Newly Inherited Forest - Where to start?

[neko]

Hi all and thanks for letting me into this forum,
My mother-in-law just finished getting all the paperwork done for an unknown forest that belonged to her grandmother. I am an American living in a small village in the Czech Republic and the forest is only about 1 Km away from my house. 

The forest is tiny, just about 4 acres with an extra 3 acre field along one side. Nobody has tended to it in about 50 years or so, so we have quite a few fallen trees, and even more that are ready to fall. Luckily we have had quite a few really strong wind storms over the past few weeks, so I think all the really precarious trees are probably down right now, but I know that it is not too safe to be walking around it, so I keep my kids out, and have ventured in very carefully to try and assess the state of the forest. The forest is mainly Pine and Birch, with a few young Oaks sprinkled here and there. I am trying to find out more but apparently the pines in the Czech Rep. are under attack from some disease so we may end up losing all the pines anyway. I am also waiting for the spring to arrive as there are a few trees I haven't been able to identify yet, but I am starting to learn more and more about trees in general which is fantastic. 

We have one logger in a village next to us who has already gone in once and pulled out 6 m³ of logs so far. I've been cutting and splitting the wood for firewood with an electric chainsaw I have.

The mother-in-law is retired, so I will be doing most of the work trying to get the forest back into a healthy state, but I don't know where to start. I guess we need to get all the 'dangerous' trees cleared first then decide depending on how much has been cleared, about replanting more trees.

I have no experience in this field, but I am willing to learn about it as I love nature and where I live is great. This forest will make a nice practice campground for my 2 small kids when they get older. Plus I am into woodworking so I love the idea of being able to mill some of the trees for my workshop.

What would your plan of attack be for the first year? I would like to do as much as I can myself because I want to learn about forestry. Any recommendations for books or website where I can learn what I need would also be much appreciated. This will be a long term project for us, as we plan to keep the forest in the family, so I hope that my kids will end up inheriting something beautiful in 40 years or so. 

Please feel free to tell me which other parts of this forum I should check out first - for example I would like to buy a new chainsaw to be able to take to the  forest to process some of the fallen trees, and maybe even make an Alaskan mill from to slab up some logs for my woodworking. (I'd use my electric one but could find anywhere to sell me a kilometer-long extension cord  :laugh: ) 

If you need any more info please let me know and I can post details later in this thread. 

The picture below is of the guy who came and did the first logging. (Please excuse me if I get the terminology wrong, any pointers to an online glossary of terms and phrases would be highly appreciated.) 

Cheers, 

Lee

[Ljohnsaw]

 :P
Is the logger pulling out the wood for himself or for you to process into firewood?  Are you trading the wood for the labor?  The foliage that is brown, standing, in the background, is that pine needles or last falls leaves?  Just by the shape of the stems standing (crooked), they look like oak to me.  The shiny one just behind the tractor - looks like smooth bark - perhaps a black birch - or maybe just the way the sun is hitting it?

How would you rate the area shown in the picture?  Better, worse or average for you entire lot?

Your plan sounds reasonable to me, remove the down and dead - but I'm not a forester, just a tree hack(er). ;) Probably thin out the miss-shaped to let the others grow.

[neko]

Hey ljohnsaw,
The logger pulled it all out for me to cut up, 2m long logs, the full trailer. The brown foliage you see in the background is from oaks. And one of the trees I am having trouble identifying may be black birch. The area shown I would rate as a bit better than the average in the lot. Here is the final pile of wood he brought me:



 

[Ljohnsaw]

Post some close up picture of the bark and there will be quite a few here that will be able to identify most, if not all, of your trees.  You could post the pictures on the "tree of the day" thread!

What is our climate like there?  Can you compare it to a particular area of the U.S.?  Lot or little snow/rain, percip by season, temps & elevation?

For a saw, I have a little Farm Boss (18" bar) Sthil MS290 that does quite well for me.  NOT a professional saw (some plastic).  Not too heavy, cuts good when sharp ;) and I can cut some bigger wood with it (30").  I do mostly pine and cedar.

[neko]

Here is the main mystery tree. I am hoping once some leaves show up I will be able to id it. 


 

As for the climate, I think its probably close to Maine or Quebec weather. But to be honest, in the last few years the weather has been completely screwy, so... Rain, but not too much, snow in the mountains every winter, and in the lowlands from time to time. We had maybe an inch of snow round my area this winter.

