California Legislation Update – June 17

June 16, 2014

Committee hearings are under way again.  Many of our bills are being heard in the next two weeks.  We have been busy sending out correspondence in advance of these hearings. There was a hearing on June 10 at the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee.  The following bills were heard and we sent these letters: […]

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The Great Big Leaf Maple Syrup Experiment – update 2

April 26, 2014

We are forced to declare the Great Big Leaf Maple Experiment a bust for 2014. The maple trees are now fully leafed out and we did not gather a drop of sap.  Our failure analysis suggests three probable causes: 1.  We are in an epic drought and there just wasn’t enough sap to spare. 2.  We […]

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Succession Planning, Part Two – Engaging your heirs

March 23, 2014

Disclaimer: We’re not claiming to be experts, but CCFA can certainly act as a clearing house for stories, ideas, problems, questions and so forth as we explore the topic together.  We think that if we each share the little bit we know, across all of us we can find most of the answers we need. […]

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Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP)

March 23, 2014

The Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP) is a voluntary cost-share program for landowners who want to develop and improve wildlife habitat on agricultural land, nonindustrial private forestland and Indian land. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) administers WHIP to provide technical assistance and up to 75% cost-share assistance to establish and improve fish and wildlife […]

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The Great Big Leaf Maple Syrup Experiment – update 1

February 19, 2014

When you are starting a feasibility experiment, you don’t want to go whole-hog.  The vendors that cater to the maple syrup crowd sort of assume you’re working at a serious production level.  We really didn’t need 100 spiles, for instance.  So where do you go when you don’t know where to go to shop for […]

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Succession Planning, Part One of Many

February 16, 2014

You may remember a couple of years ago when CCFA sent a questionnaire out asking if members were interested in succession planning.  We got a very enthusiastic response and have been trying since then to get the UC Extension folks to bring the Ties to the Land road show to Santa Cruz County.  We feel […]

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An alternate method for NTMP inventory and harvest

September 8, 2013

If you are at all interested in alternative forest management strategies, you might find Dale Holderman’s strategy in his NTMP interesting. Dale has come up with a method that allows him to cut just his growth without having to extensively inventory his trees each time he harvests to prove he is within his plan.  It […]

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Litigation Update 9/6/13 – Fire Taxes and Dusky Gopher Frogs

September 8, 2013

Fire Tax/SRA Fees The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association announced the next date in court for their challenge to the SRA fees/Fire tax will be: Date:  Thursday, November 21, 2013 Time:  9:00 a.m. Place:  Dept. 14, Sacramento Superior Court, 720 Ninth St., Sacramento The hearing is open to the public.  HJTA asks that if you come, […]

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Today’s best excuse to get out in the woods

August 11, 2013

We are well into fire season now.  We haven’t had significant rain since last December (!) and the woods are getting decidedly crunchy.  The redwoods and madrones are settling into their late summer coping mode of shedding leaves to limit transpiration water loss until relief comes in October with the first storms of the rainy […]

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Legislation Update June 28, 2013 – focus on AB 904

June 30, 2013

California legislation Last week was a particularly busy one for bills related to forestry and land management.  There was a big hearing in the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, where several of our tracked bills were heard.  Cate Moore and Ron DeBenedetti of the CCFA Board went to Sacramento to testify in behalf of […]

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