They Just Can't Help Themselves.

Over time, I've been writing articles about how "forestry" handles forests. Mostly, it's been to get my own pain out of my system. I grew up in a logging and pulp world, and - well - that's never going to heal (You'll find a bunch of those articles at the end of this post. They've got email and youtube and all sorts of other links in them).

But the logging companies just couldn't help themselves. It's not enough they destroyed the Pillar Point Rec Area, taking down a big-leaf maple tunnel (and here's the document on who signed off on that); it's a slap in the face of the people who live here.

Now they've finally had to come right in between neighborhoods in a small town, in a full-blown clearcut in Clallam Bay.

Look, I know I can't stop all the horrible abuses in the world. And I could have survived, if just a little nature was left, here and there. I could have driven through clearcuts if Pillar Point had been there as a little relief. But what do I do now? If I just stand back this time, another company will be around the point next year, cutting down trees with eagle's nests in them, on a cliff, with no concern that a slip cliff would come down on the homes below. They just had to keep poking, didn't they?

Mother tree.

And I can make this pronouncement. Anybody who doesn't go in and rip out resources, the people who do say we have no families; it's an obvious insult. Or simply poorly thought out. Don't think so? Well, look at these signs. That's what they posted for everybody to see. And I want to know who paid for that expensive print run. And since they're about activities on State lands, I get to ask, under freedom of information. Well, I do.

Look, sooner or later these logging companies are going to go after me and try to make me take down these posts. Because they really, really, REALLY can't help themselves. I'll post any paperwork or emails I get from them. Because, as Mr. Manning and Snowden taught us - we all have to stand up. If nothing else, logging companies are starting to feel sorry for themselves. They don't have to; they can cooperate and grow up.

And while we're at it, here's the kid's tree house. It's in a big double Douglas Fir, grown from an older nurse stump.

Kid's tree house.

It's a "mother tree" - the basis for the fungal network that stores and feeds

water and nutrients from the big central tree back into surrounding trees. Logging companies are busily chipping down trees into toxic products that make us sick, and putting them into from materials in foods to materials that outgas in homes for years. It's all planted firmly in the 1950's, when All Chemistry Was Good. It's doubtful "forestry science" even knows what these big trees do, or what it means. And if the people involved do - more shame on them.

Mother tree root base

It's not the 1950's any more. It's 2013. Mature, learn, study. And don't be like the guy I just had a conversation with, whose only protest against "wilderness" was that the logging companies wouldn't let people come in and cut firewood from the slash. The guy was a former dairy farmer, and when I tried to tell him that burning what was left back into the soil was the only - token - form of fertilizer these companies could manage, and even made the connection to his fertilizing his corn crop, he just didn't get it. He wanted some little thing, all for himself, and he can't see past that.

If nothing else, being allowed onto forestry land - even a "wilderness" compromise - to thin dog-hair stands for firewood

Destruction of old growth in Audubon area

Are they drinking? Serious question.

would contribute to the health of a forest. Forests have lived with humans for thousands of years, and on this continent, the management was far better than it was on my home continent. A forest can take some thinning and underbrush burns and food-harvesting. It can't take every single tree, large or small - and especially large - being chewed down to the earth every 30 years - with no replacement of thousands of years' worth of nutrients. It just can't. We already know this from Easter Island, Scotland, Ireland, and most of the middle east and the Mediterranean countries. They blew it.

Speaking of blowing; we evolved with trees. They make the level of oxygen we need, and sink the level of Co2 we need to be removed. They are our lungs and our cooling system. What is wrong with us? Is it really so important to pay for machinery to destroy our life support to pay for machinerty to... well, we all know what a vicious cycle is.

I'm going to hand this on to the next people who might do something about it. The Sunsets West co-op in Clallam Bay is where to go to start the networking for people who just tired of an old, broken, poorly-planned system, that has every possibility of simply bringing on the great human die-off faster. 

Good luck folks. You'd better run in the long run, because the future of human life - and any other life - on this planet depends on it. We're all in this together, whether we like it or not. It's work and do, or die. This time, it's your life.

And read ANYTHING by Jane Goodall. I think she's the only sane person left. 

Now here are the articles and links:

Alders aren't Native?

