[Irish]

Yep, I am saying it out loud and in public (here). I am a hypocrite!

I and my husband make our living off of wood and wood products. I love to carve wood, I love the feel of it in my hands and I depend on my mail order supplier to have wood blanks in stock for me to purchase. And I fully and totally understand exactly where those wood blanks come from ... they come for harvested trees for lumber.

But they are clear cutting the woods next door to us and I am in a total snit.

Ok, Its not quite clear cut but what little they are leaving is 6" to 10" diameter out of a woods that has not been cut in at least 30 years. That's when Mike and I moved in next door. Thirty years of tree growth, watching the deer move through the undergrowth, thirty years of watching the old dead standing tree become the home of squirrels and then Pialated woodpeckers. Thirty years!!!!

I know that our neighbors have every legal right to cut their forest, to harvest the wood but they are an Issac Walton Gun Club devoted and founded for conservation of wildlife and natural areas ...... AHHH!

So ... I admit it, I am a hypocrite. I want that harvested wood to carve but I really want it harvested from a tree farm and not from what has been my backyard ..... BOOOOM ... there goes another one.

Being a tree hugging, liberal woodcarver is a little hard to swallow tonight.

Where's my picket sign ... ? And before you tell me that it's "good for the woods" and "will encourage new growth" and " in the long term" stuff on me ... I won't be here by the time all that happens. All I am concerned with tonight is that where I use to see a deep dark rich hillside of tree trunks now is just a pile of broken branches.

Susan

[Eddy Smiles]

I understand completely. Forestry is a staple of the area where we have a cabin in Tennessee and I shutter every spring when we go up to the cabin and find that another twenty acres along the highway has been clear cut. What is not cut down for either wood or pulp is destroyed during the logging process itself. In fact, it's worse than logging here in Florida where they go back in and replant for another crop in 20-30 years. Up there they let nature replace itself. It always reminds me of that line in one of John Denver's songs (which goes something like this)..."Oh daddy won't you take me back to Mulenburg County, down by Green River where paradise lays.... I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking, Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away." We're just waiting for the day that the loggers show up around us because our mountain hasn't been logged in over 50 years and it has some absolutely beautiful trees on it.

[Paul_Guraedy]

Susan, there is not much in nature that offers more satisfaction than a mature forest. I am not going to tell you that you will be around to see your world return to the beauty that it was; but, considering that they are cutting the bigger trees, they must not intend to build on it. That may not be total satisfaction; but, at least, you should continue to have wildlife and natural habitat as your neighbors. In fact you should see quite an increase of both numbers and species over the nest 3-5 years.

Logging is not a pretty process. That is why we have resisted selling any land, even though we could use the money, and we sell only the most valuable of our trees. This makes it worthwhile for the logger to go in after individual trees rather than do a semi-clear cut. Not as profitable for us; but, we keep the ranch in a maturing forest. It might be that my heirs will need to harvest more timber to increase the wildlife; but, in the meantime, I will have the beauty and serenity of big trees around me.

[Irish]

Thanks for the reassurances Paul and Eddy.

You are very right, Paul, it is not a pretty process. The only saving grace that I can give to those doing the cutting is that they do leave the branches and small down trees on the ground. So I do realize the amount of new habitat those brush piles will offer.

I am just on the "Pity Pot" here and I do know it. In the last two years we have watched as one direct neighbors farm (60+ acres) was striped for a new housing development featuring homes starting in the .... are you ready ... $700,000 range. About half of that farm was old growth woods so we got the displaced squirrels, opossums, coons and a beautiful huge skunk with a full white back cape ....

Then they strip cut the IWL land across the road, about another 100 acres. Now is the land next to us.

Two years ago I would have told you I lived in the boonies ... Today it seems that I am trapped (surrounded) by ... well, I do not have a polite terminology for THEM or even something close enough that I can post in public.

They started at 7AM, what a way to wake up.

