Archeological area now protected!

[Joel Pomerantz]

Musick Notes   =::=   July 17, 2020

Three topics of interest here:

• Protection accomplished (road moved)

• Uninvited visitors

• What a donation gets you or doesn't

1. Road moved from sensitive area

About a year ago, Ron Good of the North Fork Mono tribe, who is an archeologist, requested we abandon the route leading to Azalea Camp through a midden. A midden is a combination of discarded and ritual materials. It was created when the area by the creek was the center of a village for thousands of years.

We agreed and made plans, which this week were completed. The route has been blocked to all except foot traffic and cars now have a new road to camp! The new road solves some other issues as well, making turnaround and gear drop-off easier. The winter snows & rains will help compact the new road. (Thank you everyone who worked on this!)

2. Uninvited visitors

We had a long discussion about how to handle Shaver Lake area neighbors whose all terrain vehicles have caused damage over the last 15 years or so. We settled on a multi-prong approach:

• A friendly, large, colorful sign will be made and placed at the entrance(s) labeling the land as Musick Creek Confluence Nature Preserve

• Educational flyers (here’s the latest draft) to give to anyone unexpected we see visiting the property. Our immediate neighbors have also agreed to hand them out.

• Those neighbors are located right by one of the main entrance roads and they (and their bark-is-scarier-than-bite dog) sometimes manage to get people’s attention. Their property must be crossed to get to ours from the paved road areas and they posted No Trespassing signs which may help.

• We have begun to institute a process for giving welcome tours and safety waivers. These are now required for anyone to use the property. Eventually, this will reach deeper into the community, but for now it’s only people who ask.

• Potential longer term ways to build up a presence on the property are being considered.

3. What your donation gets you and doesn't get you.

When you give a tax deductible contribution to Musick Creek Confluence, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), it doesn’t get you a damn thing. Except a sense of satisfaction of whatever sort you weave. But nothing else. That’s it. Nothing more.

You won’t get a statue. You won’t get a brick. You won’t get a bumpersticker or a tote bag. 

It doesn’t get you any special rights. Anyone can participate and learn more about the beautiful Musick Creek area with or without making a donation.

Your donation also might accomplish something. But it’s not for you. It's for everyone.

It might just help to build a saner world, with a flourishing, lively, flexible, more resilient diverse natural environment. It might just protect and improve the local stash of biological wonders—good lookin’ and good smellin’ flowers, plus flowers that exist nowhere else, plus charismatic megafauna (bears, cougars, ladybug colonies).

Oh, and giant manzanita, granite moss communities, bats, birds, fish, lichens, foxes.

I saw a few kinds of woodpeckers last visit. I nibbled wild onions. I photographed a very wrinkled tree near the plank bridge. I named it Rumplebarkskin. It weaves email into gold.

So sorry. Your donation doesn’t get you a damn thing. Unless you can see beyond a damn thing.

5 WAYS TO DONATE 
Zelle ➪ use 415-505-8255 
Venmo (specify 'for Musick') ➪ use @JoelPomerantz 
Check to Musick Creek Confluence, PO Box 170191, SF, CA 94117 
PayPal or credit card (specify 'for Musick') ➪ use doa...@icloud.com 
GoFundMe ➪ http://crowdrise.com/musick-creek 

Half a dozen people have even set up a monthly repeating donation. (This is very amazing.)

Keep on keepin’ on…and don’t forget there are places of beauty and hope in this world of chance and confusion.

Joel

 bark and barking seem to be a theme