Trying to define places for camping, trails for horseback riding etc.

More pics of fire aftermath. I wonder what is before math?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianfey/530251656/

The wind has picked up again and there is more smoke. One of the crew went up to see if it is spreading here again. I hope it is not.
This morning all that was left of the fire in my area was small ones like in this photo. The main fire is still going about a mile away. it looks big still but I can’t see that it has spread. Hard to tell.

I got some sleep today.

There is thunder. If I am very lucky there will be rain.

It is a very good thing this didn’t happen last month when things where drier. This place would have all fried.
I am glad I understand better now how fires here work. Some of the things I am doing increase the likelihood of fire and some things are reducing risk. They are not really that dangerous except that they could burn my cabanas.

Here is an example of a simple trail (being watched) is useful as a firebreak. Also helps that the fire was entering my land in the uphill side.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianfey/530251656/

All the dogs are back and fine. Everything is ok.

The crew spend the day cutting trees. I am going to make some major places where fire cannot cross easy.

UPDATE:

now there is rain… a little
I have never been so happy to hear the sound of rain in my life.
I am laugh crying.

more pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianfey/tags/forestfire/

Fire under control here. It jumped the road and got on another guys land then came onto mine.
still burning but not spreading more on my land. can’t really tell. it got a coupe acres at most of mine. it is about 1/2 kilometer from cabana.
two guys helped too. they have done this before and i had tools for us all. they are home now and will return in a few hours.

burned fence posts.
Cant really fight the main fire. too hot to get close. fire jacket good but not useful without fire hat. just gott to keep it from jumpint to new place. put out small fires

i think it is ok now. will go check in a coupe hours again.

One of my trails stopped the fire. trails are good.

My new shoes got burn on the bottom

I am not hurt except a small rip on my hand and cut on my leg from barbed wire climging over. I am stil invicinle but i am tired and shaky now. fire is stronger than me.
All dogs except patzari are missing. But I am sure they are ok. I saw them yesterday and they were ok. i lost my tequila somewher

thanks for nice wishes. it wiill be ok. the fire is not very fast. i can’t tell where the fire is. smoke all over in trees liek fog.
sunrise now looks pretty in moke. red.

If a people do not know how to store water (unless they have a surplus) then they will be weak.
Water should not be a centrally controlled thing. Central control of water makes people easy victims for oppression.

My attempts so far are weak. I trusted the wrong people. I have paid a lot for these mistakes.

Today we will empty the new cistern so that I can paint it with some noxious pool paint. I hate that.

I need to get someone here so I can be free to go to the coast and seek liquid storage containers. Big.

This place is called the Rocky Knoll. It is a knoll overlooking the Dimple.
It is a moss covered hillside which gets morning light.

Nice spot.

I have been a busy happy boy. Tired but happy.
Placing trails roads and benches and camping sites.

Today it rained! Not a lot… and it rained the other night a little too!
I am very pleased. This is the dry season and it gets drier… and moisture is helpful.
The birds are singing and I just saw a fancy bird with a looong tail. Squarish on the bottom
The belly was bright red… super bright red. Green back, yellow beak.
I saw one which looked very similar but had a grey belly. Perhaps a different gender. I will have to look it up in my bird book. I think I saw it before.

I wandered more on trails and every time I looked up that bird was nearby. Quiet. Though the forest had birdsong everywhere.
Then another one too… What a pretty bird this one is. I am sure I have heard its calls… .
The great thing about these trails is that the forest can be accesible to people. Already I have seen lots more birds simply because of the trails and the recent damper weather.

And then moments ago I was passing by the view, and the hugeness of the rainbow there surprised me. It was off in the direction just down hill of yotatiro.
Wow!

later….

I guess it was this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_Trogon
Or the visually similar mountain trogon. I should be able to make more habitat for this bird by leaving dead trees standing.

Tired out. I walked on trails doing a new gps capture for a better map.
Recording the new trails too.

I want to sleep. and I want a pizza. I ran out of tuna fish.

This is the start of a map made from GPS-ing my land, then cleaning up the resulting map and projecting it up onto a canvas.

Here is what I have so far for a map of the rancho. Lots of cleanup and fixing to do… but even this map should encourage people to go off and explore the trails.
The blue is not water, but is the bottoms of gullys

Baby greens coming up late in a shady garden. Yay!

I need to learn about which microcliimates around here wil produce what.
I would like to have greens and tomatoes all year long. Should be possible by controlling microclimates.

I should take a few of the test gardens and plant a couple new rows each month so I can really track what the yeild is at different months.

This is the mess I will start with for map making. The land is a kilometer from top to bottom. 300 meters wide at the top and mayber fatter to about 400 on the lower part. The various lines are trails etc.

Pretty messy huh? I got some cleanup to do before it gets pretty and useful.