Kids building a debris shelter...

On our family reunion I had the opportunity to teach some teenager (and under) kids how to build a debris shelter. They took to it with gusto, and although we ran out of time, it was beginning to take a nice shape. They started out with too short a ridge pole, though, so we named it the Hobbit Hut.

I guess the next generation isn't lost, yet.

Cool!!

Looks a helluva lot better than anything I built as a kid.

Good job teaching the younglings. You very may well have ended up saving one of their lives in the future...

"I remember when I was a kid and we had this crazy uncle that taught us...."

At least the dog will have a place to sleep.

i always cringe when i see live pine used in "try out"
shelters..

The funny thing about trees, they are a renewable resource. Plant a seed, add water and time and you have another tree. The lumber industry (and everyone that has a home) depends on this.

No need to cringe. I taught the kids to take just a couple of boughs from each tree. As you can plainly see, the wood used for the frame was dead-fall.

A tree missing one or two boughs, as I'm sure you know, will not hurt that tree's lifespan.

I guess I need to include the following disclaimer: No trees were seriously harmed during this exercise. Maybe the tree union will want to sue.

I don’t think that we are in danger of trees becoming extinct. There are a large number of trees out there, even in a city. My work takes me into high-rise apartments, and looking out from 10-floors above the city, it’s amazing how many trees there are in the city. They block you from seeing streets and a lot of houses. You would never think this because of the message put out that we are destroying the planet. I question and don’t buy into this message of mankind as the destroyer of the planet.

If you live in a home and it has wood in it, you through your action of buying and living in said home condone trees being cut down.


And it is as simple as planting more trees, the forest industry is the number one planter of trees in this country. Like I said trees are a renewable resource.

+1 BobS. A couple boughs to prove a point is nothing. I've seen more damage done by one animal in rutting season than that project

...oh and to get this thread back on track...great teaching opportunity and i bet much talked about the rest of the time there

I'll take us back off track again... way off track.

There are currently 6.6 billion people alive on this planet. This number will only continue to rise. We are the top of the food chain. We have no natural predators keeping our numbers in check. Our industry enables us to consume and pollute at an unprecedented rate.

The Earth took 4.5 billion years to evolve into its current balance, and we have begun changing that balance in a mere 100 years. As our numbers grow, so will our industry, and so in turn our consumption and pollution will grow as well. There is no question that the human species will destroy this planet unless we are able to recognize the inevitable future and do what is necessary to change our course.

Are There Really Too Many People?



We share the planet with 5.7 billion people. If one could stand all the people in the world, men, women and children two feet apart, how much of the world would they take up? All of Africa? All of North America? New York state? If every person alive today stood two feet apart they would fill less than the area of Dallas County! And there would still be room for all the buildings! If the world's people were put together into families of four living on 50' by 100' lots, they could all live in the state of Texas, with more than seven thousand square miles left over. So the total number of people is not the real problem, at least at this point.

Therein lies the problem -- no forward thinking. You are looking at the world where it is right now. But you are not looking at where the world is going.

Take into consideration the number of deaths due to murder,accidents,illness,honor killings,abortion,neglect,abuse,suicides,natural disasters,starvation,executions,and lack of health care,and wars, does man really need a predator to keep him in check.

The world population has continued to rise despite those things. The number of births is larger than the number of deaths.

OK lets look forward

If world population tops out at 12 billion eventually, then each person could have 608½ sq ft in Texas (more space then many New York apartments)






Back to the tree, cutting a few branches is not going to harm anything; heck Mother Nature does it all the time. A month ago I had a tree come down in a wind storm, the world did not end over it. But I do have a lot more campfire wood.

LOL!

Where did you get that number from? Did you just make it up?

I didn’t make it up, do a search on it.

Just because it’s on the evening news, doesn’t make it a fact.

This is my last go around on this; it’s getting tiring and serving no point.

I will say again, a few branches is not going to hurt anything.