Pillar Point Rape 

More Clearcut Dancing

Come Help Us Save This Place

Logger Covers His Face 

There Are Trees In Your Salad Dressing

Well, At Least We're Talking

Well, At Least We're Talking

Rayonier got back with me, for which I thank them. At least we're talking. My letter first, and then his letter follows, even though that's in reverse order. It's a blog, after all:

Dear Mr. Monahan:

Thank you for the response.

HOWEVER, I grew up in the pulp industry. Pulping trees for chemicals takes masses of toxins and water, in a world with a shrinking environment and resources. And do you really think that then taking the results and putting it into food - ie, salad dressing (as promoted on the Rayonier site) - is the best use of a resource or the best treatment of human health?

I note that, unlike the cuts of my youth and childhood, there seems to be no more poisoning of native species, and alders and other species are being allowed to grow back in. Alders, of course, are the nitrogen pumps of the forest. This is an improvement, but:

You probably did, indeed, follow all the proper, legal channels. But you and I know that "legal" doesn't always equal "best."

This clearcut happened right up against a small town, in an Audubon area, on a scenic route, in an area that, in the future, will have to build tourism and entertainment to survive, because all resources will take at least a generation to recover. Forests are, after all, most important as carbon sinks and producers of oxygen. If nothing else, because so many people here can't depend on electricity for heating and cooking and have to depend on wood, tearing out trees near a small town drops the oxygen level, which is especially dangerous for children and the elderly.

Another logging company, right on the scenic route, got county permission - all properly signed off on - to completely level an older maple grove in a state park. While this may be legal, and all the paperwork was done - was it not ultimately abusive?

Antique methods that don't take into consideration where it's done, including what happens to a resident top predator, need re-thinking. So far, no displaced, starving cougar has blasted into a neighborhood, which we've seen before, but perhaps we just got lucky. And no, the solution is NOT going in and just shooting the cougar before the clearcutting starts, in case anybody asks. Wiping out what we don't like has already led to extinctions in this area.

Perhaps it's time for a Florida company to hit the ground and begin to work with a distant state to learn what must happen for a real future. Before enough people in pain, with no future, get organized. I, for one, would rather see the former, because Daddy was a Teamster, and while we CAN organize, it's no fun for anybody, on either side. Better to use our brains and make it work. 

And thank you for your letter. It, and my reply, will be added to my blog.

Donna Barr

Dear Mrs. Barr,

Your e-mail found its way to me. I am the Resource Unit Leader for our Pacific operations. We have a lot in common. I like to fish and enjoy the environment. I got into forestry because of a love of the outdoors.

As an industry, we strive to consistently follow the rules and regulations set out through Local, State, and Federal law. This is our clear way of ensuring that we are operating in a legal and environmentally sound fashion. We conduct internal audits and 3rd party, external audits to re-confirm our performance.

The land that you refer to in your e-mail was prepared for harvest following all of the proper steps. During the FPA permit approval process, representatives from the DNR, WDFW, and the DOE made field visits. Once the felling began, our field forester made ongoing visits to monitor the harvesting and ensure that the instructions of the FPA were followed. I've checked in with him and he informed me that all aspects of the FPA have been adhered to. Felling of timber will likely be complete this week. The harvesting crew will take some time removing the timber, but this will start the reforestation process whereby you will see healthy young trees growing back in the coming years.

Sincerely,

Bill Monahan

--

Bill Monahan

Resource Unit Leader

Rayonier US Forest Resources-Pacific Resource Unit

3033 Ingram Street

Hoquiam, WA 98550

(C) 334-224-9584

(O) 360-538-4568

There are Trees in Your Salad Dressing

OMG. Oh My fucking God.

Rayonier is admitting they're using trees to make salad dressing.

Watch the site video - they're grinding up trees for chemicals. It's over. Our forests are GONE.  No wonder the logging people say, "But But trees are just a crop, like CORN!"

No, CORN is a crop - and this is what the remainders of a corn harvest should be doing.

This is a Florida company. They're helping to knock down the Scenic Route on the Olympic Peninsula - in an Audubon area. Right next to towns.

And the people up here just meekly talk football or church or going to Seattle for the weekend, and say nothing as their futures are uprooted.

I've been trying to warn them for ten years now, and they just don't get it. Their KIDS do. I'm expecting them to take out the big Douglas Fir the kids have used for a tree-house. Why would this Florida Company fucking care? It's just more money to develop land for houses or cash hunting areas. Oh, yeah; they treat all the wildlife like a cash crop, the same as the fishing industry.