Yeah, my cheapo chainsaw (16") has done good service for the last 10 years, only for cutting up firewood logs which I then split with an axe. I just put a new saw chain on it and it is working like a champ at the moment. Mainly birch and oak that we order from our local firewood supplier. Now I guess I will be putting it through its paces on a ton of pine

[Banjo picker]

Welcome,  it's nice to see a different area of the world.  To improve your forest, I would first take the dead & dying then after they are gone, I would go after the crooked and leaning, as I see you are going for fire wood. Leave you best formed trees to grow.  You won't be able to remove a tremendous amount of wood on 4 acres and keep it sustainable. Banjo

[thecfarm]

neko, welcome to the forum.
 Weather been odd here in Maine too this year. Not much cold weather, temps in the singles numbers steady, common to have 2-3 days in the high 30's once every 2 weeks. It snows,than turns to rain. I only have about 6 inches on the ground now. 
Kinda what I do on mine land, cut the dead and anything that is not growing good. I do not replant. I just help what's there grow better. 

[neko]

@Banjo picker and @thecfarm thanks for the greetings and ideas. After getting all the deadwood out of the wee forest is there anything else I should start doing? And where can I learn about the upkeep and maintenance of the forest?

Thank you all for the replies so far, and I will try to direct any specific questions in new, separate threads - e.g. I would like to learn about the best way to fell the trees, what to do with really rotten wood etc.

Cheers all, 
neko

[Haleiwa]

Like any other problem, the range of solutions available to you depends some on how much money you want to spend and how much time you have to put into it.  Personally, I don't regard pine as firewood; but that reflects our local supply (we have better fuel sources for the same money and effort).  What I see in your picture of standing trees is a lot of fairly low value stuff if you were to try to sell it, but in the picture of the cut logs, I see some stuff that I could saw for lumber for my own use if it were mine.  The main difference between lumber from a high volume commercial mill and a one man bandmill operation is the amount of waste generated per usable board and the labor required to mill it.  If you are sawing for yourself, or cutting specialty pieces, like furniture slabs, turning blanks, gunstock flitches, surveyor stakes, porch railing or posts,and such, you can afford to take the extra time to figure out where the high value piece is hidden in the log, even if it is small, or has a lot of sweep or crotch; in fact that is sometimes why there is value in a particular log.  If you are running a commercial mill sawing for the commodity market, the only real concern is how to make the most boards of a given size and length in an hour, with the lowest labor cost.  That's a long way of getting around to saying consider a small sawmill.  I have no idea what it will cost you in Europe; in the US you can spend anywhere from a few thousand to several tens of thousands on a mill, and the main differences will be how fast can you cut and how much manual labor will you use compared to electricity and hydraulics.  The board will be the same either way.
What is your market?  Do you have a craftsman cabinet maker who would buy custom sawn lumber?  How much lumber can you use yourself?  Before you get too deep into any purchase, consider all the options; bandmill, swingmill, chainsaw mill.   Try to figure out your long term plan before you make short term decisions.  Best wishes.

[neko]

Thank you for the in depth reply @Haleiwa 

Not trying to sell any of it. I agree, I would normally not buy pine for firewood, but that is the only use I see for these logs, at the moment, because there is so much to cut down, and we don't have too much room at our house. (In fact, this small pile will probably take up all the space we currently use for storing firewood). The only lumber I want is just for my hobby woodworking, plus now that there is a larger volume of wood coming in I hope I can build some stuff around my garden - for example I would like to extend my 3m by 3m shed, build a new sandpit and fort for my kids, build a proper woodshed and I might even try and build an outdoor sauna shed. 

As for buying the mills, I want to try my hand at making different ones, chainsaw mill first of course, and then I've seen a couple of interesting homemade bandsaw mills on youTube I may try out. Most of this work will be for self-education, as I have time (I work from home as a remote business consultant) plus I want to get my kids more hands on involved with nature. My 8 year old son had a blast over the weekend doing "real-life-minecraft": we cut a long log into smaller ones, then he decided he wanted to "craft" a sail boat from one so I carefully cut it into "planks and sticks" for him then explained to him the process of seasoning the wood, moisture content etc.

Because I don't see that the forest be "producing" much, I mainly want to get it healthy so we can enjoy time there, we have deer, wild boar and hares out here and my son is a keen bird watcher while my daughter loves plants and flowers. So once the dangerous stuff has been removed I hope to keep the forest as natural as possible.

After doing some more research on the matter, I've found out that the trees out here are having a serious problem with pine bark-beetle. Quite a few logs in that pile were infested with the grubs. I will probably post some questions on the ask a forester section of the site about what I should do about that.

Thanks again for the extra perspectives on the forest, I appreciate it a lot.

Cheers, 

neko

[Ljohnsaw]

Quite a few logs in that pile were infested with the grubs. I will probably post some questions on the ask a forester section of the site about what I should do about that.

