The one-car-per acre is a minimum, I think.  The Rancheria down the road
looks like a Pick'n'Pull yard -- dead fire engines and ambulances, buses,
old trucks -- you name it.  When you get too many, the county will make
you put up a fence (junkyards require fences apparently).  If you don't
require a fence yet, you are still safe.  20:8 is not bad -- we are at
10:7 right now, but I think that "runners" don't really count as much
as dead ones.  Currently, we have six that actually run, so we are
marginal.

For those of you that may not be familiar with California, Placerville
is another foothills-of-the-Sierra Mother-lode gold town, fairly near
Sacramento.  "Placerville" is the new, polite name -- it _was_ called
"hangtown" originally, on account of the favorite passtime in the
old west.

Mariposa, nearest town to me, is fairly far south -- almost the end of
the gold country (both towns are served by Highway 49 -- like 1849).
We were a more sedate area, home to John Fremont (first Republican
Presidential candidate [he lost]), Frederick Law Olmstead, the father
of landscape architecture, and Galen Clark, the first "Guardian of
the Wilderness" (Denver Pyle played him in the truely awful movie
of the same name).

Hangtown's a cool place (not literally -- it, like much of inland
California is an oven most of the time).  Worth a visit, as is much
of the Highway 49 "Motherlode".  Good place for Volkswagens (obligitory
Vanagon content).

Malcolm H.

At 06:45 PM 10/25/98 , you wrote:
>I guess I gotta thin out as I may be "Over Farming", have 20 on only 8
>acres....Help!!
>Bob Calkins Placer ville, Ca
>
>
>Malcolm Holser wrote:
>
>> Malcolm Holser and family,
>>
>> in Midpines, California, about 30 miles outside of Yosemite Valley, the
>> single most beautiful place on the planet.  We own a whole raft of VW's
>> a Toyota Landcruiser, and an Acura Legend.  My father had a VW Beetle,
>> 1952, when I was born, but we went to a 54 Deluxe Microbus (I was the
>> youngest of seven children).  My first VW was a '57 singlecab.  Currently
>> we have four "runners" and four non-runners at our place, doing our best
>> to uphold the tradition of a minimum 1-car-per-acre of rural America.
>>
>> Our "runners" are:
>>
>> 1980 Vanagon Westfalia -- been all over the US, almost.
>> 1986 vanagon GL -- the "Scout-mobile"
>> 1986 Transporter Kombi Syncro -- a big red beast
>> 1986 Transporter Syncro Doublecab -- beigish-brownish, matches our dirt.
>>
>> Along with a 1972 Westy, a 1977 bus, a 1981 Vanagon and a 1982 Diesel
Westy.
>>
>> Formerly a Park Ranger in Yosemite, now a computer geek in the silicon
>> valley, where I go for meetings and such in a small plane.
>