FORESTRY: 1 hour: 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Thinning and pruning around the skid road entrance in South Side unit #4.

Forestry portion of road clearing along the South Side road. Thinned out the smallest dead standing and suppressed stems in the narrow strip of established forest between the road and the southern boundary. Not a thorough job – just an initial pass to get the easy and obvious stuff to clean it up a bit. Also pruned off dead stobs and lower limbs on the older trees.

Western property line looking north from SW corner of property.

The blue (and also orange) paint blazes can be found on virtually every tree along the property boundaries, making it very easy to know when you’ve wandered onto your neighbor’s land. Not very pretty, but certainly convenient in a working forest environment. This parcel was recently under industrial timber ownership and is still mostly bordered by commercial lands, so the boundaries are routinely surveyed and re-marked before logging operations are conducted.

This is another monitoring photo for the Current (Original) Condition Documentation taken on 2/15/2008.

ROADSM&R: 3 hours: 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM

Started clearing the main skid road along the southern edge of the property in South Side unit #4.

Initial road clearing, starting about 100 feet from the western boundary line where the road crosses over from Doug’s property at CC’s SW corner. Cleared about 475 feet of the road, heading east up a very gentle grade. Extremely wide road cut – about 25 feet wide, but fairly rutted out and will eventually need to be re-shaped and graded. Pulled lots of alder seedlings and saplings out of the road, rather than cutting them back with the potential of them re-sprouting. Lots of time cutting out a big old, dead, witches-broom hemlock that had fallen across the road and taken a few cedars with it. Some logs are embedded in the soil and can be removed with road-grading equipment. Cut and tossed many other smaller tree tops and branches out of the road. Almost reached the bend where the road veers NE at its first fork.

West end of main skid road along south edge of property, during logging operations in 2008.

This photo was taken on 2/15/2008 for the Current Condition Documentation report required for establishing the conservation easement on this property. This is one of many “Before” photos taken that day to establish the baseline condition from which any future monitoring assessments would be judged. By October 2013, these rutted, muddy roads were worn down a bit and still lumpy, but mostly grassed over with lots of alder seedlings and small saplings shooting up from the bare, mineral soil.