My duties as moderator preclude comment. I would suggest people who love the timber industry take it to the campfire forum and not here. I would also point out every enlightened survival tome today reminds us not to abuse our ever more limited natural world with uneccesary exercises. Why not take your kids and build an urban shelter out of trash? Lots of people sleep in these every night in every major urban center of this underpopulated planet.

And there you have it. Our world is transitioning unevenly from times and places where the resources seem inexhaustible, and so we use them freely, to times and places where using it the way we always have reveals itself as overuse. Sometimes overuse is clear, sometimes it will be the next generation that sees the loss of habitat and species. Rarely do we see culture teach lessons of conservation and respect sufficiently to curb our instinct to consume in time to find harmony.

So then you have folks who live in or see the effect of certain practices, and act to inform folks who are not experiencing or seeing - and whose experience informs their instinct to deny the reality of - those effects. The honest difference in opinion and experience is part of the transition we are collectively imposing on the world.

It seems unfair to react negatively to a few children innocently using a few live branches. Certainly in a few years most trees will survive such treatment, most ecosystems and life cycles will not be significantly affected, and it is currently impossible to trace the impact from such a small event on the rest of the world and its inhabitants.

But that does not mean we want to have every child everywhere taking branches from every tree, because we can all imagine the effect of that.

So where does that leave us? As the wise ones who came before us suggest, it leaves us trying to find a balance in the lessons we teach the children [and take to heart ourselves]. Passing on woods skills, love of nature, etc. is important - and should be fun. Kindling respect for nature and natural resources is also important - and should also be fun.

So, especially if the acts were innocent, perhaps we can respectfully strive to use the opportunity to offer the lessons our history and science have taught us. We can briefly share that we know use of live trees has an unknown but potentially significant impact, and because of that such use is often against the law. We can suggest with humor and affection that good woods skills include being respectful to everybody else on the planet, and to future generations whose world we are borrowing, by using deadfall when we can and by not building recreational things when we cannot.

We can teasingly remind that if the branches are left growing we can get pine tea every year from the new growth, and that birds and squirrels can live on the insects and cones that will be part of the future of the branch, etc. With appropriately applied tickling, we can ask the children to stretch their imaginations to see their children enjoying the shade, the tea, the birds, and the squirrels that a live branch can share with us in the future.

It's not just a touchy-feely, tree-hugging, foolish thing; it is a brutal, ruthless, selfish, economic calculation.

Wow, this thread really went off the rails......

good idea. Some points...

Use all the forest floor debris for insulation/ waterproofing and try a model using a long ridge pole against a tree ( like a pup tent shape). easy and fast.

T

debris hut instructions #1

PS I was always taught to build up an arm length of materials - about 1 m
of debris

I think the thread is about what to teach kids about the outdoors and the resources they include. While I couldn't disagree more with BigDaddyTX, it is more important to clue kids into both sides of this discussion. They are the future stewards of the planet and this debate will be alive and well for some time to come.

As for us, I think we should agree to disagree on this point, and move on. We have plenty of areas where we are in agreement and can learn from one another.

I didn't sense any anger or animosity from the poster who didn't like that the first poster took some tree boughs to teach shelter-making - with the same lack of any animosity or anger, I'd like to politely disagree with those who would take a few boughs from tree to tree and not think it does harm. Its not just you who might take a few boughs from different trees, but the several to the hundreds to eventually the thousands in popular places who take only a bough or two - to make a bed, a shelter, to make fire or smoke. A bough or two, multiplied a hundred times or more over the lifetime of a grove of trees, means a pretty well stripped down forest, a forest of striplings.

I think the ethos you should apply when practicing forest shelter making is leave no trace - scavenge your shelter materials, and then disperse them when you're done. Only in a real emergency, if you are outdoors, can't go home, and in need of shelter or risking exposure to the elements, should you take live branches and boughs and make a shelter. Honestly, in my neck of the woods there's no shortage of downfall and downed branches for shelter-making, and its alot quicker to use this than to cut fresh boughs.