IMHO, Since all of the things you are doing are related to your little piece of the world that you are trying to clean up/improve, I think you should just continue the conversation in this thread. 

Anyhow, not a whole lot you can do about the beetles.  They smell any trees having a hard time (bruised with sap leaking or even limbs cut off) and they attack.  We used to get pine shavings delivered for horse stalls and they would flock in looking around.  The only defense is a healthy tree that can pump sap out of the holes they drill and flush the eggs out.  Looks like I lost all of my white and red fir on my 10 acres.  Anything from a 2"x10' to 30"x120'.  The Ponderosa pine, Incense cedar and oaks are all unaffected.

[upnut]

Welcome to the forum Neko! What you inherited would be described as a small woodlot here in south central Michigan. If you research small woodlot management you will find many resources available for ideas and plans. Enjoy the adventure!

Scott B.

[neko]

@ljohnsaw : Ok, I'll keep things in this thread for now. Yeah, it is a shame about the beetles. Is it a problem to have wood from trees affected by it in my woodpile? Or do they only go for living trees? I will try to find out more about them.

@upnut : Hey thanks for the name! That is the hardest part for me at the moment is finding the right words to search for what I need. Do you know where I can get a general overview of common terms regarding forestry? Already the first few results from google on woodlot look promising. I am looking forward to the adventure!

[Ljohnsaw]

The beetles need the wet, living tree to survive - they eat the cambium layer.  Not a problem other than an occasional grub will pop out or, later, beetles.

Up top in the menu bar is "Extras" and under that is the FF Dictionary.  You can spend a hour or two reading what has been placed there.  Some are an "inside" joke here - see: SGU ;D


Also - since I am already part of this conversation (since I posted to it) there is no need to "tag" me with the @ sign.  The @ sign is really supposed to be used to invite someone that is not currently part of the conversation.  For instance, to get the definitive answer to your beetle question, you would invite the Wood Doc ( @GeneWengert-WoodDoc ) to the conversation.  

If I tag you @neko , you will see some emails and popup notifications, depending on your personal settings.  It is a really, really good feature to have, but it can be annoying when used when not necessary.  Don't take this wrong, just letting you know how it works and when it should be used.

[trapper]

forestry forum  dictionary under extras at the top of the page

[upnut]

Neko, you could google "loggers vocabulary" but that might take you places you don't want to go.... :D

Scott B.

[neko]

Great tips everyone!

John, thanks for the etiquette tip - I don't want to wear out my welcome in my very first thread. Also good to know more about the bugs... Hopefully the Doc will make a house call.

John and trapper: I shall check out the FF dictionary.

upnut: I shall not google logger's vocabulary (at least not yet )

[Jeff]

That is here too.
Lumberjack Lingo

[thecfarm]

Can't help much, I just told you what I do. Don't know if it's right, but I enjoy doing it. ;D Some do use a bush saw to thin out the small trees they don't want. With 150 acres,it's hard to keep up on it. That full time job, gets in the way.  ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

   Welcome. You saw the notes about the dictionary here. It is a useful tool. What governmental agencies deal with forestry and woodlot resources in your country/province? Around here we have the US Forest Service and The US Dept of Agriculture and such who can offer advice or at least point you in the right direction. How close is the nearest University with any kind of Forestry or Agriculture specialties? You might tap into them. They might even partner with you as a teaching project where the students learn about forestry/woodlot management and you get some highly qualified and trained people to review your situation and make suggestions. You may even tap into some free labor.

 What is the market for the wood? Firewood? Lumber? Woodworkers guilds?

  I'd suggest a small band mill rather than a chain saw mill but I am prejudiced that way. Are there bandmill manufacturers in your area? I know WM is in Europe and what you seem to be describing sounds like one of their entry level bandmills (LT10 or LT15 or comparable) or other local manufactures would fill the bill nicely. I believe in supporting local dealers because they are there to support me when I need parts, maintenance or repairs. See what dealers are in the area and ask if you can see their mills in operations. Even if you don't select their mill you will learn something just watching others mill logs and learn the basic procedures.

 I feel the same with chainsaws. Who sells and support quality saws in your area?

 Are there mobile sawyers in your area? You might be better off to collect the logs and periodically have a miller come saw them for you. Stage your logs on sacrificial logs to keep them off the ground. Paint the ends with paint or preferably a wax solution to retard splitting. Remember to buck the logs a few inches longer than your desired final length. I usually leave 6" of extra trim on my logs.

 Good luck and keep us posted.

[Nebraska]

That little whack of logs you have stacked up there would  make a fun start to a little cabin in the woods for you and your children. ;) welcome to the forum. That's a fun little project to inherit. My guess is a bigger chainsaw is in your future.  You can do a lot with small entry-level band mill.