Silviculture 101

Silviculture: The care and cultivation of forest trees; forestry.

Managing a forest for multiple constituents is a circus act.

Take northern white cedar- Thuja occidentalis. This a native North American tree. Also known as arborvitae it is commercially sold and planted in yards throughout the United States. The tree is identified primarily by unique flat and filigree sprays made up of tiny, scaly leaves. The tree loves limestone areas and can take full sun to light shade.

You'll find it all over the peninsula.

The rot-and termite-resistant wood is used principally for products in contact with water and soil. The tree provides valuable shelter and browse - mostly for deer.

Check-out the browse line on these twelve-year-old cedars-

On the left is a pure stand of aspen - Populus grandidentata (big tooth aspen) to be exact.

Another valuable wildlife tree (deer and grouse) and timber tree (pulp for the manufacture of paper).

It is difficult to grow popple from seed.

In the natural order of things aspen is born of fire, landslide, and disaster. It colonizes disturbed areas, massing at the sunny edges of forests and meadows.

In the winter of 1998/1999 my wife and I created a disturbance.

We clear-cut a couple hundred ancient popple.

What? You committed a heinous clear-cut?

Sure. that's how you regenerate aspen. Don't take my word for it- you can see the fantastic stand that sprouted in the last decade following the cut.

To the right in the picture is a stand of bur oak - Quercus macrocarpa. Bur oak is a classic tree of the American prairie. You'll find these on the Great Plains where other tree species have failed.

This part of the acorn factory. Acorns of bur oak make up much of the food of red squirrels and are also eaten by wood ducks, deer and a host of other animals.

That is Girlfriend in the trail.

A Bad Case of the Yips

Tuesday night is archery night.

Not every Tuesday - but most Tuesdays. Braumeister, me and sometimes Technology Man get together and shoot arrows. This is followed by dinner and talking smack. At about $20 bucks a guy it's a cheap date. Besides it keeps us sharp. Like any shooting sport the more you do it the more instinctive and fluid it becomes. With all the basics on autopilot - concentration can focus on arrow placement within the target. More accurate shots are the result.

That is until last week.

Last Tuesday a very serious problem manifested itself.

Upon coming to a full draw my arrow would inexplicably fall from the string and I would have to slowly bring the string to a rest. A couple of times the arrow would fall from the string precisely as I released the shot resulting in a very unnerving dry-fire and seriously running the risk of damaging my bow.














If you examine the picture above you will note that the length of the prongs on the arrow's nock are rather short.

When coming to full draw the severe angle of the short-limbed bow was pinching the nock just right and causing those short prongs to lose their grip - allowing the arrow to detach. Other factors could play a role - a worn serving, a stretching of the string or a slight change in the mechanical dynamics of a fast compound bow and so on.

So what. Replace it with a nock that has longer prongs.

That nock is hard to find because those arrows are no longer manufactured.

Get new arrows that have nocks with longer prongs.

Not going to happen. I think I have a lifetime supply of these arrows because I bought-up every one's inventory when Beman stopped manufacturing them.

Get a new bow.

Yeah. That's what the wiseguy owner of the archery shop suggested.

We tried a string loop upon which I could attach my release. Cheaper than new arrows.

Nothing but problems. My anchor point changed, the sighting changed, the bow needed to be re-tuned and one of four arrows still fell from the string.

Things were not better and the yips got worse.

The yips?

Yep. The yips. The yips are a condition - also known as target panic - are the result of an archer's preoccupation with something other than the instinctive nature of shooting. The yips result in bad shots.

Every time I drew my bow I was so concerned with the possibility of the arrow becoming detached that my concentration and instincts all went to hell.

Last night the archery man removed the string loop and replaced the serving on the bow string.

For you non-archers - serving is the braided string wound tightly around main string above and below the nocking point. It is a durable surface upon which to nock (attach) your arrow.

Back to shooting.

Thirty consecutive shots with no detached arrows.

Problem solved - and cheaper than new arrows.

Well not entirely. The accuracy sucks because the yips are still there.

Practice, practice, practice...

Update On the Nation's Finances

Why hasn't anyone thought to do this sooner?

Problem fixed.

Play Ball!

The local baseball team is pretty good

Last year they finished a perfect undefeated season.

So when you have a sunny, Sunday with temperatures in the 80's it is time to watch baseball.















The kids fetch any fouls and out of the field home runs.

It's worth 50 cents a ball.

They get to assist with the play-by-play up in the press box.




















Admission for two: $8

Three beers: $4.50

Two hamburgers: $5

Twenty tickets for the 50/50 drawing: $5

Watching the Kolberg Braves whomp West Jacksonport 11 to 2: Priceless

An afternoon of great baseball for less than $25.

I'm not sure I can park my car at Miller Park anymore for less than that.

Pelicans

A couple of my readers are very much on the ball.

One of them was correct to point out that most people are unfamiliar with the news that pelicans are found in our waters.

Another reader was gracious enough to share some of her very cool Wisconsin pelican portraits.

Is The Recession Over?

Yep. Schwab's chief investment strategist, Liz Ann Sonders, says it's over.

It is useful to know that Sonders was one of the first to declare in late 2007 that we were in a recession - long before it was painfully obvious and before the official pronouncement by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Before you break-out the champagne - Sonders also says our problems are not completely behind us and that there is a reasonable risk of a double-dip recession.



Here's what I want to know.

If the worst is behind us and the economy is on the mend and we've only spent roughly 7% of the economic stimulus money is someone going to send the remaining 93% that hasn't been spent back?

The Memo

A memo crossed my desk at the day job today.

Americans discard four million tons of office paper each year, which is the equivalent of 96 million trees or a 500,000 acre forest. With this in mind, Giant Faceless Financial Firm is reducing the printing and mailing of specific hard-copy correspondence you receive, and for your convenience is providing that correspondence via your Giant Faceless Financial Firm professional partner website.

Thank you for your continued business and for joining the many professional partners who are already experiencing the convenience of "any time access" to their Giant Faceless Financial Firm quarterly statements. If you have any questions, please contact our Customer Service Center at 800-123-4567.

Oh, sure.

This is corporate doublespeak for - one other thing we are going to stop doing as a mechanism to shore-up our bottom line while at the same time hoping you don't notice that we're not going to reduce any of the program fees we charge you.

And what about the tree farmer?