I-Like-To-Bike

True dat!

I-Like-To-Bike

Ooh, ooh, I know. A car-free person never has to clean bird poop or tree sap off of a car that was parked under a tree!

Machka 

The way this thread has developed overnight gave me quite the chuckle this morning!

Believe me ... no professional data collection would be done by trying to wade through the random and bizzare world of somewhat anonymous posters on BF.




(I should add that, depending on your settings, Google can pick up keywords in searches, posts, etc. which can create a personalised advertising experience. Type the word "tree" often enough, and you might start seeing ads for gardening centres. )

badger1

Awwww ... c'mon, Machka. Lookee here, in a spirit of reconciliation -- a generous gesture, as I think -- I'd like to offer up a little song in the spirit of this remarkable thread.

With profuse apologies to Johnny Tillotson, I present 'Sociality in Motion':

When I see my palm tree
What do I see
Sociality
Sociality in motion

Sociality in motion
Walkin' (imperceptibly) by my side
Her lovely locomotion
Keeps my eyes open wide

Sociality in motion
See her gentle sway
A wave out on the ocean
Could never move that way

I love every movement
And there's nothing I would change
She doesn't need improvement
She's much too nice to rearrange

Sociality in motion
Dancing imperceptibly close to me
A flower of devotion
A-swaying gracefully

Sociality in motion
All that I adore
No Car-Culture commotion
Could make me love her more

Whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa

Machka 

Mobile 155

Wait!!!! Did all 4 judges hit their buttons???

tandempower

Stop posting stupid, generic attacks on my personality because you don't like me.

tandempower

Perhaps one day you will start a thread to inform us about what it's like to live without an imagination. You seem to be so negative about them, I assume any imagination you once had has been effectively purged from the finely-honed realism of your brilliant mind.

Rowan

It's not that he doesn't LIKE you. In fact, we all LIKE you. You're such great entertainment because your imagination is so fertile (yet, naive and misguided in many instances).

I will let you into a little secret. I actually agree with you to a certain extent about trees "talking" to me. They have to in my line of business. The trees will tell me when they are feeling sick and need certain elements or fertliser. They will tell me if they are under stress through not enough water or too much water. They will tell me how much fruit they might bear when picking season comes around. They will tell me if they are under attack from pests and disease that need control. And they will tell me when they need pruning to remain productive, or cutting back to the stump to restart or renew their life.

I don't actually talk to them myself. I just take it all in, and act accordingly.

And I am not a tree hugger by definition. Trees are my livelihood, but if I need to be ruthless, I will be.

tandempower

I guess you don't realize it's condescending to tell someone who gets ridiculed and called a clown in nearly so many words regularly that he's 'liked' as entertainment. Objectify people much?

Thank you. I see this as a form of empathy, like that of a doctor or veterinarian with patients. I think as living things, we can identify with health problems across species, and even with non-living things. We don't have to assume trees or computers 'feel' the viruses and blights that infect them to appreciate the negativity of the damage sustained and seek to remedy it for all those involved who benefit, such as your fruit consumers, for example. I enjoy having an awareness of the broader network of social relations that extend out from anything I am interacting with. It feels good to be connected to the universe in many ways. I think it allows us to overcome the existential isolation we are capable of feeling when we are in the state of mind that Simmel describes in The Metropolis and Mental Life.

I don't talk to trees either, at least not unless I want to hear myself do so for some reason. I try to think about the information/energy that entities are tuned into receiving. E.g. plants like vibrations that stretch their tissues and stimulate circulation and growth, I think, the same way we appreciate massage and stretching. I don't think they feel it the same way we do, but they simply benefit from it, I guess you could say. Likewise, they must appreciate light and being moved into a spot where they can recover from overwatering or wilting, or an infection. My thumb isn't as green as yours, I think, so I've done my share of failing plants, I think, but I do try to pay attention to their health and do what I can to support it, such as not cutting down trees and/or creating demand for pavements and development that cause them to be cut and/or lose rooting ground.

