34/52 - Fire on the Mountain

While we were traveling over the past several weeks, the wildfire season at home kicked into high gear. Just 3 days after we left, a lightning strike started the Cougar Creek fire. The fire started just south and east of the mountain, and the hot weather and dry conditions enabled it to spread quickly. It has been burning for about three weeks now and is over 54,000 acres. While the fire area is only about 12 miles from our house, it does not pose a direct danger for us. But depending on the wind conditions, the heavy smoke can settle in the Trout Lake valley, creating unhealthy air quality. All of that smoke means that we are unable to leave our windows open day or night, eliminating our primary cooling mechanism during the hot summer days.

Here is some great recent imagery of the fire area. This is a composite of IR and EO images taken by the Landsat 8 imaging satellite. You can see the current fire locations and the large burned-out areas where the fire started.

The risk of new fires is still extremely high. The state has shut down all motorized operations in forested areas of Klickitat County, including our property. No chainsaws, trucks, tractors, weed whackers, etc. That also means that all commercial logging is shutdown. It is the first time these restrictions have been in place in over 20 years.

It was dark when we flew home from our trip, and we planned our seats so that we could see the fire from the window. (Thanks, Southwest!) There are lots of good resources online to track the latest fire info, all of which we monitored regularly on our travels.

Live photo of Mt Adams, updated every few minutes.

Mt Adams Cam Facebook page. People post the most interesting photos from Mt Adams TV. There are some really cool photos of the fire, northern lights, etc.

Cougar Creek Facebook page. Fire, fire fighter pics and videos, plus the latest official fire summary from InciWeb.

Cougar Creek Inciweb. The official page with detailed info if you want to geek out on it.

Here's a great evening photo from the Mt Adams Cam showing the fire lighting the lenticular clouds.

All of the smoke in the air does make for pretty skies, though.

There are lots of other fires burning now, many larger than Cougar Creek. Cooler weather and some much needed rain arrived this weekend, though it will take extended periods of rain, lower temperatures, and mild winds to get all of these fires under control. But hopefully we are nearing the end of this year's fire season.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

12/52 - Science, Engineering, and Dessert

For Saint Patrick's Day, we continued an Ilvedson tradition: Blarney Stones. They are blocks of yellow cake frosted with vanilla frosting and coated in chopped peanuts. They didn't look much like stones to me; there must be something lost in translation.

Three generations making stones

Here is a recent exchange with Anders:

Anders: The boys had to use the girls bathroom at school today.
Mike: Did it look different?
Anders: Yes.
Mike: How was it different?
Anders: It was prettier.

I guess this aspect of male/female differences starts earlier than I thought. Before we know it, the girls' bathroom will have couches.

In the 'not so fun' category, one of the stairs to our bedroom collapsed underneath us a couple weeks ago. The screws holding up the bracket just sheared off. Oops. Thankfully, it was the fourth stair from the bottom, so we didn't have far to fall.

Since then, we removed all of the stairs (one at a time, of course) to check and replace the hardware. If one failed, how many more were ready to go? The second stair that I replaced had only one remaining screw holding up one side. Overall, just under 12% of the supporting screws were either missing or broken. (Of course we kept track!) The old screws were not only undersized but actually the wrong kind: sheet metal screws. Now that all of the screws have been replaced, we can walk a little easier. As an added bonus, the stairs are also much quieter.

As you might imagine, a 5 year old changes his mind many times about what he wants to be when he grows up. (Even now, are any of us really sure?) For the first part of the year, Anders wanted to be an artist when he grew up, very likely inspired by his Uncle Leif. But now he has changed his aspirations to science. He spent part of the weekend re-conducting some of his preschool science experiments with Grandma Donna.

While technically that last photo isn't a controlled science experiment - he's smashing a coconut with a hammer - he did learn what the inside of a rotten coconut looks like. And he's wearing safety glasses, so that totally counts.

Anders and I took a stroll through some of the earliest trees that we planted after we moved to River Ford Farm. These trees have established themselves pretty well and are now really starting to take off. This one is now more than twice as tall as Anders, and they are roughly the same age.