Susan

[stickman]

When I first bought my house in1993 it was souranded by 50 acres on one side and 100 acres on the other side .It was the most beautiful woods, white and red oaks mixed with hickory and choke cherry and everything in between the next year the very same thing happened .I woke up to chain saws and the big boom of them hitting the ground .

I was sick to my stomach and tried to contact the owner to buy some of the adjacent property to save some of the trees closest to my house.and was told to go ------ um jump in the lake (not exactly what she said but you get my meaning)

well being treated so poorly (at least in my mind) I did a little research and found a whole bunch of environmental laws that they were breaking (like not having a soil and erosion permit and having to build bridges across streams so as not to mess up the creek .no more than a 8-9 % grade for logging roads )

Any way I think it would have much worse if I didn't watch and make sure they were on the up and up. even the way they haul it out had to be on a state maintained road or put up a bond to insure they don't goof up the township rd.

that was in 94 -95 .they also were selective about the trees only took thees with at least a 16 inch diameter .

now the forest has regenerated and it no longer looks like brier patches .



I will say there was more wildlife after they cut than before .Its creates habitat important to deer and birds .

and like the other poster pointed out at least they do not apear to want to build on it because they would have taken them all.

It still stinks but maybe not as bad as you thought. Mike

[AlArchie]

Susan, we live in a "logging environment" here in Upper Michigan, and it is discouraging to see huge tracts logged off in clear-cuts. But there are several positives in the process, besides, getting us our carving material.

The creation of new wildlife habitat is one of the many benefits, and these logged off areas sometimes provide the ONLY habitat for endagered and threatened species. A good exaple is the jack pine forests that harbor the Kirtland's Warbler. They were nearly extinct a couple decades ago, as they breed only in a very limited area of Lower Michigan, and then only in young jack pine forests. These areas were routinely burned over by natural forces in the past, but since Smokey Bear showed up, these burns were severly limited.....thus no more habitat for the Kirtland's. A consorsium of environmentalist, the MDNR, and the USFS did their research and found the proper habitat, and now encourages large scale logging of these jack pine areas to keep the younger growth in these areas. The warblers are now back in sustainable populations, but it will be necessary to keep culling these jack pine forests forever.

There are greater threats to some wildlife populations done by these huge subdivisions than deforestation. Especially to some of the amphibian and reptile species. Most development now are required to allow green spaces to be maintained between developed areas, but this caused huge breaks in the normal environmental continuity of their habitats, causing a deterioration in the genetic spread of normal populations.....inbreeding and the resultant degradation of the overall health of the populations is the result.

I am NOT one of these wacko environmental nuts who think we should go back to living in small one family shelters and dig latrines, but we do tend to do a lot of "castle building" as a society. Geeze, I'm getting long winded again...sorry.

Al

[santagibbs]

Susan, my heart bleeds for you... That would just be devastating for me. When we first bought our land, a guy came to Curtis and wanted to know if he could cut timber from the back of the land and Curtis gave him a great big no ! If you love nature and I think most artist do, then that is one of the worst things that can happen.. We plant trees for the animals and birds so at least we can be thankful that we have added something to the earth.. They cut down acres of timber not too far from us and the shelter for the deer is gone and all the other creatures.. He planted again but it has been such a drought that I don't think many pines survived.. You sure have my heartfelt feelings .. Charlotte

[Irish]

OK ... I have listened to you guys very closely and will try to take a more positive attitude (ain't no way never ever) about the picutre below.

Susan

[Irish]

And on my beloved hubby's advice I went for a walk around our yard with the camera ... I think he wanted me out of the house and out of his hair for a few minutes. This is what I found ...

The chipmunk photo was an accident that I even got it. He was just coming out of the old basket where the bird seed accumulates!

And the two pond pictures ... one is of the ice melting and you can see the fish (the orange spots) underneath ... the second is the results of the chorus of frogs that have been singing the last couple of days.

Susan

(See I did listen to what you guys were saying about tripods and portrait settings on my camera!)

[BobD]

Beautiful, Susan. Thanks so much for sharing those! Those photos brightened my day!

Bob