Anyway, I didn't sense the poster was castigating anyone for raping the forests, or blaming survival practices for the fall of the Amazon rainforest, just asking you to leave no trace when no more urgent need arises.

We are currently volunteering in a state park campground in the Pacific Northwest. Picking up deadfall is prohibited, yet there is nothing on the ground. Cutting a live tree is almost a shooting offense, yet there are nothing but stubs up to a height of six feet or so, many of the limbs broken off, not cut. What does this mean? Not sure, since most of the trees are still alive. But they sure are ugly. And without the rules, I suspect that a lot of the trees would be dead or gone entirely...

Truly we have to protect our National Forests from over use and harm. But from what I've seen of the world and the United States in specific is that camping and hiking, even building the occasional debris shelter is not much of a threat to our environment (I like to say our environment, because that's what we're worried about. Something that looks and feels comfortable to us. We can no more destroy the Earth then we can save all the planet's species.) But what bothers me is the continual march of subdivisions out into wilderness and agricultural land. I went to Tucson, Arizona and the desert where my dad went out to shoot in college because there was no one to hit was all shotgun houses. The same goes for my parent's house near Houston. What had been out in the sticks with deer moving through the back pasture is now entirely surrounded by houses. Denver, Colorado Springs they're the same way. More land paved over and parceled and manicured lawns of a single species. Leave the poor man alone for cutting a few branches and look around at what's really making an impact. More and more people driving further to work, every single day. Instead of lots of people all in one building we have lots of people each on their own little plot of land.

When I leave my current situation, I'd like to live in the city and walk to work five times a week. I can commute to the country on the weekends.

There is no thing as a rainforest, it’s a jungle. Rainforest is an invented term to make people more willing to send money to and protest for the jungle.

Tarzan Lord of the rainforest
Tarzan Lord of the jungle.

What one sounds right?


As far as the original poster, I would bet he is sorry he posted the pictures and will likely not do it the next time. It’s not worth all the grief over a few branches.

My goal is to move to a rural setting with no neighbors in sight. I don't think that it's such a great idea for thousands of people to live in one building or millions to live in a city but I'll gladly leave them there to deal with the inherent problems.

"Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the vastness for something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost."

I fully understand the longing to be where no one else has been or is likely to follow. But there's getting to be fewer and fewer places like that. I'd rather visit them, then have them disappear. The days of the Daniel Boone and Robert Service are over, there are far too few places where you can truly say you are far from civilization. Or saying, not have someone else walk up and agree with you.

I think the cities, with their many facets, are far healthier then subdivisions which are all the same, from one coast to the other. Burger King, Applebee's, Starbucks and Best Buy. Doesn't matter where you're at, its hard to tell you've even moved.

So I choose the city to live in and the country to commute to.

If a single small tree used for building a shelter makes somebody cringe...

Then, my Lord, they must go out of their mind with rage when they see a beaver dam. Heck, a single family of beavers probably cuts down more trees each year than all the debris shelter makers in North America. Those rascals will go up and down the river chewing rings of bark and cambrium off from 300 large trees and leave them to die. And yet, somehow the forests have managed to survive the continuous onslaught of millions of beavers.

The forests around here can produce new trees at a rate faster than nature, primitive man included, can cut them down. There's gazillions of saplings struggling for the chance to get some sunlight through a break in the canopy. Sure, clearing forests for development, agriculture, lumber, etc, can destroy a forest. But taking an occassional small tree here and there amid a thriving forest has no detrimental effect whatsoever and can even be beneficial. I know... it's not the single tree it's the aggregate effect. But I still don't think the aggregate effect of all the hikers and campers in the world amounts to a fraction of the trees destroyed by other living creatures like deer and beaver.

Conservation! Not preservation.

I think the point was people are taking this way to seriously. A few branches on a tree dopes not kill nor does it even harm it. Everyone is not running around chopping down trees wherever they stand. Those people whining are probably putting more pollution into the air with the cars which is doing more damage.