Well, I have done a bit of hacking and breaking of trees to clear paths after the hurricane, but the main reason it bothers me emotionally when I see trees cut or pruned with unnecessary levels of violence/removal is that they have such a long life-span. When a 20 year old tree is killed, it deprives the next couple generations of having that tree reach maturity. If another tree is allowed to sprout and grow in its place, will that one survive even 20 years? If people would just let these trees live out their natural life course, we would have continuity in watching them grow and mature from one generation to the next. Instead, we end up with cutting/clearing and replanting of nursery trees that aren't a product of any natural ecosystem that planted and raised them. They're just orphans transplanted and their roots and canopies aren't symbiotically interwoven with the surrounding soil organisms, trees, and plants. I think there are real benefits to having natural ecosystems evolve according to the social relations between the organic networks whose lives are interwoven, even if it's just a small parcel of land.

Mobile 155

I almost hate to engage on this topic with you because I am not sure how much you know and have experienced by living in a forested area or have been following modern practices in forestry. There is a major disagreement going on between some trying to manage our forests and our environmental faction. Letting trees grow naturally has a major drawback if people are living in the same area. But even if they aren't nature seems to be taking aim at trees on our planet and is doing an even better job or reducing mature trees than humanity.

I lived on the edge of a national forest and for more than 20 years the environmentalists held sway with tree management. Because of that two things happened. The trees grew spaced too close together and that promoted a dangerous combination for fire and infestation. We ended up losing a major portion of our forest to fire and bark beetles. Then ended up bringing in loggers from other states to thin out the forest from Southern California to the Canadian border. The fores we have been having this year in several states have the added destructive impact because of the, let it burn naturally, theory some in the north have been promoting. But my experience will have little impact I am sure. So for some light reading rather than detailed books on the subject I will add the following sites listing what happens to trees left to nature.

https://www.csmonitor.com/Environmen...-and-solutions

And from the left

Bark Beetles Are Decimating Our Forests. That Might Actually Be a Good Thing. ? Mother Jones

tandempower

This thread is about sociality in motion, and you're trying to turn it into a debate about forest management. You pick fights with me in any and every way you can. All I can say is we're supposed to have such debates in P&R, not here. As for natural forests being prone to destruction, somehow natural forests survived without human management for eons before our arrival on the planet. I think you are just a person who asserts the superiority of humans over nature and avoids considerating that nature might be better at self-managing in many cases than we are at managing it. Anyway, if you want to debate forest managers vs. environmentalists, let's do it in P&R and if you want to talk about your personal social interactions with trees and other non-humans while you're biking here, go ahead. I didn't enjoy reading your post about animals 'sacrificing themselves' to your mountain biking, but maybe some stories about friendly interactions between you and nature might be nicer.

Mobile 155

I knew it was a hopeless task. Never mind.

Rowan

It is.

Mobile 155

I am pretty sure you know about fires and trees and how nature deals with them as well or better than I do. I spent two years as a volunteer fire lookout and spent a lot of time reading, working with and culling trees and under growth. But then, I would have been better conversing with you in the first place.

Rowan

Only all too well aware. Worked in the industry, too. And was affected by the 2009 Victorian bushfire disaster that killed over 170 people.

Nature's ignition source is lighning strikes. Changes in climate, too.

But humans have been around this planet for a mighty long time, and way back before "civilisation" their food gathering practices (note, no motor vehicles then) included setting fires to drive out animals which were then killled by waiting hunters.

Great swathes of forest in eastern Canada are now dead thanks to the pine beetle, and its only natural control has been low-temperature fires. Of course, they are unacceptable socially these, so we just wait for the great conflagrations that destroy everything in their paths and take decades to regenerate.