The leader - the main stem above the last ring of branches - is at least 2' feet tall and grew in a single year. Thankfully, Anders doesn't quite grow that fast.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to me! I am now officially the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. You're welcome.

My birthday pudding (chocolate)

I also had birthday Key Lime Pie and Banana Cake with Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting. So you can have your blarney stones; I'll take my pudding, pie, and cake, thank you very much. :)

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Tree Planting, Year Four

With spring comes our annual "tradition" of tree-planting. This is our fourth year of planting, and we've definitely learned more each year. The primary lesson from last year's planting is to get it done quickly! The 1,200 trees that we planted last year took all of our free time from March to mid-June to complete. The combination of our late planting and an unseasonably hot and dry spring weather resulted in a terrible survival rate: ~25%. Yes, you read that right - that's the SURVIVAL rate, not the loss rate. 900 of the 1,200 trees that we planted in 2009 didn't make it. The Douglas Fir seedlings fared particularly poorly, even though they were the first to be planted and thus received more rain and had more time to acclimate before the heat and dryness of summer arrived.

This year was dedicated primarily to replanting the losses from the previous three years. We knew that we wanted to get everything done early, and preferably in a single shot. We estimated that it would take approximately 90-100 man hours of effort to finish the whole thing in one fell swoop. If we could find two additional planters and some Anders care, we figured that we could get the whole thing done in a four-day weekend with only 5-6 hours of field work per day. So we scheduled a long weekend around Easter and invited some family and friends to join us for hard work, good food, good company, and lots of laughing.

A week before the scheduled event, Anders came down with a cold. In the interest of not spreading it to all of our volunteers, we delayed the work weekend by one week. It's a good thing that we did, too, as we received one of the larger snowstorms of this mild winter. It would have been difficult to plant trees in 6" of snow.

We managed to enlist Reidar, Donna and Leif to join us, but another friend who was planning to help out wasn't able to make the rescheduled date. That left us one person short of our goal to complete the whole project in a long weekend. On a whim, we decided to ask Loren if he would be interested in a short jaunt from Tulsa to help out. Being the seat-of-the-pants type of person that he is, he agreed. But we kept his planned participation secret from the rest of the group.

The weather was much more cooperative when the rescheduled weekend arrived, and Anders had recovered sufficiently. Each of our volunteers had a specific role: Leif, Loren, Corinne and I would be the planters; Donna was chief cook, bottle washer and Anders watcher; and Reidar was on tractor repair, fence mending, and cookie delivery. First to arrive were Donna and Leif, driving from Seattle on Wednesday night. Thursday morning we began our work in earnest with Corinne, Leif and myself starting in the field while Donna stayed in the house to watch Anders and work the kitchen.

Since Leif and Loren require naps each afternoon in order to function properly (yes, that's right - two grown men can't function without daily naps!), we decided on a daily schedule that could accommodate: breakfast; 2.5-3 hours field work; lunch; nap; 2.5-3 hours field work; dinner. We finished the morning work period roughly on the desired schedule and headed in for lunch.

Meanwhile, Reidar was driving down from Tacoma and stopped to pick up Loren from the Portland airport. They arrived in Trout Lake around 1:30pm while Leif and Anders were down for their naps. And this is where the real scheming came in. I met Loren and Reidar out on the street and offloaded Loren into our machine shop. Reidar then continued to the house as if he had arrived by himself. Loren took a brief nap in the bed of the farm pickup in the shop.

After Leif's nap, I walked out to the planting field ahead of Corinne, Leif and Reidar, stopping by the shop to grab Loren on the way. I hid behind some older trees near the field while Loren started working in the field. The rest of the group arrived soon after, and as planned Leif initially assumed that I was the person working in the field. As he got closer - and particularly after I emerged from the trees next to him - it began to dawn on Leif that something was going on. Corinne told Leif that the extra person was the neighbor. Leif's final realization came when he got about 10 feet away: "That's my bro-.... that's that asshole from Tulsa!" Much smiling, laughing and hugging ensued. Then the real work commenced again while Reidar walked back to the machine shop, laughing the whole way.

