iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

fall

Started by woodmills1, October 22, 2001, 04:28:47 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

woodmills1

up here in NH we had a fall weekend to die for beautiful weather with strong sun.  here is a shot of the Kioti. also one of the woods, see the firewood, see the firewood... :)





James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

Tom

That second picture is of some pretty open woods.  Is that typical for N.H.?   Because we don't burn much anymore our undergrowth of Palmetto and gallberry is thick and 4-8 feet tall in most woods. It's pleasant to look out amongst your trees.

Ron Wenrich

In my area, a lot will depend on how dense the overstory, and what is available to grow in the understory.  

I've been in areas that look like a park.  You could go from tree to tree with no understory.  These are harder to find due to the amount of logging in the past couple of decades.  Partial cutting contributes to more understory.

Get into an area where there has been gypsy moth defoliation and you will have lots of blackberries.  Some of the wetter areas will have spicebush.

We used to have a lot of dogwood in the understory, but that has gotten dogwood decline, and are rarely seen.  Shadbush or serviceberry is also an understory shrub.

We are having problems with bracken fern, which will kill all trees in the understory or when trying to regenerate a stand.  Also, deer populations are getting out of hand, and contribute to clearing of the understory.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Tom

Deer populations are getting out of hand??

You need to call Swampwhiteoak.  He's got one of those Prohood Thing-a-ma-jiggys that makes you invisible and un-smelly.  I'll bet he would be glad to help check the deer population so that the Forest could get started again.  ;D


L. Wakefield

   FWIW- when I first came to Maine, I took an interest in bowhunting (and, ok, gun hunting as well)- but of course, one of the central concerns with a bow is whether or not the game would be within range. UNLIKE WV, where the arrow might hit the ground before it ever came up to the deer (OK, that's when I bought that spiffy set of rangefinder binocs- it was just too embarrassing to admit that I'd thought they were 40 yds away when they were actually more like *90* yds away) :D :D :D- but to my point- in the typical woods up here a bow is great cuz you are lucky to find a place where you have clear shooting for 25yds. Not true of a pasture or a cornfield, but...

   That is, woods, where the deer like to be. There are groomed woodlots like the NH pic, but no deer that values its hide is going to be there when opening day rolls around. They have a genetic memory of such things..   lw
L. Wakefield, owner and operator of the beastly truck Heretik, that refuses to stay between the lines when parking

swampwhiteoak

Yeah, look out Pennsylvania deer, here I come. ;)

From what I've heard, I could shoot enough deer in PA to feed an army and still not control their deer problems.  Foresters that I've talked to from PA tell me deer can set regeneration years back. The wildlife department there must love high populations or something.  Good for tourism I suppose.  Plus, hunters think it isn't "manly" to shoot does.  

One thing I tell anybody when I'm setting up a tree planting or marking an oak woods is to get all your buddies out here and shoot every doe from the local herd you can.  Nothing worse than going through all the trouble to plant seedlings and having Bambi eat them all.  

Deer aren't too bad in my part of Ohio.  Worse in the SE part of the state.  Unfortunately, we still have folks that will pasture their woods.  Arggg.  Screws the woods up for decades.

Oh, yeah, back to the thread title.  Autumn is past its peak here.  Still a lot of color, but it won't be here much longer.  Ashes and walnuts have completely lost their leaves.

L. Wakefield

   I am in fact pasturing part of my woods- but not all. I am looking at the effects. Our big fast $ species here is white pine, and they leave that alone. They wasted the poplar thickets, which made me moderately happy in places where I *didn't* want poplar. They have chewed twig ends off my apple and nut trees when they've gotten in the orchard, which has me steaming (but it's my fault cuz of the fence..)