Mobile 155

Yes, several of our states are burning because of the let it burn as nature intended mindset. But we didn't say that, keep it a secret just between us. We can discuss it at the bully cabal breakfast in January.

Walter S

I understand these big fires burn hotter and release more carbon than the smaller more regular fires. In the U.S. I think they have a zero tolerance policy on fires, which may be a mistake but I'm not sure - you have to protect the population around the forest. But it seems like current practices encourage lots of small trees that burn hot once they light. Maybe what the forest service does makes sense but it seems like they're still learning too.

Rowan

It IS a learning process because stuff doesn't happen in a week. But there is enough knowledge out there to know that fuel reduction burning is one key to preserving the bigger trees. These burns are done in autumn or spring when there is enough moisture in the ground and undergrowth to control the heat of the fire.

The Canadian Parks Service told us in a presentation one evening that the pine beetle can killed by the heat from low-heat, controlled burns, and this is what the service is starting to do... create these burns in small coups to progressively work through the forest. The secondary advantage may be that it reduces the understorey fuel that can intensify a fully fledged forest fire.

People have short memories, or don't refer to history at all... and much of the solution is out there already based on the knowledge and experience of the old-timers who worked the forest back last century.

And that is one of the reasons why I harp on about experience being more important than some give it credit for.

rumrunn6

had two conversations w strangers last week. a woman about her bike & a guy about lighting options. out in the sticks, they'd be less likely to occur. entering an urban center, you enter a more dense social network, compared to our western suburbs

Roody

As for deer, I have had them stare me down, even block my path and hiss at me (sorta like a cat hisses). This has happened to me only when riding a mountain bike, never when walking or hiking on the same trails. I wonder if something about the bike challenges them? Or if they perceive the biker more as a four-legged creature rather than a two-legged human?

Yesterday two dogs approached me when walking on a trail. One stood right in front of me and barked. It was rather frightening. Their owner was about 100 feet away and did nothing until I yelled at her to restrain her dogs. Then she was very rude and even called me a couple names that can't be printed here. I was angry, not at the dogs but at the human who failed to control them on a public path.

Roody

Actually, from what I've read, the opposite is true. They used to let fires burn, or even set them, to remove the undergrowth that fuels bigger fires. They quit doing that a number of years ago, and this is one reason that recent fires have been more destructive. I think you're a few years behind on your conspiracy theories!

tandempower

I can't imagine they perceive us as four-legged because we're on a bike. I think they just recognize us as fellow animals with eyes to see and locomotion to move, so when we're moving fast on a bike, they notice that. Interesting to speculate about what they perceive, though, in terms of making sense of what they see.

The best way to treat dogs is to talk to them in a friendly way, as if you were a friend of their owner. Say things like, "hey, boy" "good dog," etc. and tell them they better go home or they're going to get hit by a car. If they go into their play/puppy mind, then they might want to run with you or play, but they're less likely to attack, I think. Of course you can never be sure what they're thinking or what they're going to do, and owners should not allow their dogs to get loose, but it happens sometimes and I find that their bark gets a lot less tough when they are out in no-man's land instead of on their own property.

Several posters are trying to turn this thread into an opportunity to debate forest management practices, but please don't fuel that fire. They need to start another thread for that topic, because it's not 'sociality in motion' unless it's about how you relate to trees and forest creatures while out LCFing.

jon c. 

Depends on where you are. They still do controlled burns around here on a regular basis.

Walter S

Everybody has to find their own way I guess That doesn't work for me as often as scolding the dog does. I don't mean "bad boy you git now", I mean "BAD BOY YOU GIT NOW!!!" at the top of my lungs. An "overreaction" you might say. Dogs with owners (as opposed to wild dogs) usually react to this. Many are shamed and put their tail down and stop. Others will at least hesitate - if for no other reason than my surprising wild over the top reaction to their very presence. In any case it creates a delay and soon the dog is behind me.

And more likely to get involved in your pedals and/or drive train and cause an accident.