The City of Portland evidently sanctioned a tree holocaust on the corner of Omaha and Jessup. If you haven't seen the destruction, wander down and prepare to get sick. They took down all of the trees on the lot - including four magnificent sequoia trees - the likes of which we will never see again in our lifetimes.
Woe unto the City of Portland and this builder. I can't even bring myself to take a picture of the violence done to this lot. The City of Portland is preparing for density (and making short-term one-time big money off of it as well) and our neighborhood and nature is all the less livable because of it. I don't even want to think about how many displaced birds and critters there are because of that destruction, especially during the winter where the conifers provide some of the best shelter in the ongoing storms we've had over the last few weeks.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Monday, November 25, 2013
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Arbor Lodge Tree Stats - 2013
Wow - what a day at the Tree Inventory Forum. After a summer of long work by many volunteers, we have completed the tree inventory for Arbor Lodge! Here are the results:
* Arbor Lodge has 3,809 trees representing 99 types;
* Fifty-three percent of all trees are 6" diameter at breast height (DBH) or less and 13% are larger than 18" DBH.
* For tree condition, 42.9% of trees rate good, 47.4% rate fair, 8.8% rate poor, and less than 1% are dead.
* Street trees are found in 96.7% improved rights-of-way sites; and 3.3% unimproved rights-of-way.
* 62% of all street tree planting spaces are currently stocked with trees. That means that there are MANY opportunities for more street trees!
* That means that there are an estimated 1,938 empty spaces available for street tree planting in residential areas.
* If we had to suddenly replace all of our street tree population due to some horrendous event, it would cost us $10,678,493 to do so.
* And every year our street trees provide nearly $300,000 annually in environmental and aesthetic benefits to our neighborhood.
Interesting, huh? If you want to read the entire report, you can find it here. Now we begin the planning process of how we are to respond to this....more later...
* Arbor Lodge has 3,809 trees representing 99 types;
* Fifty-three percent of all trees are 6" diameter at breast height (DBH) or less and 13% are larger than 18" DBH.
* For tree condition, 42.9% of trees rate good, 47.4% rate fair, 8.8% rate poor, and less than 1% are dead.
* Street trees are found in 96.7% improved rights-of-way sites; and 3.3% unimproved rights-of-way.
* 62% of all street tree planting spaces are currently stocked with trees. That means that there are MANY opportunities for more street trees!
* That means that there are an estimated 1,938 empty spaces available for street tree planting in residential areas.
* If we had to suddenly replace all of our street tree population due to some horrendous event, it would cost us $10,678,493 to do so.
* And every year our street trees provide nearly $300,000 annually in environmental and aesthetic benefits to our neighborhood.
Interesting, huh? If you want to read the entire report, you can find it here. Now we begin the planning process of how we are to respond to this....more later...
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Tree Inventory Meeting
Friends and Neighbors, The City of Portland has finished a tree inventory of our neighborhood, Arbor Lodge, and a few other neighborhoods in the City. They will be having an all-day meeting to discuss the results of the tree inventory, and making plans about how to proceed from here. If you want to either hear about the plans for trees in our neighborhood, or have your voice heard on which trees to plant, where to plant them, etc, then please consider signing up for this meeting. Here are the specifics: Saturday, November 9 9 am - 4 pm St. Johns Community Center 8427 N Central St. A free tee shirt and lunch are included if you register by October 31! Register online here or call 503-823-4484.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Vote!
Friends, Neighbors, Countrypeople,
Exercise your constitutional rights and vote today! No matter your political persuasion be proud we live in a country where we're asked for our opinion from time to time. Peace and Goodwill to all today...
Exercise your constitutional rights and vote today! No matter your political persuasion be proud we live in a country where we're asked for our opinion from time to time. Peace and Goodwill to all today...