Who will think of the trees!?

Well, that's a good start for building some skills. It would be interesting if they built it up to the proper size, then got in it while you simulated rain over it, so they could actually see how effective their efforts would be.

As kids we hacked and burned all sorts of foliage out behind our house in the 13 years I was there, so did most of our neighborhood friends. For all our efforts (and they were prolific), you'd never have known of any of it if you didn't go looking. At one point, we managed to start a small forest fire and got the fire department called on us. That was a painful lesson, and taught us to be more clandestine and plan ahead a little better.

A couple years after I came home from my first (and only) tour in the Navy, I was disappointed to see that the whole forest had been cleared by a developer, and all our special little forts and camps and gathering areas in the woods were gone. Our collection of playboys from the 70s were no more, and our stash of emergency toilet paper (alder leaves proved unacceptable while day camping, and our stash of beer we stole from dad had all been scoured away along with all those beautiful Douglas fir and Western Hemlocks we'd played around and chopped and sawed and burnt. Nothing we ever did, it seemed, could ever make a dent in that forest, but I was told it took the devleoper's contractor a week to log off all the trees, rake the stumps into a slash pile, and basically turn the hillside into another fenced in row of ticky tacky houses.

Get your kids out there and hack as many limbs as it takes to make them proficient at doing something in a natural setting and find some value in doing it often, before it is gone. Lopping a few limbs on a regular basis isn't going to devastate any forest; it may actually benefit the land, much like selective logging does.

People who fanatically insist we must leave the forests unperturbed and pristine just don't understand how nature works. If I could, I would send every school-age kid out into the forest as often as possible and do just what red did. That might be the best way to insure that at least some of the forests aren't turned into tract housing. This notion that limbing a tree or two or two hundred is somehow going to cause global deforestation is just not realistic. Heck, the forest service does far more of that in a year as maintenance in the places I roamed than me and all my friends could ever have hoped to in our entire childhood.

benjammin, you actually make alot of sense every once in a while.

We had a similar project to accomplish for Wilderness Survival merit badge back in my Scouting days. We had to build a shelter in a pine forest and so we propped large branches against a tree, ran smaller branches between the propped ones, and then used handfulls of pine needles to fill in the gaps for waterproofing. It worked pretty well, since we got some steady rain later that evening. Incidentally, we used all deadfall because that was all we could reach. These pines had no live branches lower than 50' off the ground.

The only nature that was disturbed were the bees in the nest that we uncovered in a pile of needles. So we also got to demonstrate our First Aid skills.

When my son got his, they used nothing but deadfall and driftwood found on the lakeshore. I did it with them too, just for fun. No rain that night to test it, but most did survive the midnight attack of the older scouts...

As I wrote before, this debate has been underway for at least hundreds of years and won’t be resolved today. What we can do is try to learn from each other and check to see if maybe our position still makes sense. What we can do is invite the kids to be aware of the debate.

For some, the standard debate technique is to exaggerate the other side’s position so it looks foolish. You all recognize that technique, especially when it is used against your position, and I’d just suggest it may be less than the honesty the topic deserves.

I’m going to try to follow my own suggestion and not exaggerate, but you will be the judges, of course, and that’s just how it should be. You keep me honest, and I will, when I have the resources, keep you honest.

So what is the topic, the debate? I suggest it is respect.

Respect for branches of a tree? Well, sort of, though that does sound funny at first.

Let me again say that this is a debate that began long before us and will continue long after we are gone. Different folks with different experience of the world have honest, heart-felt, disagreements about how to act in the world. It has probably always been to the advantage of our species to take different approaches so the odds are some of us will survive.

But here’s where I think different groups start to come to very different conclusions. Some believe that we are so powerful and numerous that our actions have the potential to, at least, severely limit our ability to survive on the planet. That is, what you do might mean somebody’s kids are going to pay a terrible price – and maybe already are.

