Controlled Lightning Burns?

 The South Umpqua country was a paradise in the early 40s with heavily timbered mountains interspersed with open, grassy hillsides, meadows full of  beaver dams, and game lore. I can recall riding up Jack son Creek before there were any roads, hanging a small bell on my saddle and watching one curious deer after another walk right out into the open to stand and look at this intruder. No sign of alarm at all, as I lay on my belly looking down into a beaver pond with trout eighteen to twenty inches long in water seldom (if ever) fished. And old Douglas fir timer—most of it un-logged and untouched. Much of the old virgin timber was five feet in diameter, but some monarchs were at least seven and eight feet through, with blackened bark and not a limb for 40-50 feet up, the result of years of burning by the Indians. At about this time, the For est Service launched their pro grams of suppressing and when possible extinguishing all forest fires—a policy that didn't set well with the Umpqua or Tiller Indians. Although they had no reservation as such, there was quite a community of Native Americans in the Tiller area, and they continued their age old policy of selective burns for brush control and forage enhancement. It became something of a cat and mouse game with the Forest Rangers trying to name these 'arsonists' setting what the Indians considered controlled burning. On one occasion as Joe and I were checking cattle on the Beaver Creek permit, we encountered part of the Rainville Clan. They observed that the storm rolling through looked like it could carry quite a lightning hazard. “Probably going to hit the hills just north of your cattle pasture.” But they would be glad to help us bunch the cattle and move them just a few miles to our fall pasture on the Callahan. “We could probably move back in two or three weeks.” We didn't ask a bunch of stupid questions; and with three penciled words, “bad fire danger.” Eighty years later we are learning the merits of their forest management techniques. of a community in Bulgaria that retained an oral history of the traditional practice. The researchers added four live ants to a jar of warm milk and left the container to ferment overnight. The next day, Jahn observed that the milk had coagulated, become although they noticed a peculiar ity about the process. Typically, yogurt formation needs a low pH of 4.6, which facilitates the aggregation of protein. Ant yogurt does not reach this level of acidity, yet it still firms up. Michelin star chefs used the ant yogurt to make an ice cream sandwich or an “ant-wich,” mascarpone-like cheese with a pungent flavor, and a milk washed cocktail. their help had every cow brute moved out in 72 hours. The next night it seemed like every lightning hit started a fire—plus a few extras. After the Forest Service succeeded in putting out the Beaver Creek Burn fire, one of the Rangers paid Joe a visit. Since we still had a few weeks before pull-out time, how was it that we had moved out just hours before the burn took off? Who alerted us? Joe insisted we had moved them to an area where a cattle buyer could inspect the calves and yearlings. A story he would stick to despite the Ranger's skepticism. On one occasion the Ranger camped in a secluded hideaway and rode all day searching for anyone carrying any suspicious materials on in any way acting suspicious. When he returned to camp, he found his tent and bedroll a smolder ing heap. One a limb nearby was a brown paper bag with three penciled words, “bad fire danger.” Eighty years later we are learning the merits of their forest management techniques.