Sunday, August 12, 2012
What the dealerships DO tell you
The dealerships, in selling these electric vehicles, will talk up several things, including:
What I was unprepared for is the extent to which your privacy is compromised because of the newness of the technology and the research going on in this and other countries around the electrical usage. You must give up certain amounts of your privacy in order to obtain some of these goodies.
The dealerships will give you the link to this site which is where you begin your journey into the EV world. Here you will sign up to see if you qualify for the ecotality project to put a charging station into your home. If you qualify (that depends on the state of your home, evidently) an electrician will set up a time to come look at your site, check your electrical connections, ask you questions about your wi-fi capabilities, then schedule a time for someone to come out and install a charging system. If they need to do some extraordinary amount of work, they can charge you extra for the extra work, but I understand it is a nominal charge. I was lucky and they didn't charge me anything extra. They will install what is known as a Level 2 charging station - 220v that can take 4-6 hours to recharge your battery, instead of 8-12 hours using a trickle charger.
There is something known as DC Fast Charging (440v) but you cannot install this in your home. This charges your battery in minutes, not hours. You can find these chargers around Portland and on I-5. I haven't used one yet, so I don't know much about them.
My charger was installed about two weeks after I got my car. I've used it twice, and it's never taken longer than 3 hours to charge my batteries.
- the $7,500 tax credit for purchasing an electric vehicle;
- the free or nearly free electrician who will come to your house to hook up the faster charging system
What I was unprepared for is the extent to which your privacy is compromised because of the newness of the technology and the research going on in this and other countries around the electrical usage. You must give up certain amounts of your privacy in order to obtain some of these goodies.
The dealerships will give you the link to this site which is where you begin your journey into the EV world. Here you will sign up to see if you qualify for the ecotality project to put a charging station into your home. If you qualify (that depends on the state of your home, evidently) an electrician will set up a time to come look at your site, check your electrical connections, ask you questions about your wi-fi capabilities, then schedule a time for someone to come out and install a charging system. If they need to do some extraordinary amount of work, they can charge you extra for the extra work, but I understand it is a nominal charge. I was lucky and they didn't charge me anything extra. They will install what is known as a Level 2 charging station - 220v that can take 4-6 hours to recharge your battery, instead of 8-12 hours using a trickle charger.
There is something known as DC Fast Charging (440v) but you cannot install this in your home. This charges your battery in minutes, not hours. You can find these chargers around Portland and on I-5. I haven't used one yet, so I don't know much about them.
My charger was installed about two weeks after I got my car. I've used it twice, and it's never taken longer than 3 hours to charge my batteries.
Leaf, continued
First, your energy sources. These cars come with a charging system called "Trickle" charging - you can plug it into your 120v outlet in your house. Of course, it's called "Trickle" because it takes awhile to charge using 120v. The preferred method of charging is to install what is known as "Normal" charging - a 220v system. That takes an electrician to hook up your house with a 220v system.
We had read about all the different charging stations around Portland on the internet and on our first day owning this car, David and I came up with a plan to drive to Lloyd Center, plug in the car to charge at one of their 220v stations, then we would shop and see a movie. By the time we exited, our car would be recharged and voila! we wouldn't have to do the trickle charge for hours at a time.
So, we drove to Lloyd Center, found the EV stations on the Northeast corner, top deck of the parking structure, pulled into one, took out the plug-in and stuck it into our car. Nothing happened. We looked at the charging station and read the instructions - we couldn't charge up without a card, even though the charge was free.
Lesson #1: the EV charging stations are not uniform for these cars, yet. Sometimes, you must get a card to access all the publicly advertised stations.
So, no problem, we took home the car and figured out the trickle charging system. As long as you have all night to charge, this works fine. And, btw, there is a 100 mile range on these cars - although some people report it's only 80 and some report closer to 110. Well, I've never gotten it below 20, so I don't know how far Pearl will take me, but I know that I don't drive all that much (mostly to work and back, to the grocery store and back) so I'm not that worried.
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