Most of us have an immediate reaction to this notion, one way or the other, and it pretty much determines our position in the debate. If the notion that our actions can threaten the well-being of others seems ridiculous, then this is all tree-hugging, preservationist overreaction (polite version). If that notion gives you pause, if you are concerned enough to consider it as a serious possibility and wish to avoid threatening the well-being of others, then this is not just an academic debate and this is all painful disregard for lessons of history and our responsibility as stewards of the planet (polite version)..

So, back to respect for tree branches, sort of. Should anyone, adult or child, harvest live tree branches at any time. Of course they should, in time of need, for educational purposes, to aid tree health, etcetera, and etcetera.

To argue that one side advocates a total ban on branch cutting is to resort to that exaggeration thing I wrote about earlier. To argue that if you allow one branch to be cut, all will be cut is that same kind of exaggeration. Neither side honorably or honestly advances its cause by making these arguments. Everybody knows that, which is why many try to say the other side is making just those arguments.

We all have anecdotal evidence of the effect of cutting live branches, ranging from there does not seem to be any effect to the tree was never the same again. And we all have our collection of what we believe is scientific evidence of the effect of cutting live tree branches, ranging from it stimulates the tree to better growth to it opens the tree to disease, etc.. And everyone is apparently right some of the time (and wrong some of the time) – so I think those arguments are distractions that get us nowhere.

What is on point is deciding what to teach kids about cutting live branches.

I think it is a fair summary to say one side assumes live branch-cutting can have no larger consequences and says that we should let kids have fun and work to teach them branch-cutting technique, uses for cut branches, etc., They accuse the other side of wanting to ban fun and useful learning for no good reason.

And I think it is a fair summary to say the other side assumes that live branch-cutting can have larger consequences and says that fun and technique should include respect for the ecosystem, including the individual tree. They accuse the other side of teaching a disrespectful, thoughtless, and overly-exploitive approach to nature that makes hollow of any fun or learning that is otherwise going on.

I am in the r-e-s-p-e-c-t group. It seems the conservative position to be cautious in using resources. We seem to have had an impact on the ozone layer, we certainly create pollution, and I suspect we are still learning about how much we affect the planet. I think kids are learning every second and that there is enough evidence in the world that teaching concern for our impact on the planet is a survival issue.

Could I be wrong? Sure; so could you. I just think the evidence is pretty clear and, even if I am wrong, it is better to learn to conserve resources. Are there times when it doesn’t matter if live branches are cut? Almost certainly; but I don’t think we see the future to know what the impact of cutting a particular branch will be, and we can choose what habits and attitudes we want kids to learn.

So I say teach kids about the possible consequences of live branch-cutting, when such cutting is appropriate, when it is not, when there are better substitutes, how to use both kinds of branches properly, etc. I say be sure kids know lots of serious, honest people think cutting live branches unnecessarily is a bad thing - and some places even make it against the law. If it is your position that is ridiculous, teach that, too. Let the kids begin to make informed decisions - and begin to find their place in the debate.

Argh - you're missing my point. I'm not drawing a line to global deforestation from limbing trees to demonstrate shelter-building, I have no agenda here except leave no trace, and can make my shelters from downfall and deadfall, thank you - I have the luxury of plenty of material to use out here. Your experience in your populated neck of the woods isn't all that relevant, unless a forest is protected from development the bulldozer is eventually the way of all such woods. When a forest is protected, the question is what kind of forest you want to preserve. I would agree, hack and burn and build your shelters all you like, except the environment you cut up with be that much less desirable for you and the thousand of kids who might enjoy it, until the developer comes. Developers come to the most pristine little forests, if they're in the wrong (or right) spot. In a typical suburban backyard it doesn't matter one whit.