Meanwhile, the State Parks are de-funded. Huh. I wonder if Tim Eyman helped fund the big, expensive anti-park sign campaign along the scenic route?

Man, this is so looking like monkey business, more and more, I almost wonder why they don't have signs, "Bananas ahead; slippery."

All I know, I'm never touching commercially-mixed sauces or anything that MIGHT have a thickener or stabilizer in it, ever again. JESUS. Me go frow up now.

(I might as well have a tshirt that says, "I told you so.")

Jim Craig, over on Facebook, posted this:

Short sighted, lack of planning, Donna. Then, when all the resources are nearly gone and the logging jobs, fishing and related industries are suffering, they're going to blame the environmentalists who are fighting to keep the last few stands of trees alive.

I was in college when the whole spotted owl thing was first coming on the scene. I saw a truck with a bumper sticker that read, "I like spotted owls... fried!" When I snorted derisively, the driver asked, "You one of them environmentalists? You love birds more than people?"

We got in a big discussion about the recent mill closure, jobs, clear cutting and lumber mills when a barge with a Korean flag chugged down the Columbia with a huge raft of unprocessed logs in tow. I pointed and told the guy, "That's where your jobs are going. As long as Weyerhauser and Boise Cascade will sell their lumber to foreign countries rather than sending them processed goods, your job will be in jeopardy. And when there are no trees, it's going to suck for you AND the owls. If you're not an environmentalist, you're just sowing the seeds for your own demise."

He had a puzzled look on his face then said, "I never thought about it that way."

I replied, "No, you just never thought about it. If you had, this discussion wouldn't have happened and you wouldn't have that silly sticker on your truck."

Donna again: And tell me about it. One of the local women got on Facebook and used "environmentalist" as a sneering insult, and then started to chortle with her friends about how the real smell of the woods is burning wood and oil and diesel and the sound is chainsaws. These are what gave me PTSD as a kid. It's what their kids are going to call them to account for. No wonder the kids are on pills and meth up here, and committing suicide. Now watch the same people that hate us whining and screaming and complaining as they're shunted off to cities where they have to live on welfare or take three jobs in a place they hate.

Big Mo's First Egg

Big Mo's very first egg. Bowl for scale.

Big Mo's First Egg is a Double Yolker!

Mo's the eldest. This is her first egg, and - it's a double yolker!

It looks small, but the first pullet eggs are always small.

Yay! Clean, healthy protein!

Lake Crescent Whiskey

Lake Crescent Resort has their own whiskey. Let's just say, OMG. Honey, licorice, sunshine, 117 proof; one order over the rocks would do for four people. When you're up here for the Comicon, be sure to appoint a designated driver. Try the Irish Death porter. See the French fries? Starch helps. We were on the bus and I'd been swimming in cold water. Took care of the cold and didn't have to drive home.  Can we have this for heaven? And Cindy Murata, on Facebook, just reminded me it is our anniversary.

Evidence of Happy People

Dreams on the Beach

For once a nice post. On the beach, yesterday, Dan found a message in a bottle - or rather, a test tube. It had been sealed with electrical tape, but had leaked, so I'd had to peel the paper out very carefully. It's too fragile to go back into the water, so it's going down to my collection at San Diego State University.

Ran into a guy called "Ken," who told me a story about how he and some friends started the idea of the Tribal Journeys in 1989, when they just decided to take off in canoes, and took five months to paddle to the Alaska end of Vancouver Island.

He gave me detailed instructions on making the canoe paddle required if one wishes to walk up to a canoe and ask to help paddle. And how awful it feels the first half hour, with muscle cramps, hard breathing, even vomiting, and what to eat and drink beforehand to feel better: "Raw potatoes and bananas. And lots of electrolytes."

Cartoon face in the sand.

He also told me that cold-water immersion training involved picking up a big rock and walking further into the water every day. Do I believe him? On the one hand, if it's physically possible, some fool has done it. On the other hand, Irish folk hero Finn McCool couldn't swim, so it's said, when he fell out of his boat, he just walked along the bottom. I wondered, 'How did my dad possess you? Because he'd pull that one, too." 

Ken was giving me the "we're all brothers" thing, but as a commercial fisherman, when it came to seals... there's always an animal pisses somebody off. I think I might be the only person on the planet really knows animals are just other cells in the planetary system, and not PUT here specifically to make us miserable or piss us off. That would be like a liver cell getting mad at a heart cell.

