Blue Tubes



Paulette's invention

Stuffing tree and branches into the tube.

Protection started along a deer "highway"

 This last Friday we teamed up to install more blue tubes using a loading device that Paulette invented using some white corrugated sleeving originally intended as protection itself, and one of the blue tubes.   The sleeve acts to hold the trunk of the tree and most of the branches, the balance of which are then wrapped up in the tube.  While the first person holds this contraption closed, a second person wraps a blue tube around all of it and fastens it, then the contraption is pulled out the top.  It works very well.  It is nearly impossible to hold branches up and compacted, then wrap a tube around the whole lot, any other way.  We got good at it and installed about 50 tubes in a couple of hours (more like four).  We ordered another 400 tubed that are on back order as a start at covering the most vulnerable trees and hope to have almost all but the smallest trees done this year before buck rub season starts again.


Dale

Bad bucks and weather-tight cottage

As found

Our application to have our tree farm recognized by the county for tax purposes was approved and we accepted the terms that will reduce our property taxes.   It seems that the effort and cost of having a tree farm far outweigh the tax benefit. It is nice in any case to get some financial relief for our work. 

This year we saw tremendous growth in the seedlings planted this last Spring and several feet of growth in many of the now three year old trees planted immediately following the clearcut.  We also saw dozens of trees severely rubbed by the bucks that roam the property.  This tree was not the worst of them.  Some had obviously been charged and broken off.  Where only rubbed on one side and some vertically continuous bark remaining, it is possible to protect them with a water-based bark healing compound.  It doesn't really heal anything, it just protects the raw center of the tree and edges of the remaining bark which eventually can grow back around the tree.  

Tree wound compound applied

Ironically, the competing vegetation we cleared from around many of the trees seems to protect them.  The damage is so extensive, easily 100 trees severely damaged, that we considered a couple of extreme options: opening the property to hunters and electric fence around all 10 acres.  Neither of these sounded very good, so we have settled on a labor intensive option of placing translucent tubes around all of the trees subject to rubbing which is most of the ~2000 trees.
The tubes are milk-blue, 4" in diameter and 3' long.  We decided to buy 100 to try them.  They come flat and are wrapped around the tree and closed by engaging punched tabs.  We will show this process in a later post.  The material is back-ordered so we got the last 87 tubes and think we like them so hope they come available soon so we can put them on this Spring and Summer. 

We plan little planting this year and have ordered only 70 plants, mostly native bushes.  We are considering perhaps adding 50 Korean Pines for eventual pine nut production.  We also are behind on alder thinning and will be looking into harvesting a truck load or two of merchantable trees if we can get a logging plan put together.  It is time to update the forest management plan already.

Finally weather-tight, colors TBD

While trees were growing and bucks rubbing, we  managed to make some significant progress on the cottage by hiring good help, LeRoy Boren Construction, a local talented construction firm.   We are happy with the result.  The next steps that we plan to do ourselves are to get water and power to the little house and electrify the barn.  After that we will do the installation of a hydronic heating system mostly ourselves.  We will need help with poured lightweight concrete that will encapsulate the heating tubing on the ground floor.

East quarter & well house (looking NW)

That's all for now.  Stay tuned for the next installment.

Dale