The deception wasn't over yet, though; Donna still didn't know about Loren. When our work for the day was complete, Leif and Loren swapped hats and coats, and Leif hid outside while Loren went in with us and pretended to be his brother. It only took a few minutes for her to figure it out, and more smiling, laughing and hugging ensued.

Now that all of that monkey-business was out of the way, it was time to focus on the work. While the weather was much better than the previous weekend, it was still odd. On Thursday, it snowed and melted three different times, including some hail. But it never rained (very hard), and the temperature stayed nice and cool - good for both the young seedlings and the field hands. Since the Douglas Firs fared so poorly the previous year, we opted to make all 1,200 of this year's trees Ponderosa Pine.

Our planting is a two-step process. The ground first needs to be prepped - sometimes called "scalped" - to remove the grasses that would compete with the young tree for water and nutrients. Then that spot can be planted. With Reidar's help, we actually experimented with using a PTO-mounted auger to plant the trees, but it was overkill given the small size of the trees.

Scalp...

...then plant

We decided to make an instructional video to help illustrate the process.

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original blog post

Since we are all pretty fair-skinned, we all tried to cover ourselves to prevent burning. Leif's choice of hats some days was, uh, interesting.

Each day we repeated our eat/work/eat/nap/work/eat schedule, though we tended to start the days a little later each time. We did all of our menu planning, shopping and some of the cooking ahead of time, and Donna manned the kitchen, preparing and cleaning up after each meal.

The rest of the time she spent entertaining Anders - or perhaps it was the other way around.

We had prepared, and we had all of the help that we needed. Now we just had to execute. At the end of each work period, I recorded - via my Facebook account - how we were doing against our goal.

Tree planting, Day 1 of 4, break time: 250 spots prepared. Only 950 spots to go, and 1200 trees remaining to plant.
Tree planting, Day 1 of 4, end of the day: ~600 spots prepared, 600 to go. Friday: start planting!
Tree planting, Day 2 of 4, midday break: 400 of the 600 spotted prepped yesterday are now planted in Ponderosa seedlings. 600 more spots to prep, and 800 more to plant. For the project management types among us: we are exactly 100% on track to our plan. ;)
Tree planting, Day 2 of 4, end of day: a productive day today, 800 trees planted and a few prepped spots leftover for tomorrow. Only 400 trees remaining! We are now officially ahead of schedule.
Tree planting, Day 3 of 4, early morning: The soreness begins to set in. Each morning we're starting later and later. We hope to finish all of the planting today and keep tomorrow as a day of rest, but we'll have to see how our bodies hold out. And BTW - I am not talking about Farmville here. We are actually planting a REAL FARM. ;)
Tree planting, Day 3 of 4, midday break: Almost done! Prepped and planted another 300, leaving only 100 left to plant. We're still well ahead of schedule and will hopefuly be able to get in the "bonus" work of scalping the ground of all of the previous years' seedlings as well.
Tree planting, Day 4 of 4, morning: Finished! We planted all 1200 trees yesterday, and even managed to get a start on the weed and grass scalping around the trees from previous years. Unfortunately, even though we "finished" early, today is not a day of rest. We're fixing a fence post and then scalping more weeds and grass.
Tree planting, Day 4 of 4, midday break: fence fixed. (Yeah, I know it has nothing to do with trees.)
Tree planting, Day 4 of 4, end of the day: ALL field work done, including the re-scalps from all previous years. Yeah!

It was a pretty exciting moment when we finished planting all 1,200. Perhaps we got a little too excited.

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original blog post

Most of the trees that we lost in previous years just died, probably as a result of insufficient water. But we did find some that had been stepped on by wildlife or eaten by gophers. It was particularly annoying to find gopher damage to the three year old trees that we planted in 2007.

You can see teeth marks

In between work sessions, we had a great time entertaining ourselves. This was the first time in a long while that we had both of Corinne's brothers together, so we used the opportunity to quiz Anders on who was who. Amazingly enough, 80% of the time when we asked "Where is Uncle Leif?" or "Where is Uncle Loren?" he would point to the right person.

