's true. In

1:23:20

the show. Jesus. Thank

1:23:23

you so much for listening to this episode of

1:23:25

Completely Arbitrary. Hey, we'll

1:23:27

see you next time. Goodbye. Bye.

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