I know a thing or two about tree pruning, if not nature. You clip branches on a pine, and they won't grow back in place. The tree will eventually grow taller, with no branches where you clipped. You can see the remains of such enlightened wood gathering from decades ago near camp sites all over the pacific northwest. Eventually branches fall and are blown off, naturally. Only when the trees topple and give another tree a chance to grow to you get any new growth. Who said limbing a tree for shelter causes deforestation? It creates an ugly tree, faster, that's all. Fill your temporary forests with ugly trees, see if I care.

There are all sorts of folks who know better how to treat our forests. A popular trail near here along Mt Washington is fairly rocky and unappealing in the summer, but a great snowshoe in the winter. This past winter, some wise person found saplings bent over the trail from the weight of snow. Instead of going around, he lopped off the top of 30-40 trees, and they stood straight up, clearing his way. This summer you see columns of saplings along the trail, lopped off at the top. Those won't grow anywhere, they'll die out. Sure, its not the most appealing trail in summer, but tell that to the folks who have spent their spare time improving it. Just more of the idiocy you see from well-meaning folks who can't see past their own path through the forest.

I'm convinced my way is better than yours. That doesn't make me a better person, or a better outdoorsman necessarily, it doesn't make my shelters more holy, just that I know my path through life is light. The forest may burn down behind me, woodcutters may harvest a few trees here and there for their profit or comfort, that's life, but I'd rather leave the place for the next guy just like I found it. If you think that's smug then maybe so, its what I believe and I see the results in where I live.

One more while I'm venting - jungle vs. rainforest, semantics, not a green political agenda. Rainforest because the predominant feature is, well, rain. Stand on the Olympic Peninsula for a while and decide if its a jungle or a rainforest. Jungle is a word that doesn't meant anything to me. Rainforest, I understand.

Perhaps I'm stupid, but this whole thread seems to be based on the assumption that the OP cut branches from public land.

You shouldn't cut branches in a public park due to common courtesy and the fact that they do not belong to you (alone). In a much frequented "wilderness" area if there were no restrictions the area would soon be stripped bare. But in a true wilderness or on private property, "leave no trace" is just a silly "one size fits all" rule for dummies.

Here's a link to an interesting essay about "leave no trace" that someone else posted a while back:
http://www.purcelltrench.com/leaveatrace.htm

This quote pretty much sums it up:

Well, I don't see that the two camps are mutually exclusive. Perhaps what's missing, what can connect us, and what has already been mentioned more or less, is the thoughtful use of the resource. I'll admit wholeheartedly that what we did as kids was downright wrong. It did result in damage to several big trees, and had anyone else besides us ventured into those woods and done some looking, they'd have found our handiwork. Our problem: we were cut loose and left to our own means and methods of learning, and for a young bunch of boys, that meant taking things apart, doing various destructive tests, the kind of things curious and wild boys will do to things. What makes matters worse is my dad worked for Weyerhauser and knew an awful lot about the forest, and chose not to share any more about what he knew than to send me to the woodpile for cordage. Nor was anyone else around that might have known willing to teach us anything about woodlore or conservation or any of that, at least not until high school.

I would advocate taking the time as adults to learn about conservation, and good forest practices, and all those sorts of things that add to the general enjoyment of the outdoors, then taking the kids out into it, teaching them what you know, counseling them about what is ethical, and repeating the process often. Likely it will go a long way toward better stewardship of both public and private lands, will get kids off their butts and doing something interesting, and make better citizens in general.

So far as I know, it isn't something they teach vigorously in elementary schools, and maybe it should be more. Neither is it something I see a lot of parents getting involved in.

I don't think there's any smugness in respecting the natural world. Respect being a subjective thing, it falls then to each our own experience and wisdom as to how we go about it. There are laws and regulations a plenty that prescribe the limits of our respect, or lack of it, so I reckon as long as we are all working within those agreed upon limitations, we can maintain our diverse views and even exercise good discussions that will be of some benefit to us all.

Jungle seems to me to be rainforests in tropical locations, for I've never heard of temperate rainforests referred to as such. In all the times I went there, I would never have thought to call the Hoh river valley a jungle. But I'm not using Webster's version here, just my own experience. There might some places here in Florida I could call jungle, but swamp still seems more appropriate.

