A not so funny story!!

[nativewolf]

Nativewolf this is not to sound mean . I tell people if you have to ask you would not understand why we get up every morning many weeks 7 days in a row at 3 or 4 am to  drive 100 miles to watch the sun come up over some swamp . Leave the woods after dark have a late supper without your little kids because they are in bed . All for less money than you could make in a factory . I don't expect you to understand that it takes 150 years to grow a black spruce that may have been seen by 2 or 3 foresters in its lifetime and would be dead in 20 more years . Sorry for the rant you would not understand .

I hear you gearbox, I'm actually a forester, well 2 degrees actually worked a while and then drifted into consulting.  I actually own and advise on timberland management, I still have a day job on a computer but I'm working at getting back to land management full time, more fun to me.  I'm at my happiest in the woods too and I know just what you mean.  However, pulp is just not a long term strategy for most landowners- that's all I was getting at.  Mills are closing all over the world and it has impacted landowners from Finland (worked in forest there and studied there too) to Thailand (worked there privatizing forest lands) to Canada.  It's not regulation here or tax there (they blamed tax in Finland) or big companies trying to screw people,   just markets changing and too many mills.  So, going to have to figure something else out.  Someone will, I'm optimistic and have seen worse situations end up ok (deforestation in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar). 

[Decked]

I bought and paid for a brand new 540D cutting mostly pulp ( former  Hammermill Paper Co.). when we got in
  a good sized clearcut, it was as good as it could get. Maybe grab a nice log or two off the butts, rest to pulp. Loved it when we got in good sized beech, logs down to 22''..rest in pulp-weighed up quick  ;)