Colin projects

With a fair bit of planning, Colin arranged a term's leave from his Glebe Collegiate science teaching.  AND, Doco and I have had the great treat of having him with us in B.C. for a month, almost three weeks of that at New Denver.  In addition to the beginning-of-season setting up of the ranch house and environs, making many things work better, and making delicious suppers, he has had projects!

• Wandering the fields and forests of the ranch, usually with pruning saw and loppers to brush out trails.  Colin knew many parts of the upland forest from his wanders as a lad, but there seem always to be new ones to find.  Brushing "Pete's trail", heading down towards the highway from midway along the "far field" - there he came upon a mossy, bone-strewn, cougar or coyote's den (apparently long-abandoned!).  Clearing a path towards the creek, below the railing beside the "front lawn", mainly by chopping out 2-inch thick stems of a massive. thorny wild-rose.  Hiking with Rachel up the steep section of Harris Creek to the "big trees", over at least two more humps to the "Three Bumps", then back down the more sedate trail to the Porter's Lake "stump ranch" and home by the Bosun Lakes trail (all in time for Rachel to get to Castlegar for her plane home).   Prowling the high clear-cut, looking for seedlings, admiring seed trees.  (I tagged along whenever and wherever I could.) 

Ancestor tree at the top of the clearcut

• Scavenging firewood - chunks that had been cut by others and never gathered ... 

... or cutting rounds off ends of sawlogs at the Bosun Lake (with Norbert and Thomson)

• Finding cedar poles for fence posts in the forest, carrying them out, debarking them, replacing two rotten posts, then constructing a new gateway to Chris's garden.  Quite masterful!

• Making a start at sorting out Ralph's/John-and-Nancy's/Uncle-Sandy's domain as it passes into the hands of Colin and Douglas.  A good time for Colin to be here.

• ... and more???

• As a parting shot, moments before Colin drove off to Vancouver with Thomson, Amanda, and Annie, we bought our first ATV! (from Peter Radford, through Chris Fox).  Norbert brought it up to Sandy's on his (Rayan's) trailer.  Colin, as owner, drove it, with a quivering Doco on behind, to its present home in the squirrel barn.  No time for Colin to put it to use hauling logs and firewood on this visit, but in summer ...!

Yikes!

Budding foresters

Thomson and Amanda, both keen Forestry undergrads at UBC, had four days here this week and surely made the most of it.  So much to explore - forest "field work" beckoning:

• Tromping over the clearcut (2013) up above, seeing where and what young trees are taking hold (Douglas fir, white pine, hemlock, tamarack, birch, spruce, occasional cedar), where the ancestor seed-trees are still standing, where streams are still running, where water is collecting in swamps or disappearing underground.  

Colin and Thomson admire a huge, surviving and healthy white pine (on the left)

• Foraging for edibles - lady-fern "fiddleheads", fireweed shoots, morels (a few), nettles. 

On a forest walk with Julia, we found the skunk cabbage patch just coming into bloom ... 

... discovered by A&T to be a great spot for lady-fern fiddleheads

• Sawing and hauling downed logs - with Colin, Norbert and his "arch" - to Norbert's mill by the squirrel barn, for lumber and firewood (one log slated to become a 7th Avenue dining room table, with a bit of work by Doco - stay tuned). 

Chain-saw lesson from uncle Colin

Solo

Norbert's-truck magic to haul the log down from the forest

• And then A&T's two major projects:

1. Getting a map of the ranch from Google and using a software program to draw in the creeks, swampy areas, and rough roads.  Very useful!  (no photo yet)
2. Tackling a couple of patches of young hemlocks that had been identified by Herb Hammond three years ago as major fire-hazard growth - low and dense, with needles full of flammable resin.  Almost all the young trees A&T removed in this round were already dead.
Thank you Thomson and Amanda!

"Before" (actually an adjacent uncut patch)

"After" (can see through the forest)

 We had a massive bonfire!!  Still cool and wet enough, and little breeze.  Good roast potatoes!!  (Tonio's.  Had spent the winter in the reclaimed root cellar under the haybarn.)