Dan walking by cartoon

Cartoonists on the beach! Anybody know who these sand drawings represent? Or is this original? Nice to see some kid - or maybe adult - using the sand the way any artist would, faced with a blank surface and any sort of drawing implement. 

Somebody once said of me, I could draw on a shovel with a stick. The truth is, we all would. Artists love all the toys. So those arguments about whether digital or traditional are better or preferable - we don't care. We love all the bafoys.

Drugs, Heroes and Blindness

A promising young man recently committed suicide up here. According to town rumor, it's because the army decided he was "overweight" and he'd "disappointed his uncle." These are only rumors. 

I saw this kid at graduation. If the rumor is true, it's a lie. Supposedly, the army yanked away his future, and he shot himself. Again, the family is torn to pieces, and not sharing exact information - but it's all over town, through one rumor or another. 

A grandmother up here was furious about recruiters at the high-school job days. The army acts like one of those bad religious groups, looking for the suffering and dead-end to lie to and suck into the machine. I'm explaining "pension rank" to everybody - the fact that, in order to guarantee s/he'll retire as a general and not a colonel, a general really needs a war. And recruiters have quotas, and will commit suicide themselves, if they can't meet them.

While delivering food-bank food to a dying man, I saw a group of kids clustered near his door, in the parking lot. They were discussing something that had upset them. They were also waiting for their drug dealer (from the looks of them, probably the locally-produced meth). 

These kids, waiting for a pain-killer, were hurt by the death of a school hero. 

Hoquim recently put together a block watch. What are they most concerned with, about kids? Cleaning off graffiti. Not why the kids are suffering and hunting paint, alcohol and meth. Not why they're in pain and need help. They have pretty new uniforms, but where is the outreach to the suffering, and the kids already on the streets? These kids all know each other, regardless of how they try to cut them up into us vs. them. The "us" and "them" is actually by generation - and the "us" isn't doing a very good job helping "them."

The old guard up here is disgusting. Loggers are clear-cutting in a wildlife/wetland area right next to the dead boy's town. They hit their jake-brakes when going by campgrounds in the Olympic National Park. The people from the 1950's are gleeful that trees are going down. All they can see is a football game - not just cash, but the domination of the Enemy, Nature. And guess who they call "eco-terrorists?"

Wildlife and trees and tourism, that can offer so many working positions - not just jobs - for all the kids for the future. These people raise money for scholarships for kids, but how will those kids get to stay here if there's nothing?

The Clallam Bay Comicon may have to be witness to what the old guard does to the community. The place may be wrecked for our generation - but the only thing that really stopped wholesale whaling and overfishing of cod were the collapses of populations. So maybe the west end needs to die before it can live. 

But why do we always have to go through a resurrection?

We need to reach out to all the kids, because all the kids know each other. And they're asking what we're doing with their planet, and why we're only leaving them scraps and mud. That look in a sad kid's eyes? That's blame - and helplessness.

Or is it? A kid up here is going to be building an anti-bullying website. Whenever we go hiking or to the beach, there's very little litter, and since kids are the ones who run farthest, they're the ones keeping it clean. Kids who love nature and know it's the future are stewarding now. They're cleaning up water and woods. They want modern logging techniques, not just ones that pay for the machinery, in a cut pay cut pay vicious circle. Fewer and fewer people are fishing except for food. The old paradigm of animals as toys and something to play with, for trophies (training for war) or catch and release (tormenting animals for the fun of it) is beginning to fade. The horrible 20th-century myth that only humans can feel and hurt is being hunted down and dispatched for what it was and is - an industrial excuse for treating our fellow peoples on this planet as so many tools and cash bags.

The old guard calls people like us "wimps." This is another word for "meek." Only the green will survive - and who do you think will inherit the earth?

(And why am I bothering to write this? Because it's the only weapon I have against the spoilers. And so nobody can accuse me of not trying, and for turning a blind eye. I don't want to be the one to stumble in surprise on the tattered remnants, and claim I never knew. And the more I can spread this, the less able others will ever be able to say, "But we didn't know!" I don't want to have to say, "I told you so!" again - but I'll probably have to. I really hate looking this prescient, every single time, when past lessons should have taught us better. And we're still testing animals to see if THEY can learn? What was the definition of insanity, again?)

