Barred Owl House - Forest Mgmt. Plan

Paulette said "It's time we put up a house for a barred owl.  If you have been following the blog, you know we have one and we hear others calling around evening time.  The owls look for a good spot in Fall and Winter and then nest in the Spring.  We built the house to spec last Friday and put it up in this tree near our western wetland after deliberating for an hour in the rain over which tree would be best.  This one will be shaded by trees to the south and relatively secluded as well as near water.  It is 15' plus a little up in the tree and secured with a longish cable that will allow the tree to grow quite a bit.

We got the forest management plan that I wrote as part of a nine week course, approved by a WA DNR forester.  It calls for us to plant several hundred trees next Spring and quite a few more than that the following year.  We will be applying for USDA assistance with the 2012 planting and do the 2011 one ourselves.   We also plan to set up a nursery for some soft mast (berries for birdies) plants on the property or maybe at home in Seattle, putting up bare root bushes in pots for a year or two then transplanting them out.   This will work for maybe 50 plants and practical at that level.  The trees we plant will be with a special skinny shovel and we hope at a rate of about a tree every two minutes.  That translates to 500 trees by one person in two days or relatively easily by two people in two days.  Stay tuned.

Dale

Pterodactyl Nest and Forest Planning

We've had a rangy series of piles of blackberry canes by our driveway that we collected this last year and it was time to do something with it.  After some deliberation we decided to burn it.   I cut off a 4' chuck of it, pulled it into the driveway and put a little gasoline on it.  It would not light.  I put some paper towels under it and got that burning and some canes caught, burned and went out.  Deciding it was too much trouble and not being excited about the toil of moving and trying to burn already composting vegetable matter, I remembered something P said.   "It would have been nice if we piled it in the shape of a nest."   So I did that.  It has several advantages.  I looks nice and neat.  I can walk around the top of it to compact it and the pile can be a shelter for creatures during the winter and until it breaks down.  We can add to it as we do more clearing, though much of the big clearing is done.  I will put some of our wild-forage grass seed on the bare spots where much of the pile used to be when I seed the open areas on the property in the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday, Mike Nystrom DNR forester walked the property with us.  He said our management plan should be relatively simple.   Clear around all the trees planted following the logging (~1000 trees) and spray the spots.  The Douglas-fir will tolerate the spray and we should only have to do it once.   Get and install tree protectors.  Plant more trees to bring up the density of the planting in the cut areas.  Thin our alder stands and underplant with mixed conifers.   Mostly we should be planting western redcedar.  We can plant noble fir for some early harvest as Christmas trees in the areas that we want to limit the height of the trees.  After thinking about the dawning fact that we are on a trajectory to becoming tree farmers and understanding that the first harvest of big trees will be after our lives, we decided to go ahead with it.

Dale

what you don't see

Most of what we have been doing is not particularly visible.  Mainly we have been going around to places where we removed blackberry plants, cutting emerging growth and daubing the cane "stumps" with triclopyr.  We have been using sponge tipped wands built following a design from The Nature Conservancy and they work very well.  In this picture what you don't see is the old 8' diameter satellite dish.  It's gone, hauled away by Jeff Tangen to turn into an "umbrella" sculpture.  Under the dark spot (cedar mulch) is where the old concrete jacketed steel pole that supported it is buried.

We recently delineated all three wetlands in preparation for applying for a clearing and grading permit required before applying for a building permit to remodel the small house already on the property.

Our forest stewardship plan is coming along as part of a coached planning program of classes put on by WSU extension.  We are learning more about trees, native plants, forest diseases and insects, wildlife and habitat among other related topics.  The speakers are all great and the amount of information is almost overwhelming and exciting.

Dale

Barred owl, the barn and the little house

This guy was atop our barn roof when I went up to sweep off droppings from the cedar trees that surround it and look for leaks.   He literally did not bat an eye and waited for me to go back down the ladder to the car to get my camera.  After a bit he flew into one of the cedars about 12' off the ground which is where he was when I captured this image.  I got his attention by mimicing their who who huh who mating call that I've heard so many times.

 This was a side trip.  I visited the property mainly to meet with someone we are hiring to draft plans for the remodel of the little house.  I also drove up to Coupeville to talk with the Island County critical areas person about our wetlands and a variety of permit issues.  There are helpful folks there at Island County Planning Dept.