At one point during a dinner, Corinne was quizzing Anders on the sounds that various animals make. He got all of his "standard" ones right - cow, horse, sheep, goat, etc. We then tried a few that he didn't know, and he just stared blankly back at us. Uncle Loren asked one final question: "What does Anders say?", and without missing a beat, Anders answered; "CAT!" And of course, he was correct.

A week later, we actually planted a few more trees that were leftovers from our local Conservation District's "Arbor Day Tree Giveaway" - 20 Western White Pine. And after that last 20, I really have no desire to plant anymore trees. Until next year, that is.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders Rocket

1,200 More Trees

We haven't mentioned anything here about our forestry efforts this year, but that doesn't mean that there haven't been any. In fact, we planted 1,200 trees.

1,200 trees? How the heck can you do that with an infant? Answer: very slowly (and with a little help.)

We planted 400 trees last year, and 200 the prior year. The second year actually took longer per tree than the first, since we were a bit more educated about what needed to be done. We also had to do maintenance on the trees from the previous year, making sure that the grasses we scalped didn't return to starve the young trees. With the expectation this year that only one of us would be available to work in the field at a time - while the other stayed in the house with Anders - we were hoping that we would be able to drive down the time-per-person-per-tree.

We ordered our 1200 trees late last year: 900 Ponderosa Pine and 300 Douglas Fir, both native species for the area. I suppose that we could have skipped any plantings this year, but since we're on a plan to plant our 12 acre meadow in the next few years, every year counts. When we ordered the trees we knew it would be more difficult to find the time this year than previously, but it turned out to be even harder than we anticipated.

The trees arrived in late March, but the ground in Trout Lake was still frozen and covered in snow. So as in most years, we left the trees in the conservation district's "tree cooler" (aka refrigerated trailer) for as long as we could. But unfortunately our crazy work schedules started at just about the same time that we could have started planting. We did manage to get the first 200 into the ground in April, primarily by going into the field immediately after work. Anders would almost always fall asleep in the car on the drive home from work, so we would make a quick stop at the house to pick up the tools and change clothes, then drive immediately out to the field with the trees. Both Corinne and I would be able to plant until either Anders woke up or it got dark.

But before we could make too much progress, we had to leave for our spring trips to Seattle and New Jersey. At about the same time, the tree cooler was being taken away so we were forced to find another holding place for our trees. We managed to find room in the commercial refrigerator at work for the remaining 5 bags of seedlings; we hoped that they would survive there until we returned from our trips.

To help speed the planting process along, we hired the brother of a friend to finish scalping the remaining planting sites while we were away. We hoped that once we returned we would be able to get them all into the ground fairly quickly.

When we returned, we did manage to find time to get at least one bag (200) into the ground before an unseasonably warm spell fell upon us. Since we don't irrigate the trees at all, trying to plant them in 90+ degree weather didn't seem like a good idea. So we waited until the weather was more agreeable. It took a few weeks, but finally the weather broke and we were able to finish our planting by the first of June. After a few more weeks of work in the field, we finished maintenance on all of the previous years' plantings. Finally!

Because the trees went in so late this year, we are expecting to have a lower survival rate than we have in our previous efforts. I think next year will probably be a "rebuilding" year: we'll spend our efforts replanting the trees that didn't make it. The goal is to harvest commercially, but since that can't happen for 50 years or so I guess missing a year or two doesn't matter that much.

First year's seedlings, after one year of growth
(photo taken July 2008)

We were so busy just trying to finish the project that we didn't take any photos! Next spring we promise to take lots of photos of all three years of plantings. It's very rewarding to see how much your projects have grown, whether those projects be in tree- or child-form. ;)

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

This Year's Christmas Tree

We didn't cut a tree at Thanksgiving this year (since we weren't here). And with the combination of Anders and snow removal taking up so much of our time and energy, we got all the way to Christmas Eve without a Christmas tree. We needed to get one, though; without it we knew it just wouldn't feel like Christmas. With only the two of us (adults) here and one busy watching Anders, it was up to me to find a tree.

I grabbed a saw and ventured out into our woods on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. The weather wasn't exactly conducive to the task, though; snow had been falling for several days with little wind, so the branches of all the trees were heavily laden.

