Busy Spring

  

May was a busy month dealing with things required of me by organizations I belong to.  One week in May, Alabama had auditors for the Tree Farm audit which required visiting 49 Tree Farms in the state that were randomly chosen for visits to make sure Tree Farm was in compliance with the third part audit.  Felicia and I started in Huntsville and helped with the North Alabama visits.

Since I am the Chairperson for the Alabama Tree Farm Committee I helped transport auditors to various properties and have since had conference calls with the national Tree Farm office about this audit.  Alabama had no BMP (Best Management Practices) problems.  This spoke well of our state.  It was good to see other Tree Farms and how they were being managed.  

My grandson learned how  to plow as some of our summer food plots are planted with more to go.

I took one day off with my grandchildren to visit Cheaha where we enjoyed a cool June day.  My grandson had worked hard that week and that day was his reward.

We have had vandals on our property setting fires.  This has happened twice and the Clay County Sheriff is looking into this problem.  This was not planned for.

In the last issue of Forest Magazine I wrote an article and one of my granddaughter had said she wanted to be in a magazine so I was able to meet her wish in talking about getting children outdoors.

She was so happy to be in the article.

Work Day

Yesterday was a very busy work day.  At one time two bulldozers were working at one time on our property: one was clearing two wildlife openings and building a road while the other was pushing firebreaks for a prescribed burn.

 We burned fifteen acres of two year old longleaf seedlings after the firebreaks were installed.

Next Generation Forest

 Today we planted 20,050 more longleaf seedlings.  These seedlings were planted on a tract of land we harvested in the winter of 2018.  It was a mature stand of hardwood that had started to die and there were some pines mixed in the tract. We had one native longleaf pine growing on the property that we left.  It was a 12" diameter tree.

These guys that plant the trees are the hardest working people I have ever been around.  I enjoy trying to communicate with them.  Two in the crew planted longleaf for me two years ago and they were glad to see the results of their labor as they came into our property.  Most of the time they don't get to see where they had planted trees in previous years and it gave them motivation to do a good job seeing the results of their previous labor.

This tree is off to a good start with all of this wet weather we are having.  30 years from now this seedling will be a part of beautiful longleaf pine forest.  My family will be able to walk through it and hear the special music the needles make when the breeze blows through them.

A Wet Fall and Early winter

As 2018 comes to a close it has been really wet.  The hunting has been lousy. Roads are too wet to travel and prescribed burning is nearly at a stand still.  I did get one of the main roads worked last week and just over a week ago we got a burn in under 12 year old longleaf pines.  

All this rain and wet weather has been good for mushrooms though.  I just inoculated some oak logs with shiitake spores for mushrooms in 2019.  Got to go with the  flow!

2018 Alabama Treasure Forest Association President

I recently completed my term as President of the Alabama Treasure Forest Association.  I conducted the business at our final state business meeting for 2018 in Pratville at the Alabama Landowners Conference.  This was such an honor for me to be in a line of great presidents that have guided our organization down through the years.  Our next president, Gary Cole, will be a great president for our organization.  

People usually serve two annual terms in this position but I agreed to serve only one because in November I became the State Chairman for the Alabama Tree Farm Committee.  I had already made this commitment to Tree Farm early and had been serving as vice-chair for the past four years.

These are two great organizations for forest landowners having different objectives but both do great work for those they represent!

Classroom in the Forest 2018

Well, today we completed the 2018 Classroom in the Forest sponsored by the Clay County Forestry Planning Committee/Treasure Forest.  This program is offered to all fifth graders in Clay County.  Part of the counties students went thru the program Wednesday and the other part on Thursday.  We offer our property to educate the students on environmental education.

Visit by Congressman Rogers

We met with Congressman Rogers yesterday to discuss the Farm Bill and its impact on Rural America here in Clay County.  It is so important to all rural people in ways we have not thought of.
We looked and talked about how the bill helps keep our water safe and pure; how it effects jobs in our community; and how wildlife habitat is protected.