10/24/09 2-5 pm. Judd and Linda Adams hosted a fun end-of-season party for the Ecology Committee. The potlock was funded in part with money given by Andre Roy for green slash generated during two October tree-thinning work days at Gate 8. In addition to delicious food and excellent conversation, Judd offered a tour of the historic Batterson Barn, nearby Batterson homestead site, and the wetlands on his property. Attendees included: Diane, Ellen, Harry, Jonathan, Judy, Lee, Odell, Pat (2008 Land Steward of the Year), Steve Horsmon (GVM Manager), Susan, and Suzanne. Judd hopes to have a spring party to kick of the 2010 season.
Andre feeds green slash into chipper with Oreo, Judd, and Steve in background
10/3/09 9am-noon: Thanks to the following Ecology Committee volunteers who helped with this project: Judd & Steve (organizers), Ellen, Harry, Jeff, Judy, Linda P., Odell, Susan and Wynne. This was both a fire mitigation demonstration (trees thinned to >10 feet between trees and branches up to 8 feet) and a forest recycling project (green slash used to make Andre Roy’s hand cleaner: Dirty Jobs).
Work site location
The dense Ponderosa pines SE of Gate 8 were thinned using a chainsaw crew (Jeff, Judd, Odell and Steve). The rest of us hauled large branches to the open work area and then nipped off and sorted out smaller, green branches (dime to quarter diameter), the optimum size for Andre’s process. He and his wife Mary brought chippers to grind the branches and pine needles prior to loading into their truck. Andre said our selected branches were “perfect” raw materials for his process, with a good ratio or “green to brown.” In return for our efforts, Andre paid $100 to the Ecology Committee!
Judd suggested that tree trunks from the project could be used for future GVM “buck and rail” fencing projects. Any additional wood generated will be donated for fire wood to families in need in the Red Feather Lakes area. Unusable branches were taken to the slash pile. Full details are in previous post and click “read more” to see more photos. Continue reading Trees Thinned at Gate 8→
Meet at Gate 8, Saturday for Tree Thinning Project, 9-11am. 10/02/09 Update from Judd: Tree Trimming volunteers as of 9:00am Friday 1. Chain saw operators: Judd, Jeff, Odell and a GVM staff person
2. Transporters and sorters move trees to process area and then cut branches to shredder or slash pile truck
3. Branch cutters use long handled nippers to remove the branches: Judy
4. Shredders feed green branches into shredder: Harry and Susan
5. Anything: Ellen, Wynne, Jim Petrie
Steve and I will be marking trees at 1:00 today.
9/28/09 Email from Judd: “At our last Ecology Committee Meeting [9/16/2009] we decided to start a new initiative of tree thinning on GVM Greenbelts and common property. We further decided we should begin with the area around the Association Office, were we can demonstrate what a properly thinned forest should look like. We would have a demonstration forest to complement our demonstration garden. Continue reading GVM Tree Thinning Project→
9/7/2009 Jim E. led a nature walk in the Forest Service inholding at Haystack Dr with Andre, Ellen, Judy, Karen D., Mary, Warren & Wynne on a partly sunny September afternoon. We started with an overview by Jim’s truck with a poster that included a table entitled “The World’s Oldest Known Trees,” and displays of annual sunflower, valerian root, and fetid marigold. Jim passed around the valerian root (the plant is called edible valerian or tobacco root) for us to smell and he read about its medicinal uses.
Trees: Jim showed the trees that he identified for Laurie Huckaby and John Popp, of the U.S. Forest Service, as potentially very old trees from the 1500s. He pointed out these old trees may have survived due to protection by surrounding rocks.
10/16/09 Jim emailed additional information: “During the May 20th outing with Laurie Huckaby, the local USFS’s key researcher on the fire history of this northern region, she said the few old meadow trees belonged to that ~1500 A.D. cohort, a period of ample moisture. Indeed, she’d cored a large ponderosa in that cluster, untouched by beetles. The pith date: 1575, with her estimated real age of 1535. Yet she’s found 700-800 year-old ponderosas up in the Red Mountain area to the north. Roughly 200-year intervals occur between cohorts, established during off-year drought cycles. The oldest known ponderosa — 880-890 — was found in Utah. That, based on a table, ‘The World’s Oldest Known Trees’ in a USGS/USFS poster (no date), Colorado’s Ancient Trees.”
Mountain Pine beetle: We saw several pine beetle-infested trees that had been cut down within a cluster of infested trees. The wood was then stacked and wrapped in plastic by the U.S. Forest service.
Flowers: yarrow, blanket flower, gumweed, black-eyed susan, smooth white aster or Porter aster, valerian, yellow owl-clover, yellow sweet-clover, bottle gentian, tansy aster, golden aster,
9/18/09 Email from Susan: “I talked with Chad (colleague of Tim Diamato’s) this morning about Plateau and Panoramic.” Please click “more…” below to read the information Susan received on these herbicides.
Glacier View Meadows Ecology 