I took a quick walk into one of our Grand Fir stands. Since our trees are now many years past their Christmas Tree prime, it is a challenge to find one of an appropriate size to get into our Great Room. In previous years we have spent a fair amount of time looking for such a tree; since I was on my own this year and knew that I would have to drag it back to the house through about 2 feet of snow, I didn't spent too long on the hunt.

In about 15 minutes I had found a tree that I thought would work. It was, of course, way too tall - at least 30'+. After sawing it down, I cut it in half as a first approximation of what we would want inside. A second look told me that more would need to go. In the end I left three pieces of the tree in the woods and brought only the very top inside.

When I began to drag the tree back to the house, I was glad that I had selected one that was close by.

With some vigorous tree-shaking outside and a short drying period inside we managed to get most of the snow off. The worst part of any tree-decorating, at least in our house, is attaching the lights. (That's probably because we're a bit OCD.) It took us a few hours to light the tree and secure it in its base. There was plenty of room between branches for ornaments, which was a result of both the relatively quick search and the fact that it came from only the top. We waited until the following day to hang the majority of them, though.

The tree ended up at about 14' tall or so, which is a bit smaller than in previous years. It has always been a challenge to properly support a tree of the size that we (read: I) want to put up. We have a great space with a tall ceiling, so why shouldn't we put up the biggest tree we could fit? And you just know that Anders is going to want a big tree - think of the children!

Our solution has always been a combination of a standard-size Christmas tree stand and several guide wires connected to the window frame, and there has been varying degrees of concern as to the integrity and safety of this combination. This will be the last year that we have to worry, though; we finally bit the bullet and bought a commercial Christmas tree stand suitable for a 20' tree! (Thank you, Craigslist!)

And in years to come, when Rocket is a bit older (possibly next year?), selecting and cutting the tree can be a whole family event again!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Mysterious Hole in the Woods

Last year we had a professional forester walk through our trees and make recommendations to us on best practices to improve its health and commercial value. We knew that our trees were overdue for thinning, and one of the primary recommendations he made was to thin our existing stands by 20% in order to provide some more growing room for the remaining trees.

To that end, we recently spent several hours walking through one of our oldest stands, marking a total of 200 trees to be removed. We walked up and down each row, looking up trying to identify the weakest trees (split or broken tops, dead branches.) In the process, I almost stepped right into a hole in the ground!

I immediately called Corinne over (okay, first I backed up several feet.) This was probably the most comprehensive survey we've made of that forest section, so at first we thought the hole could have been old. Further inspection, however, revealed that the dirt in front of the hole was devoid of needles or sticks and was distinguishable from the forest floor surrounding it. This was no small hole, either. If one of us were to stand with our feet in the mouth of the hole, the forest floor level would be slightly above our knees; the diameter of the opening looked to be about 15-16 inches. These are estimates, of course, as it took a fair bit of fortitude for me to get close enough even for this photo.

We passed this photo around to a few wildlife experts we know - Jim, forester and Bill, wildlife biologist. At first the best guess was that it was a badger den. Although we've never seen a badger on our property, they are native to our area, and since they feed on pocket gophers they would have plenty to eat! However, after doing further investigation we now believe that this was a coyote den. Apparently coyotes dig dens such as these in which to raise their young; after the pups are old enough, the den is abandoned, either permanently or until the next breeding season. Since we had 2 pups frequent our yard this spring, we now assume that they were born and raised in this hole. We haven't seen the pups in some time, so hopefully they have now moved on to another area (although just as likely they have learned to stay out of sight.)

We still have many more stands to mark, so who knows what other exciting discoveries are waiting for us out there!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Re-scalping Completed

In addition to the tree seedlings we planted in our meadow this year, we also had some maintenance to do on the 200 we planted last year (of which ~130 survived). The grasses grow back each year, so spring is the time to re-scalp the area around young seedlings. Since grass competes with the young trees for water and nutrients, eliminating the competition should improve the survival rate. After about 2 years in the ground, the trees have generated an extensive enough root system that the benefit of this maintenance no longer outweighs the work involved.