I meant no offense by my remarks either RED. Its good that you take the time to teach the kids what you know.

fwiw I've been known to harvest a few flowers and seeds in my time as well. Never from where its prohibited, but I'm not always sure of roadside rules.

It is good to see the tone of the recent posts. Just by caring enough to post here all you folks get my vote; job one is always just showing up.

Anyone who wants to show how to build a debris hut can probably just ask around and find someone who needs some trees pruned.

Sue

Seems like fairly reasonable attitudes on both sides of the issue, here. I don't see anybody taking things to either extreme - which is good. Like dweste says, it is an ages old debate and a proper balance is probably the most important thing.

I do have somewhat of an objection to the "leave no trace" concept. I'm definitely opposed to anyone trashing the place. But I have come to the realization that simple traces of human habitation or presence is not a blemish on the face of the wilderness. I now see traces of human activity as an integral part of nature. Mankind has always inhabited the face of the earth and left his mark upon it. Finding traces of an old campsite is just as much a natural occurrence as is finding an old fox den, an elk wallow, or trees cut down by a beaver. Actually, finding traces of old human habitation can be one of the most fascinating parts of exploring the wild places - things like finding arrowheads, indian signal trees, cave drawings, or thousand year old portage paths. Now obviously, as I stated above, there is a need for balance in all things. I wouldn't use this argument as an excuse for people to leave garbage lay around, carve their initial in every other beech tree, or in any other way be sloppy their caretaking of the creation. My only point is just that evidence of human presence and traces of responsible human use of our natural resources shouldn't automatically be considered a blemish on the environment. Mankind is an integral part of nature, not just an outside observer. Actually, an ecosystem without any trace of man would be most UNnatural.

Very good discussion amongst all, I think.

Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner! The debris shelter is on my land, and it is not illegal nor unethical nor evil for a family to practice shelter building on their OWN LAND. In fact, I would be allowed by law to cut down a bunch of trees and use them to build a cabin (helluva shelter building exercise, there!)...Oh, actually we have a cabin there, built of WOOD! Not deadfall! Where are all the trees now? Oh, that's right, more trees grow every year. It's really weird. When one dies from old age...er, being viciously cut down, more pop up right by the dead one. It's like some type of circle of life thing or something. We've also been known to (gasp) cut down a tree for Christmas every year. Sometimes even two (for a less-advantaged home) HORRORS! Oh, I'm sorry, did I spell Christmas out???? How offensive! But we do have a pagan rite before we do the evil deed, with offerings of herbal essence and smoked peyote embers cast to the four winds. Praise Gaia!

And about 10 years ago, the loggers came through and CLEAR CUT about 10 acres of our 40 acres. I bet they wore eye patches and have the number 666 tattooed in their scalp. HORRORS! To provide wood for homes to keep people warm! Evil, I say, evil! Spike the trees, sit in them, do what you must to protect the innocent boughs from the wrath of the chainsaws! Except...hmmm... that clearcut swath is now the NICEST LOOKING FOREST ON MY LAND. Just like before, more trees appeared out of nowhere (must have been some sweet environmentalists dressed as dryads and sprites who came at midnight to sprinkle fairy dust and lodgepole pine cones) I SWEAR I didn't plant them. We've been trying to keep a clear space of grass open for years, and y'know, those damn trees just keep encroaching! It's like they *want* to grow and reproduce or something. Weird. If someone can please explain how/why these trees keep coming back and growing in ever greater numbers on my land, I'd love to know. I was taught at PC university that whenever a tree is cut down, a silent scream pierces the air, life ends and the forest dies. I actually heard a scream once when I was cutting one down, but it was me when I dropped the chainsaw on my blasted foot.

Oh, and the ridgepole should have been longer. (To keep it on a survival forum thread)

What we continue to have here is a failure to communicate.