Sticks and Stones

Kids do this up here, write on the beach and make hearts with sticks and stones. I have a photo of a "skeleton" somebody built, complete with a wood-bole "skull." That's gonna have to be for the mystery series. If ever.

Logger Covers His Face

Behind county facility, in watershed

I'm not making any judgement comments, but here's today's report:

In the Quarter Store today, a worker was poking fun at her sister-in-law as an activist.

Another woman said, "I saw 18 logging trucks on the road today."

This is basically a photo essay. The cutting is going on right behind a town that is trying to revive a tourism/media/entertainment industry. The cutting probably has not taken wild-life repercussions into consideration, near a town.

The driver said, "I wanna know why you're taking my picture!"

I answered, 'Don't have to." This is an unpaid photo essay, by an American citizen.

The company is cutting on either cheaply-purchased land, or forestry land. The driver said this company was Rayonier. Rayonier has worked to recover other riverside by the Clallam River. But - Rayonier's Real Estate offices are in Florida.

Does that look like selective logging?

Merrill and Ring has already accidently exposed their intentions toward the scenic route. An expensive sign campaign for "working forests" MIGHT be a real-estate scam, but I have no further information; it just looks like monkey business. Merrill and Ring cut down all the timber on the highway in Pillar Point, a State Park.

The whole operation has a real "Get it Before It's Too Late, as fast as possible" feel to it. It's cutting directly into tourism-viewing areas, seeming to concentrate on it.

Cutting toward the stream and swamp

Local children feel hopeless up here about their future, but are launching anti-bullying campaigns, especially in view of the recent suicide of a child who - according to local stories (not verified, but repeated) felt his future was blocked. 

The generation that supports clearcut logging isn't helping the future generation, nor do they seem to care. The do collect large scholarships for the kids - but it's almost as though they're massaging their consciences. High school graduation classes are down to a handful of kids, while the parking lot of a local apartment complex is the center of kids waiting for their drug dealer - and drug use is about repressing pain.

If they have a future, a real one, that isn't just selling off the place and moving to condos in Arizona, as a developer would offer, the kids will have to do that themselves, with help from the better among our generation.

Selective logging based on a 500-year cycle - and it has to be 500 years, because forests aren't corn fields - must be the future. They're down to producing chipboard, and if you've ever had to deal with wood, you'll know how bad it is, now.

These trucks are very expensive, take a lot of tree money

As the English said, after WWII, trying to rebuild with their forests gone: "You can't get the wood, you know.

Why would the driver be reluctant to show his face?

Transition Port Angeles is trying to rescue the local communities and make life better and more sustainable - but ARE they addressing the resource crash? And it is crashing, or will, if these practices continue as they are. 

It's not 1895, folks. It's not even 1954. It's 2013 - and don't let it become just another place that ate its resources and turned into more concrete or empty grasslands. 

Scotland had a forest. The Middle East and Greece were forested. Easter Island were forested. But not any more. We can destroy forests, and they don't come back, or if they do, they're ghosts of themselves, and their wildlife is gone.

And I'm from Everett/Mukilteo. Let's just say that what happened up there gave me a case of PTSD that makes me unable to ignore a place where I see the same practices - where I once saw the large park tree a couple of truckers stole to try to get on the tv show "Axmen." This place has eagle habitat - including nests along the cliffs, rivers and roads. The eagle may not be an endangered species any more, but taking away their habitat would be a good way to jump-start the status. Silver lining? Or 30 pieces of silver?

We can live in a forest - or we can live on Easter Island.

Letter I just wrote to Rayonier Hunting:

"Hi! I'm contacting you because the Rayonier Timber doesn't have an email contact, only phone, and this might be a message more along your line.

Rayonier Timber is clearcutting right into a stream area, right behind a town, with eagle habitat along the river. In the past, clearcutting near towns has driven out the resident cougar, with subsequent human/animal interactions that proved lethal to the animal.

The town is Clallam Bay. A photo the area can be seen at http://www.sekiu.com/

The point you see on the left of the picture, on the cliffs has at least two live eagle nests, and is a nesting area for other base population predators, especially along the Clallam River and another wetland stream, where eagles regularly fish and share the area with other fishing birds and animals, including otters, both river and sea.