The re-scalping went fairly quickly, taking only a few hours. Here we are, happy that we've completed all work in the meadow until next year.

- Mike (& Corinne)

126/201 = 63%, + 400 more

Last year's trees emerge
from the snow - March 31

It's been a while since our last forestry update. Part of the reason is that the trees we planted last spring have been under snow for the last 5 months! Now that the snow has finally melted, we were able to take another inventory of how our seedlings are doing. The last update was almost exactly a year ago. (Wow, it was really a year ago?) We planted 201 in March of last year, and by late April we were down to 199/201.

Well, 1 year later our quick count pegged the survivors at 126. That's a 63% survival rate.

At first glance, that sounds really bad: more than a third of the trees we planted last year didn't survive. But this isn't like gardening or landscaping. After we had scalped the grass and plopped the trees into the ground, we just walked away and didn't see them again for a year. There was absolutely no wildlife protection, irrigation, or any other niceties. These little 2 year old seedlings had to make it all on their own. The biggest seedling dangers in our area are deer (trampling), gophers (eating), and competition from weeds and grass (starving). Since the majority of our tree deaths left no evidence behind other than bare patches of dirt, the obvious conclusion is that gophers were our biggest killer.

Still, 63% actually isn't that bad. We've talked to some people in the area who lost 80% of their trees in the first year. 63% survival sounds pretty good compared with 20%.

200 was just the beginning, though. In November we applied for and received a cost-share grant through the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The grant covers various practices on our property, including thinning and pruning some of our existing stands, but the majority of the cost-share money is associated with planting out the remaining 12 acres of our meadow in Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir. The schedule that we agreed to has us planting 3600 trees (300/acre) over the next 4 years. Yes, that's a lot of trees.

Last fall we had ordered 400 trees from our local conservation district but were forced to keep them on ice while we waited for the long winter to finally end. Since the planting is now under a contract, we also were careful to follow the guidelines for each practice, particularly the 2ft radius specified for the hand scalped area around each tree. Last year our scalps were much smaller and we only planted 200, so the work went much faster and we were finished in only 2 weekends. This year, it's been over a month of weeknights and weekends, and it's only this week that we've finally finished the new plantings. Okay, so we didn't work in the field every night or all day every weekend, but it sure seemed like it. And yes, Corinne and Rocket were out there every time. Years from now we can say that Rocket helped (or perhaps hindered?) planting that section of forest.

We think about this planting as a long-term investment; it will likely be 40 years or more before these trees could be harvested. Most people have an IRA or 401k, but how many people have a FOREST? In exchange for some hard labor now, hopefully we'll have a lot of wood to sell in the future. (Anybody have wheat or ore to trade?)

This whole valley used to be a forest, so occasionally we think about the poor pioneer who cut down this section of the forest so that he could farm and feed his family. We're undoing all of his hard work! It's a cycle of life thing.

- Mike (& Corinne)

199/201 = 99.0%

Quick update on our forestation efforts: Two trees missing. 199 left.

- Corinne (& Mike)

200/201 = 99.5%

I checked on the trees. We lost one. I'm guessing that a gopher was responsible as there is no evidence that the tree ever existed. There is just a blank square of scalped earth with no tree.

I watched a gopher eat a flower last year. The flower kept getting shorter and then just disappeared into the earth. I felt like I was viewing a time-lapsed video sped up and played backwards.

Corinne (& Mike)

Planting 201 Ponderosas

A week ago we spent 7 hours over two days preparing part of meadow for our first tree-planting experiment. Now the trees have arrived, and the next step was to put them into the ground.
The weather was perfect for planting - perfect for the trees, that is. The temperature was in the 50s, but most importantly, it was overcast and drizzling all afternoon. The roots on young tree seedlings can dry out very quickly if exposed to sun, heat or dry air, and this day was lacking in all three.

The seedlings we bought were probably 2 years old. Ordered from a local nursery, our trees were stored in a cold storage trailer in Bingen until we were ready to plant. So Corinne drove in to town, picked up the trees, and we were on our way.