Dale

Pressure washing

This weekend we reached the milestone of pressure washing the whole inside of the little guest house.  Now it's springtime fresh inside.  We've been planning this for a while.   Using floorplanner.com, we've been working on the layout.   While D was waving the heavy washer wand around inside for hours, P was waving the industrial strength brush cutter line trimmer around some of the thousand douglas fir struggling to outgrow the trailing blackberries and grass.

Shed Roof for the Cottage Remodel

Dale made a SolidWorks model to try a roof configuration for the redo. The scary little house becomes a guest cottage. (The window scribbles are just scribbles.) Any comments?

Canada Thistle

Today we are going to get ready to visit all of our patches of Canada thistle. Now that most plants have flower buds, it is time to spray them with glyphosate (RoundUp).  We will mix solution today and spray tomorrow when it is dry and not windy.  We plan to mix dye with the herbicide so we will know what we have sprayed.    This variety of thistle propagates by seed and insidiously by rhizomes creating an elaborate and extensive root system.  We've pulled plants by hand using spading forks to loosen the soil and come up with all sorts of evidence, multiple plants off one root section, old dead plants leading to viable roots.   Rhizomes can extend 15 feet and vertical roots 6-15 feet.   Uncontrolled, the plants take over everything and and use up virtually all the resources.  Tree cover that eventually grows will stop them. 

 Earth Corps 'ground hogs' grubbing out the small blackberry from the wetland buffer zone.

This is the wonderful Earth Corps crew that spent three days with Dale, getting rid of mostly Himalayan blackberry. They have the patience and expertise to spare the native berries (GoodBerry) while grubbing out the BadBerry. They taught Dale how to take apart a thicket, how to defeat a holly tree, and showed him how to wield a Stihl brushcutter. Cora is transformed! The land is so much more open. The trees are prettier without HBB climbing the branches. We seem to have more property, we've reclaimed so much from bramble. Earth Corps has agreed to come back in the fall to help us with step two of BadBerry eradication, which is to cut new growth and daub it with glyfphosate.

This is the 21-foot Terry trailer where we spend the night on those weekends we can. It's cozy (small) but with all the comforts of home on a small scale.  We love it!

The Clearcut - May 2010

Today we walked over the property, trying to take stock of how much Himalyan Blackberry and thistle we have. Because in reality it is NOT endless.

Views of Cora

This is Cora's east facing slope, seen from near the scary little house. In mid-March, we planted two Bitter Cherry Trees, two Serviceberry Trees, and about six Red Flowering Currents in the scraped and slash-covered part of the hill.

We've been talking about the best way to eliminate the beat back the Himalayan Blackberry which is happily taking over the world out there. It's too much for us to do by hand! Bringing in a machine might further tear up the soil and destroy our small Doug Fir and the native plants. We need a crew.

So Dale contacted Earth Corps. They specialize in restoration. Usually they work for non-profit organizations, but they recently decided to consider private projects on a case-by-case basis. Because we have some wetland and a plan to reforest a significant portion of the property, they decided they would be interested in helping us 'restore habitat'. We are so happy to have input from an expert group like Earth Corps! The crew is expensive @ $25.00 per manhour, so this isn't a done deal yet. But Dale will meet with one of the project managers on Monday and see how much work we're looking at.

Cora's Story

Dale and I purchased 10 acres of abused and neglected land on Whidbey Island. The lay of the land is beautiful, the location is quiet yet accessible - only minutes from the ferry. But the condition is a nightmare! There is a owner-built house (circa 1970) that's been abandoned since about 1997. The roof has been leaking that entire time. And then there's the land itself. The previous owners logged it about 3 years ago. They took nearly all the huge old trees and left the slash and stumps. Lots of Douglas Fir starts have been holding there own unattended - which is nice. But we have quite a bit more biomass in the form of Himalayan blackberry bramble and thistle.

Dale's cousin from Sicily suggested a name for our land: Kore. Kore is one of the names for Persephone, who was the daughter of Demeter. Kore was a maiden - picking flowers in Enna - (Dale's ancestral home!) when she was abducted by Hades. The cycle of life on earth ceased while Demeter grieved and searched for her. Finally Zeus forced Hades to relinquish her for half of of each year. Bounty returns to the Earth when Persephone rejoins her mother. We anglicized the name to Cora. My mother's mother was named Cora. So this is a name that gives us courage and a larger perspective on the project we've take on.