No assumption about public versus private land changes the debate in any significant way regarding what kids should be taught about cutting live branches of trees. In general, respect for the environment is respect for the environment.

The activity of shelter building can be entirely admirable. The debate is how should kids be taught to do it. I say, no live branches should be cut unless there is a great need, and kids should be taught why.

Kids grow up to be developers, executives in resource companies, and politicians with a say in how we deal with the environment. I hope most of them will bring respect for the environment, and our dependency on it, to their decision-making. It is never too soon for them to begin their education.

I make no comment about religious observances, and would suggest playing the "religion card" is not germane to the overall debate.

Teaching a kid how to make a shelter with a few live branches is no more going to make him an evil tree hacker on the 10 most wanted enviro-terrorist list then it is to say that teaching a kid how to start a campfire is going to go make him an arsonist that burns down houses. It’s silly to say or think this. Get a grip people!




It’s amazing how well the tree-huggers have infested mainstream people and made otherwise normal thinking people look at a person cutting a few branches as out to destroy the environment. Greenpeace has been very successful in programming how many of you think.

Um, pain?

-Blast

"Leave no trace."

I've driven 200 miles out of my way to look at Anasazi rock houses, rock paintings and Register Cliff (near Guernsey, WY), where many of the pioneers carved their names, initials and dates they passed on their way to CA, OR, etc.

I've also stopped at campgrounds and walked through with a plastic bag, picking up the debris of previous campers. Should I have left it as I found it?

"Pack out your trash" would seem to be a better motto to pass along.

Sue

"I've never understood adding insult to injury. Why not just add more injury?" www.choppingblock.org

[quote=BobS
It’s amazing how well the tree-huggers have infested mainstream people and made otherwise normal thinking people look at a person cutting a few branches as out to destroy the environment. Greenpeace has been very successful in programming how many of you think.
[/quote]

And so, DING-DING-DING, for you faithful readers, begins round two at square one. Just go to the top of the thread and read again, if you are so inclined.

2,000 B.C., somewhere in the Southwest: Anasazi Dad comes home after a long day of hunting. Wife is there with hands on hips. "What's wrong?" he asks. Wife:"Yourson's in trouble." Husband:"What did he do this time?" Wife: "He was caught painting the canyon walls again." Husband:"Oh Geez...he's a boy, honey! I did a few rock paintings in my teenage years; I turned out o.k." Wife:"He's doing the Crouching Flutist again. You knowthat's a well known gang symbol. You make him scrub those horrid pictures off the walls tonight!" Husband: "O.k. o.k....hey what's for dinner? Can we have peyote casserole again?"

First...DUDE! Didn't you detect the slightest whiff of sarcasm in my post? "Playing the religion card?" It was a JOKE! I respect your opinion. Don't teach *your* kids to cut live boughs. Great. Just don't tell me what I can do on my land, and I won't tell you what you can or cannot teach your kids. That's the problem with environmentalist activists (not that I'm calling you one). They feel like it's their prerogative to legislate how I treat the environment on my land.

Red, I thought your post was sarcasm, but couldn't quite tell which way the weapon was pointed or if it was all intended as sarcasm - my bad!

We are way past doing whatever we want, whenever we want, anywhere on the planet, public or private. Is this good or bad? Depends on my mood. Was it ever different, probably not except in degree.

Zoning laws, pollution laws, local laws, state laws, and federal laws all tell us what we can do or not do on "our" land because the effects of what we do does not stay on our land. Peer pressure, church pressure, nosey neighbor pressure, etcetera all succeed in keeping what we do on "our" land limited on a less formal - but just as powerful - basis.

But I am not advocating any of that in this thread. My point is that kids learn fast from our examples and we should try to teach them the best we can: cutting live branches from trees -wherever the tree happens to be located - should be part of a larger lesson about treating the environment we share.

So I have had my say; I think I am going to let this thread go where it wishes. I am going on to something else.

"...Crouching Flutist...knowthat's a well known gang symbol..."

A gang of pregnant women I'll bet...