Timber!

I woke up this morning to the sound of huge trees falling in the woods because we are finally moving forward with our logging plans! After about five months of researching and getting several bids, we hired a logging company, signed a contract, and before the crack of dawn this morning they got to work.

About a month ago, our local resource forester with the Missouri Department of Conservation came out and helped us determine the best approach to logging for our own forestry management goals. He walked all 20 acres of our property with David and marked each individual tree to be cut down. This ensures that it is very clear for the loggers to see which trees to harvest and which to leave alone.

Certain types of trees are worth more than others based upon the species or the condition of the tree. Those that are not worth much at all but need to be removed are marked with a slash, and those that are marketable get a solid dot.

All in all, we have over 200 trees to be cut down, and it should take about a week or two for the whole process to be complete. When I got home tonight, I saw they made quite a bit of progress today.

They have to make paths in the woods to get their equipment in and get the trees out, but it was kind of a shock to see how big of a path they made today. Our resource forester assured us that everything should bounce back fairly quickly after the logging, so I hope he's right!

~Tammy