Observing Boundaries

In the big city there is a small but vocal minority of individuals who think tree farming is  anathema. 

I am not not making this up.  

As a matter of fact it has attracted the attention of a larger number of level-headed people who are scratching their level and reasonable heads over their misguidedness.  It is a new low that the malcontents have raised their contempt to a personal level.  Publicly fingering me - and I suppose my wife by association - for ridicule and contempt.  It does their cause no good.   

Practically speaking the Missus and I are OK as we know that growing and harvesting trees provides direct employment for millions of men and women, and millions more in secondary, related employment.  Working forests are good for the environment, providing a renewable resource, clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities and carbon storage.  Paper is a biodegradable, renewable, sustainable product made from trees. If I had to hazard a guess this small group of grumpy people has to reconcile the use of toilet tissue at least once a day.  So why they would reserve such venom for sustainable forestry is a bit of a puzzle to me.  It's a crazy, mixed-up world sometimes.  Sheesh.

This past weekend the girls and I went out in the woods to mark the property boundaries.  This is in preparation for a consulting forester beginning the job of marking trees for harvest.  The north and south boundaries require nothing more than identifying a couple of corners as a county highway delineates the southern boundary and a dead-end gravel road constitutes the northern edge.  It is the west and east boundaries that needed some work.  

About half of of the two north-south boundaries is clearly marked by fence lines that used to serve to keep someone's cattle in or out back in an earlier time.  It is where woodlands have overtaken the other half that some marking is in order.

Some locations were easier than most.  As this example:

click on images for a better look

Even though there is mature woodland on both sides of this cattle fence it has likely been four generations since any livestock set foot here.  For other sections marking the boundary took on the attributes of an archeological surface survey.  And I had to hunt for old and moldering toppled fence posts and rusty strands of barbed wire tangled upon the ground. 

In any event any questionable lengths of property line have been marked with bright fluorescent pink flagging tape.  

 neighbor's buckthorn in the background

A side benefit of this chore was the opportunity to explore some places I've rarely walked and haven't seen in more than one or two decades.  Scouting for deer sign was on the list too.  The dogs were completely pooped by the time we finished and I shared a bit of their exhaustion as well.  Brush-busting on uneven terrain is tough on two legs.  

I'm going to keep this logging project moving along as I know that a thinning is going to allow the species we wish to favor an opportunity to spread their branches and enter another big growth spurt.

Funny thing about all of this is that more than a couple of decades ago much of this was sterile and sensitive farm land - devoid of wildlife habitat.  Reforestation and active management changed this and is all good for the forest and the multitude of creatures that dwell here. Indignation of the tetchy minority aside.

Who knows - maybe the grumpy might come to their senses. And perhaps observe some reasonable boundaries...