    What specifically do you mean about them screwing up the woods for decades? Is it their heavy feet and trails? Or whaa..I'm wondering as I'm still evaluating. They chewed back a lot of my stuff so i could see what needs to be done (haven't done it yet, but..)                        lw
L. Wakefield, owner and operator of the beastly truck Heretik, that refuses to stay between the lines when parking

Tom

LW,
If you find a way to keep deer on the outside of a fence, I'de like to know what kind of fence you're using.  They jump everthing I've seen around here.  I put up an electric fence around the garden and  it was finally 7 ft. tall.  They just Odd-manned and sent one of them threw it and the rest followed.
 :D  :D

Now I do my harvesting at the Publix grocery.

A big buck ate all my grapes the other day, the squirrels got my pears and at night they stand at the bedroom window and look in.  I guess they think I'm supposed to feed'em out of the refrigerator now that I'm not growing anything.

Oh, yeah, the thread topic...

What color?

swampwhiteoak

LW,

When I go into a woods that's been pastured I can tell.  I don't mean just pastured.  I mean I can usually tell it was pastured 60 years ago.  Granted, these woods were probably heavily pastured, often with sheep.

After a woods is pastured for a while, the effects are obvious.  Understories are much more open than they would be naturally.  Cattle or sheep, or whatever, naturally would rather eat the tasty plants, and leave some alone more.  We end up with understories of multiflora rose, prickly ash, and other nasties.  When the cattle leave, those take over and prevent more natural regeneration.  The animals also have a nasty habit of scraping the bark around the base of the tree.  I've been in woods with trees that would have been veneer, if it weren't for the rot caused by previous pasturing.

Other effects:
-loss of understory plant diversity.  After a number of years, woods that used to have thick trilliums (sometimes hundreds of years old themselves) will be bare.  Solomons seal, ect, will be all gone.
-soil compaction.  Pretty self explanatory.  Soils that used to grow huge white oak, regen is purely pin oak.

Also, forests are pretty poor pastures.  There are hundreds of forest plants that have little nutritional value to cattle and many are poisonous (may not kill them but will make them sick and keep them from putting on the weight they could).

Realize there's a scale to the effects that I'm talking about.  A woods that is pastured for 40 years is going to be worse off than one that was just pastured for a few.  To a certain extent, scaping the forest floor and removing some understory isn't too bad.  But overall, I think the negative far outweighs the positive.  If you are just doing it on a small section for shade, don't choose a part of your forest with the best trees.
  

CHARLIE

Here in Minnesota we walk on top of our understory during the winter months. :D :D :D  Gotta use snowshoes though unless ya have BIG feet. :o
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

swampwhiteoak

And that is why I'll never reside in Minnesota  :D  Much to cold for me.  Heck, northern Ohio's too cold for me  ;D

I'd probably freeze out in the bush and they wouldn't find me til I thawed out.  

L. Wakefield

   I've been back up here in York Co., Maine for 10 years now- and 2 of those winters have had deep enough snow to do just as you say- snowshoes or (preferably) cross-country skis to just glide over the thicket as if it weren't there. The effect is amazing. Last winter tho, with 6' of snow, I didn't venture in too deep on the skis. I'd've wanted mini snowshoes strapped to my back as insurance. I had to 'swim' a couple of times when trying to walk short distances- went to dig out one of the beehives- literally totally buried- and walking just wasn't happening. I told you about the cow that got stuck, right? :o
              lw
L. Wakefield, owner and operator of the beastly truck Heretik, that refuses to stay between the lines when parking

CHARLIE

LW I hadn't heard about the stuck cow.....but I'm still trying to picture you motivating through the snow with snowshoes strapped to your back.:o :o   I've always put'em on my feet....but then....::)...maybe you know something about snowshoeing I don't. :D :D :D
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

woodmills1

yes the woods are clear of growth.  it is all because the overstory is dense, some 100 years here with out intervention.  and also yes there was either hay or pasture here in 1700's, but then it was pine, which burnt, then the good old planted nuts from rodents, along with stunted growth bloomed.  this woods is an even aged forest with all kinds of diameters.  i bought it 10 years ago and test cut the first acre and a third.  i will try to get a pictue there, the under growth, along with the multiplcation in trunk size is amazing
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

L. Wakefield

   Yeah, Charley, I levitate.. :D :D- no, I meant that I prefer the x-country skis, but that snow was SO DEEP that the skis were kinda flaky- I meant the snowshoes as a backup plan in case a ski broke or something else happened. It was no joke..but I was laughing anyway :D.