With timber sales to Japan up in the area, just checking to make sure Rayonier knows about the habitat, and the repercussions involved in cutting that close to a town. Use lines get fudged when there's cash to be collected; a major park tree was stolen up here by unaffiliated loggers to try to get on the tv show "Axmen."

And I do fish, and enjoy a bit of venison now and again - but no hunting or fishing can survive habitat collapse, especially along a wildlife stream. This is also an Audubon area, which holds out a future for local kids in tourism, which benefits from the same forest conditions as hunting. We've recently had a suicide of a promising young man, and other kids are using drugs to repress pain. They need help for a real future.

I write as growing up in the tree-pulp industry in Everett/Mukilteo - that didn't pay any attention to its resources.

Donna Barr
CC to Transition Port Angeles"

Pain and Pretty

Spinach fruit pops at the Journey.

Just a post of pretty pictures and stuff we're doing. Today I'm really sore.

I decided I could march a mile up a forest road to visit Camp David Jr., skid down a cliff to see a three-headed creek, butt my way through a quarter mile of downed timber and swamps on the shore of Lake Crescent, and finally get cut off by somebody's lake house and have to scramble back up another cliff, holding on to swordferns to keep from taking a lethal header back down. I used to do this stuff when I was a kid; what possesses me to do it when I'm in sixth decade, the godlets only know.

Lake Crescent Maple tree, human added for scale.

A day with the ducks.

The Makah lady in the lovely cedar hat has invented her own fruit pops - including a lovely spinach-mango concoction I was given a sample. Well, I am the local reporter - it's my JOB. She was selling them at the Journey event in Neah Bay. It's part of people up here figuring out they don't - and can't - strip the land and resources any more. The Makah have been training all their kids to canoe around the Olympic Peninsula. They know our infrastructure - including roads - will collapse someday. All it takes is Tim Eyman keeping on. He's another of those people who think the whole planet is there just for THEM. We had a cat once who thought the whole human race had evolved so she alone could have a lap, but it was a lot less harmful. 

The Clallam River mouth, on a foggy summer day.

The maple tree was part of our lake visit yesterday. It was at the start of my march from hell. The nice tourist posed to show human scale. "Add a human!" she said. Somebody doing an indie film with hobbits could use that area right under the tree. It's big enough. 

The ducks are part of Dan's view all day, on a little secluded beach. "Do not feed the ducks," said the sign. Yeah. Wild ducks, never fed, really do get THAT tame. He had a lovely day. I'm taking pain pills.

Here's the beach, on a summer day, with the fog in. When the tide is out, at least in this part of the yearly sand-movement revolution, the river forms a tiny island, with a very wade-friendly side-creek. Well, wade-friendly for adults. Like any river mouth, it's not really kid-friendly. That place is up by the Park bridge, where the kids can splash around with a nice, firm gravel bottom and no hard current.

Grass Hay - Not For Sale

Just a little hay in the front yard.

You can't buy grass hay, at least not this kind. We use an electric mulching mower, and no artificial fertilizers or toxins. 

It makes the best chicken nests. It can be flipped daily for cleaning and re-fluffed, and then the hens can form new nests in it. It's not for eating, so any old soft plants, including whatever weeds or plants, can be dried along with the tall grass.

We simply leave the edges of all grass areas to grow up, and harvest it when the lawn matures and starts to dry out. We don't cut it; we wear garden gloves to rip it up, so the spreading roots of the lawn are weakened and thinned as we go.

Discovered the hay that grows in comparative dark, between the lines of stacked wood, comes up clean, weed-free, soft, fine, and tall. It tears out easily, from above the roots, handfuls at a time.

In the photo, the hay is drying to form an upper thatch before we flip it. It just went through a light rain, and it's fine. 

This is all the hay we'll need to store the potato harvest, and use as the hen nests as the year turns.

Thank You, Builder of Bothies

Tired, overworked, pissed off, cabin-fevered. Went to find another beach to unwind. Yes, we needed to get another beach than the one we can walk to in one minute. Oh, poor us.

Somebody had built this tiny shelter against the wind; call it a "bothy." 

 

It was built into satiny-soft fine sand, warmed by the sun, and even little benches and windows. I spread my old raggedy, patched, favorite Marine blanket over one end, and went to sleep in the shade, with the sound of waves behind me, and a gray whale feeding near the beach.

It was the best sleep I'd had in ages. I'd still be there if the cats didn't need fed. Whoever built this, thank you. You save my life. 

Not really kidding.