There's no magic to planting trees: make a hole deep enough so that there is enough room for the roots without bending them; place the tree in the hole so that the right amount of the stem is exposed (you can usually see where the original soil line was); then fill the hole back up and move on to the next tree.

We borrowed yet another tool from our friends at Underwood Conservation District: a hoedad. A cross between a pick axes and a hoe, the hoedad is specifically designed to make deep, narrow holes in which to quickly plant seedlings. Unfortunately, the only hoedad that UCD had to loan us was a bit short for our task, so each hole took 4-5 swings before the hole was suitably sized.

I would make the hole, then Corinne would follow behind me to plant the tree and replace the soil. We didn't get started until ~4pm on Saturday, and we just managed to finish planting all 201 trees before we lost light, at about 7:30pm. It works out to about 1 minute per tree, which I think is pretty good for our first attempt. (Of course, that doesn't include the site preparation time, which actually took longer.)

Summary:
Site preparation: 7 hours
Planting: 3.5 hours
Total trees planted: 201
Total area planted: ~1/2 acre
Total cost: $86

So far, so good: after 24 hours in the ground, we have 100% survival rate. Between gophers, deer, elk and other assorted wildlife, we'll see how long that lasts.

- Mike (& Corinne)

200 Scalps, 1 Dead Deer

Our entire property is under a "Forest Stewardship Plan". Our management plan has a 10 year outlook and delineates the things we plan to do during that 10 years to maintain and improve our forest land. We agree that the ultimate goal of managing our forest is commercial timber harvest; in return, the county taxes our property at the lowest available tax rate, with the idea being that they'll make their money back with excise taxes on the timber when it is sold.

When we purchased the property last January, we were required to submit a management plan to the county. So we took the plan that the Clausens had last written, did some routine updating (average tree diameters and ages, etc.), and submitted this plan. (Read the full story in this post.) And the county promptly rejected it.

Huh? This was a plan that was perfectly acceptable when the Clausens submitted it, and nothing significant in the plan had changed. So what was different? Their objection: not enough of our property was forested.

From Washington RCW 84.33.035:

"Forest land" is synonymous with "designated forest land" and means any parcel of land that is twenty or more acres or multiple parcels of land that are contiguous and total twenty or more acres that is or are devoted primarily to growing and harvesting timber. Designated forest land means the land only and does not include a residential homesite. The term includes land used for incidental uses that are compatible with the growing and harvesting of timber but no more than ten percent of the land may be used for such incidental uses. It also includes the land on which appurtenances necessary for the production, preparation, or sale of the timber products exist in conjunction with land producing these products.

This law hasn't changed recently, so it appears that the only difference between our submission and the Clausens is enforcement of that law. Anyway, the long story short is that we have three years to plant our southern meadow in trees or decide to take that portion of the property out of our management plan (and pay the associated back taxes on it.)

This year we decided to do an experiment in forestry. The biggest cost is not in the trees, it's definitely in the labor. For this first year, we decided that we would do all of the preparation and planting ourselves. So we ordered a small number of Ponderosa Pine seedlings - 200, to be exact - from our friends at the Underwood Conservation District, at a total cost of $80. We borrowed a few of their tools and headed out into our meadow to do some site preparation. Grasses are one of the biggest enemies of young trees; grasses can drink all of the water that falls on an area before that water can get to the tree roots. So the key pre-planting step is to "scalp" the grass off of the ground around the area where you plan to plant a seedling. Then repeat 199 more times.

The weather was great for working outside, so we took our time. We opted for a "pseudo-random" planting of about 8-12 feet spacing, rather than more of the exacting rows in which our current trees are planted. In all, it took us about 5 hours over 2 days to scalp the grass from 200 circles, including the time we spent relaxing on the ground. Estimating that each scalped section is a 2.5' square, we scalped over 1200 sq ft of ground. We plan to pick up and plant the trees next weekend.

