Musick Creek Confluence - 2024 Update from Jemmy Bluestein
Jim Michael
Trees Above All
Musick Creek Confluence Inc.
March 2024
Dear friends and supporters,
Greetings from Musick Creek to all our people near and far! This is an annual update of activities on the creek and in the forest at our preserve in the central Sierra. This message is for our big list of encouraging folks and we don’t like to overuse it, but we do like to stay in touch and voice our gratitude for your support in our ongoing relationship with this place. We had an amazing year of abundant waters, never seen anything like it. The forests around us are largely decimated from the 2020 Creek Fire, so there are many fewer straws in the subsurface hydrological punch bowl, and much more water flowing about, washing down the creeks, springs, and meadows. We also had such an abundant winter with massive snow loads in the high country. As a result, the creeks and springs just kept chugging along all summer, and the regrowth in those areas was impressive.
At the time of our last update, we had just completed a grant with the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), using standing burnt tree and brush materials to protect our 60 acres worst burned in the creek fire from excessive soil erosion. We dropped and chunked it all up by hand and laid it all horizontal across the otherwise burnt naked mineral ground. Where it was steepest we staked it into the soil to terrace and hold it from washing away. We all ate a lot of charcoal but it felt so good getting the support to do what the soil needed. Then came the big rains. Our hillsides stayed put. The new growth and the structure we put down have woven a dense fabric and we are retaining and building nutrients like crazy. Foresters have marveled at the productivity of this area which has grown (and lost) so many forests just over the past 150 years. Our acreage is now an island of preservation, radiating native genetic material back out into the surrounding desolation. This is because we anticipated the disaster for 25 years and our broad thinning work saved half of our own acreage from the creek fire, and by stopping the firestorm we helped save hundreds of square miles of forest uphill!
We have already begun another grant with NRCS, which will continue throughout the next few years. We are currently in phase one of the project. This phase entails finding, weeding, mulching, and flagging all our young seedlings, the intrepid survivors of the approximately 15,000 we have planted since the fire. We will simultaneously be pruning a few thousand black oak trees which have massively rootsprouted from the trunks of burnt up giant black oaks. The shoots we select will grow tall very quickly with the existing root system and all the sugar from growing for the past 3 years as a vigorous shrubbery. In October of this year, NRCS will pay us $17,000 for phase one. The above work is to be done before the payout, so we asked if anyone could front us the cash to get the work done. Within a day, personal free loans were offered for $10,000 and $5,000! Thank you CC and C/B, we feel so honored by your support!
We are also thrilled for phase two of the project which begins next year. In October of 2025, NRCS will pay us $115,000 for planting out several thousand native trees and understory species for the benefit of wildlife habitat restoration. Edison Power Co owns a lot of local forest, and their nursery guy Gus has agreed to grow our plants for us, which is blimey amazing. Gus mostly does what some call, “pines in lines,” (industrial scale forest revegetation with little biodiversity), so this opportunity to propagate a more diverse selection of special native species is dear to his heart.
Ray Leclergue, one of our revegetation gurus, said the squirrels love the sugar pine cones, and the predators prefer the squirrels, so Gus is potting up 1,000 sugar pines for delivery as two year olds, which we know to be advantageous. Much of our planting in the past has been on the kamikaze side of the spectrum: often many free seedlings, late in the season, planted ASAP. Attrition tends to be high when planting young seedlings with this method, though we have had some amazing results as well as losses. However in phase two of this new project, our trees and plants will have every possible advantage. This includes planting in the optimal season, with chicken wire baskets and cages–full armor, protecting roots and shoots, above and below.
As with phase one, we must get the work done before the payout from NRCS. We will be looking for loans for any useful chunk of the $115,000 total as front money, which we will repay in November 2025. Thank you for considering contributing to this loan if you are able.
Meanwhile our local seedling distributor friends at Seedlings Of Hope will be releasing several thousand trees to us over March and April! I am anticipating over six thousand. We will plant them broadly as we cover the lower 60 acres with our maintenance work. Very busy spring/summer. Please chime anytime you would like to drop in. We can even pay you some cash if you would like to help out. To be clear on this business: we have a certain amount from NRCS for the immediate projects at hand so we can offer cash to our workers and helpers. We have front money for the first phase with which to pay today. We have not yet secured front money for the second phase ($115,000) and in general are otherwise broke-ish in terms of other projects or improvements, etc. Our donation page is here for anyone with cash in need of a worthy purpose, or seeking a tax write-off. The possibilities are endless for education, recreation, performance/production, healing, art, permaculture, etc. We have water, sunshine, beautiful materials, community; we are pretty rich.
We would also like to continue onsite milling. It is addictive. Such amazing material. We are already sitting on enough milled lumber for a pole barn, which we would love to build for myriad uses. We also have eminently millable logs in large decks which we salvaged in post-fire cleanup. Hope we can mill a bunch in summer and fall. I hate to abandon this abundant gift of the forest, building materials for future generations?
In short, we follow the path in front of us. In our 20 + years of caring for this land, and approximately $500,000 in various restoration grants, we have continued to do what seems most useful to the land in the moment. This has evolved from fuel reduction thinning, to erosion control, to salvage logging/milling, to planting and growing. I feel so fortunate for this opportunity to relearn some of the lost understanding of this forest. Of course the land we steward here is a tiny drop in the charred bucket of the surrounding devastation, which makes the learning and the subsequent teaching crucial in terms of potential overall usefulness.
One of our great local foresters Patrick Emmert died last year, and we often quote him: “If you’re lucky enough to work in the mountains, you’re lucky enough.”
We maintain a presence on Facebook for Musick Creek Confluence, as it is the easiest way for me to share news and the many pretty pics and sweet video clips of our streams and forests. I would love for you to enjoy them. I am particularly fond of the short musickal creekside soundscapes of water from the tiniest melody of a hidden spring to the thunderous roar of waterfalls at full flood. Streaming video for real. You can also find updates and photos on our website.
We would love to hear from you. Let us know if you would like to join us on our monthly Zoom meeting (third Thursday of each month), or our monthly volunteer day on the land (third Saturday of each month). Intense planting starts on Saturday! Meet at Cressman’s at the top of the 168 four-lane at 9 AM! Let me know to expect you so no one gets left. 559-765-1909.
I wish to thank all our volunteers on the ground and in the office, and supporters everywhere allowing us to try and reclaim some abandoned knowledge of this land, something we can teach the younger ones – to amuse them while they figure it all out so much better… Also want to dedicate this planting season to our dear Alison who only came to Musick near the end of her life here but who charmed us all so much. We miss her. Thanks Randall for everything, and for bringing her to us in time.
So many thanks from Jem and all your friends at Musick Creek Confluence.
Jem Bluestein, President
Musick Creek Confluence
PO Box 17072
Fresno, CA 93744-7072