Site Discussions

My father had died and he used to fly small planes and made almost any thing out of wood, but his favorite is cherry, so I thought to take his ashes up in a plane and sprinkle them over a cherry tree forest, that’s where he’d be the happiest! Would you be able to give me a location of a forest where cherry is processed?
Thanks,
Wendy Jayne

Virginia,
That was an informative summary that was easy to read.  Can you tell me who is working on the albino strain?  I worked on a project like that with Forintek about 15 years ago and I’d be interested to know the status

The balance between keeping the natural habitat and forests alive and keeping coffee in the cups of consumers is a delicate one. Personally, I think that more emphasis should be placed on protecting the environment, even if it means that coffee prices will go up. Caffeine is the most consumed drug in the world, and people don’t really need to be drinking coffee each and every day anyway.

- GCBM

A fourth possible option subject to local fire codes would be dividing the field into thirds or quarters by mowing lanes or planting cool season grasses in lanes and performing a controlled burn each year of one third or one fouth of the land. This approach will invigorate the soil and do minimal damage to all critters flora and fauna a like. The burn is best done very early in the day or late in the afternoon in a no wind condition as soon as the snow has melted and the grasses have dried. It should go without saying this is not a one man opperation.

A fourth possible option subject to local fire codes would be dividing the field into thirds or quarters by mowing lanes or planting cool season grasses in lanes and performing a controlled burn each year of one third or one fouth of the land. This approach invigorate the soil and do minimal damage to all critters flora and fauna a like. The burn is best done very early in the day or late in the afternoon in a no wind condition as soon as the snow has melted and the grasses have dried. It should go without saying this is not a one man opperation.

I found this article most helpful to me as I operate a small barbecue business. I am dedicated to researching and maintaining traditional “old fashioned” BBQ taste. Now knowing the history of hickory, I am convinced I am using the most traditional wood for BBQ. Thank you.

Why do the un-bred females have there slumber around Christmas?

Whoever doesn’t like the smoke needs to move back to the city and inhale the smog there. Burning wood does not produce harmful gasses into the air. It does not harm the environment.  Fossil fuels DO.  Wood does not add greenhouse gasses to the environment. Fossil fuels DO.  This regulation will damage the economy of Pennsylvania by killing jobs and by increasing the heating cost of many homeowners by over 400 percent.  The Commonwealth consists primarily of heavily wooded, rural areas.  It makes no sense to burden the citizens of our entire Commonwealth with a rule that really only applies to densely populated areas that constitute a tiny portion of the Commonwealth.  I believe that any needed regulation should be left to local municipalities.  Thank you.

The mention of chipmunks awakening briefly in winter to nibble on their stores immediately brought to mind an incident that happened in the mid 1950’s.  Living on a farm in Orange,Vermont, at that time, my sister and I often coaxed chipmunks to eat out of our hands during the long summer days.  One particular chipmunk became especially tame and could easily be recognized by its bobbed tail, probably the result of a narrow escape from a hungry predator. Imagine our delight during a period of several warm days in late January when our little friend emerged from the hollow recesses of our front yard maple tree and accepted crumbs once again from our hand.  He only reappeared that one afternoon, then went back into hibernation until warmer weather came to stay.

What a wonderful crystal! We had some good hoarfrost last week but nothing like that! A great website for snow crystals is Ken Libbrecht’s (author of Snowflake) http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/books/books.htm

Dave, I just ran across this and was really happy to read what you wrote.  Thanks so much for helping get the word out about the discussion Ann Ferrell lead at Middlebury College a couple weeks ago.  It was a good gathering.  People really do care: about the forest, each other and the next generation of both people and trees!

What is the cause for a bar to be grooved and rolled back at the bar and tip junction, after talking to local fellers some have said chain to lose, some say the bar got pinched which causes friction and heats the bar up which softens the metal and makes it weaker than the rest of the bar, others say it’s from applying pressure there all the time,some don’t want to admit it happens to them and say anyone that happens to doesn’t know how to run a saw. Can someone give me a straight answer, thanks.

Just looking for some sawmills in my area to come bid about eight huge maples for lumber.

Many thanks to David Mance III for the blog on ice fishing…the piece delighted my senses and awakened, in these old bones, the feelings I had as a young mother watching this wonderful Vermont experience through the eyes of my children. While the piece had my mouth watering, I remember our hot dogs on a stick, chili and hot soup cooked over an open fire. Thanks for the memories that a child can carry for a lifetime…and a mother as well.

Sorry, Tom. Took me a while to dig up your request. Here it is:

Ch. 1 Estates in Real Property T27 (Rights of Entry for Survey)
In cases wherein the title of lands, tenements, or hereditaments may come in question, or in order to establish boundaries between abutting parcels, a licensed surveyor with the necessary assistants, employed by any of the parties to such disputed title, may enter upon such lands or real estate or other lands for the purpose of running doubtful or disputed lines and locating or searching for monuments, establishing temporary monuments, and ascertaining and deciding the location of a survey, doing as little damage as possible to the owners of such lands.

I tried to email John Rajala back to continue the discussion and couldn’t find a way to do that. I went to his blog, which is terrific. Click on his name above and you’ll go there. All sorts of great info, and really nice writing and photos of his work with wood and Minnesota’s forests. Thanks for participating, John.

The author is taking about a mid-December (2008 or 2009?) visit in the Carigan area with specialists.  Citing Barbara Burns report it is said that “no attempts is being made to eradicate or isolate the infestation”.  This is not exactly true because in March 2009, following a collaborative partnership between 3 provincial department (Ministère des ressources naturelles et de la faune du Quebec was the lead agency), the Canadian Forest Service, the Institut national de la Recherche Scientifique and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) , more than 150 suspect or infested ash trees have been cut-chipped-and burned in the Carignan area.  Even though, cutting infested trees is not considered by the CFIA as a way to eradicate the EAB, the previously cited collaborators believed that it could slow the spread of this insect and moreover give access to the biological material to support scientific research.  Actually we are working on the use of fungi to develop a biological control method against the EAB.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for more information.

Truly, Robert Lavallee, Entomologist for Canadian Forest Service

Stephen:

I enjoyed your article.  We in the Lake States are bound to you in New England by a common forest resource, a common desire for our industries to survive, and most importantly a common to desire to achieve real sustainability.

Thank you for your thoughts…they are spot on.

Dave closed by saying:

“The one thing we can do is keep banging the drum: don’t move firewood. Don’t move firewood. Don’t move firewood.”

To which I’d like to add: This is sort of like preaching to the choir. There’s an audience outside Northern Woodlands and concerned forest people that remains clueless and apathetic, and hauls local wood out of the area without a thought. They need to be reached through wider media campaigns and policing at the parks and campgrounds in all vulnerable states.

I was appalled several times last summer seeing people coming into Vermont and the Adirondacks with firewood stuffed in their rigs as part of their supplies for vacation. Since most, if not all, parks and campgrounds require visitors to check in through a kiosk, that would be a good time to look over vehicles and trailers. It would create an invasion of privacy uproar, of course, but that could be somewhat mitigated by posting signs at the entrances and restrooms, and on websites and in brochures, announcing that the parks will be doing this, so people will learn in advance.

I grew up on a farm in Orange, Vermont and often on a late afternoon in December I would see the ruffed grouse picking buds in trees along the roadway as I returned from school.  December being the Christmas season, I still, as I did then, relate them to the song of the 12 days of Christmas and the “partridge in a pear tree.”