   The cow in question decided she was going to walk around to the back of the barn- she went forward til she got in deep stuff, then she decided to turn around- and she couldn't- she got 'stuck' So she just kept going til she was exhausted and totally packed into the snow, bleeding and shivering, on her knees and 'elbows'. That's how I found her. So I commenced digging.
 
   It's no exaggeration that by the time I had a circle cleared for her to get up and turn around, the hole was 6' deep and 6' in diameter. Cows don't get up easy- they  need lots of head room, and it's a very peculiar action.. So I got her up and turned around and figured it'd be smooth sailing, right? She'd walked out there.. WRONG. She foundered (or floundered) 3 more times, each time getting more exhausted. We ended up DRAGGING her back the last 10 feet. Just TRY to help a cow stand up when she can't.. Even grain wouldn't work for a bribe, tho all the other cows thought it was a great idea and they wanted to come piling out and get stuck TOO. It was quite the battleground. I usually work the animals alone, but by the time she went down for the 3rd time, I was real glad to have husband, stepson, and friend there to help. We almost pulled her head off, I swear, dragging on her halter. 20 minutes after we got her back to safety her calf was nursing and she had stopped shivering- just like nothing had happened. If I'd had to use a sling or power vehicles, I don't know what I would've done. Maybe break trail with 2 snowmobiles and then roll her onto a canvas and drag her between them. ::)

   I hope the snow isn't that deep this year. I'm better prepared for the lesson last year, though. This is the kind of battle I think is reasonable- a battle for maintenance and improvement- against natural causes and for the good.  lw
L. Wakefield, owner and operator of the beastly truck Heretik, that refuses to stay between the lines when parking

CHARLIE

Whew!!  LW, after reading that story I'm plumb tuckered out ???  I used to cross country ski on top of the understory every year up in Grand Marais (about 45 minutes south of the Canadian Border on the shores of Lake Superior.  Lots of steep hills.  After about 10 years of doing it, I messed up my shoulders in some bad high speed falls. Had to quit 'cause I can't afford another surgery.

What I enjoy about snowshoeing or X-Country Skiing over the understory is that you can see into the woods for a long way and enjoy the sight of the trees and wildlife. Up in Grand Marais, the trees seem to be mostly birch, poplar and spruce.
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

L. Wakefield

   HMMM!!..now, I can't remember the name of those combo skis- cross country but with edges- is it Telemark?- that let you do either- good for hills and turns. I almost had talked myself into buying some, but my life was on the edge of several turns it has made- right after that I went thru 3 years where I didn't touch the xc skis and was lucky if I did downhill 3x a year. So getting back to them last year was cool.

   Sorry to hear about your falls. Downhill technique just doesn't work if the grade is too steep- the blades are too thin, there's no edge, and I usually just end up burying the skis and tipping right over. I hate falling. :(   lw
L. Wakefield, owner and operator of the beastly truck Heretik, that refuses to stay between the lines when parking

Ron Scott

Yes, they are Telemark Skis. An early form of back country skiing incorporating the unique Telemark turn now coming back in style, especially with new technology in ski manufacturing.

~Ron

Ron Scott

When I was on the Allegheny NF in Pennsylvania during the late 1970's we had to fence the clear cuts, and individual tree plantings of the black cherry. Very expensive timber management for high value black cherry.

I also worked on the Monogahela NF in West Virginia before going up to the Allegheny NF. The Allegheny had a much higher deer problem. We also had a special  late deer season on the Allegheny approved by the PA Game Commission, but it didn't hurt the deer population any. Many antlerless deer of course.  
~Ron

Tom

 :D we don't eat the antlers down here anyway :D

Ron Scott

I agree, you can't eat the antlers, but the doe to buck ratio stays too high until more antlerless deer are harvested. I would see one buck for every 100 does or more in Pennsylvania.
~Ron

Thank You Sponsors!