We'll now leave you with some shots of the remains of a deer. We first encountered this skeleton last November when it was considerably more "fresh" (i.e. not yet entirely a skeleton), but he has since been picked clean. Many of the other bones - leg, vertebrae - are still in the field as well.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Cutting Another Christmas Tree

Our tree stands were originally intended to be a Christmas tree farm. In fact, we still occasionally get mail addressed to Trout Lake Tree Farm. Of course, our trees are much too large for the average home; 20+ year old trees with 12 to 18 inches of growth each year just won't fit. (We have toyed with the idea of selling/giving trees to malls, churches, etc. who might have the space for such a tree.) But since we have to thin our trees anyway in order to give the ones that remain more space to grow, we invited our friends Dave, Jen and their daughter Ella drove out to our place to cut themselves a Christmas tree. Uh, what I mean is they came out to help us thin our stands to improve commercial harvest. That's what I meant.

We thought that the top of one of our trees could make a nice Christmas tree, so we started by felling a Douglas Fir. The tricky part, though, is that it is hard to see the top 10' of a 25 foot tree. Once we had it on the ground, it wasn't quite what they were looking for. We did some more looking and found a nice Grand Fir that needed to be thinned and fit the bill nicely. So the Douglas Fir became firewood, of course.

We're not sure how common we want this practice of allowing others to cut their Christmas trees from our place to become. Selecting a tree suitable for presentation AND also needing to be thinned requires some thought and searching; but most importantly, it requires us to be there. But at least this once it was fun!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Thanksgiving, pt 3: The Tree

Waiting for a ride to find a tree

So here's an obvious question: where does the owner of a tree farm go to find a Christmas tree? Answer: right out the back door.

Believe it or not, up until shortly before Thanksgiving we weren't even sure if we would get a tree. We generally spend most of the holidays visiting family, so its hard to justify cutting down a tree. On the years when we did get a tree, we usually didn't get much further than putting up lights.

But this year, it's hard to justify NOT having a tree. After all, we have our own house (for the first Christmas ever!); the house has a Great Room with a 20' vaulted ceiling; and we own a former Christmas tree farm. How could we not?

We're trying to make Thanksgiving at our place a new family tradition, so we thought cutting down our Christmas tree would be a fun part of that tradition. So while all of our company was still here, we head out to find our tree.

We did have a criterion that most people probably don't have, though: it had to be a tree that needed to be thinned. Our stands are currently overstocked, and over the next several years we plan to thin out some percentage of the trees to allow the ones that remain to grow faster and stronger. So if we're going to cut down a tree, why not find one that meets two different at once?

Searching for the right tree,
using the pole to gauge the
proper height

Who's that happy girl
with the saw?

Pruning off the lower branches
before cutting


Cutting down the tree


...and carrying it to the truck


The cutting crew

We had plenty of vertical space for our tree, but the limiting factor was going to be the girth. Since there are no double-doors or removable windows into our house, we would have to squeeze any tree through a standard-width door. Luckily for us, overstocked trees generally are a bit skinny. The trunk of any tree we chose would also have to fit into the standard-size Christmas tree stand. But hey, we have thousands of trees to choose from!

On Saturday night before dark, we head out with a crew to find a suitable tree. Since the majority of our trees 15-20 years old, we would be looking for one of the SMALLER trees. It didn't take long to find several good candidates, and we eventually settled on a Grand Fir that met all of the requirements. At a height of 196" (16' 4"), the tree would be a good fit for the Great Room.

Since we were losing the light, we waited until the following day before cutting and hauling the tree back into the house. We laid a tarp on the ground and felled the tree directly into it; grand fir is a soft wood, so the cutting itself didn't take more than about a minute, at most. We wrapped the tree up as tight as we could before loading it onto the truck, to get it as narrow as possible so that it would be easier to get into the house.

Once back at the house, we squared off the base, attached the stand, and managed to squeeze it into the house. An hour or so later, we had the tree standing on its base in the Great Room, supported by two guide wires attached to the window frame. A few hours after that, the tree was back on the ground so that we could put lights on the top. (Next year we'll know!) After another hour, the tree was back up and looking great!

Backing the truck out

This was our tree's
20th year

Bringing it into the house.
It's a tight fit!

The tree, upright.
All 16'4" worth!

We only had three strands of lights for the tree, so we had to call it a day. It would be another few days before we could finish the lights and move on to the ornaments, so that will have to wait for another post.

- Mike (& Corinne)