Suffering as a home body

I never realized how much I enjoyed the outdoors until circumstances forced me to stay at home. First, our beautiful little girl was born last August, and took up a lot of my time. My wife then developed some medical problems forcing me to stay around the house. Hopefully the end is in sight with a surgery and 6 weeks of recovery. I am amazed at the number of crazy ideas I have come up with during my time at home. Outbuildings, cabins, docks for the pond, all growing in size and complexity as time passed. Harvesting and management plans filled my mind with dreams of getting out to the property more often. Last week I settled down and determined what it would take to spend more time out there. Shelter of some sort would definitely help by letting me take the wife and kid with me, but the budget is tight. I took all those interesting ideas and drawings and filed them in a drawer. They were to large for the budget or to complex for the amount of time I have at the property. As I was strolling through the grocery store, a Mother Earth News DIY quarterly caught my eye. It contained an article called called "Build this Cozy Cabin" which can also be found on their website. Simple, inexpensive, and some of the larger timbers could be made on the sawmill out of post oak to save more money. The loft gives me a nice place for my daughter to sleep when she gets older and needs more space. It can also be found online here: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/2006-06-01/Build-this-Cozy-Cabin.aspx . Now I have something to plan and budget for that will let us all enjoy the woods! I made time a few weeks back to plant some cottonwood cuttings that were given to me by a fellow ForestryForum.com member Brian Beauchamp, but that is post for another time, with pics!

The Woodland Steward by James R. Fazio

I am slowly making my way through all of my forestry books to put small reviews here. This is another one of those books. I like this book. The reason I like it is because of the many illustrations. If you are a visual person, then this is the forestry book for you. The book also has a lot of helpful information. It has chapters on all of the pertinent aspects of forestry including inventory, planing, improving, protection, and harvesting. It also has some extra chapters on other ways to make an income through a woodlot and reason other than income for maintaining your woodlot. One chapter in particular stands out in this book. Forestry cannot be pure science. The author goes into the art behind applying scientific principles to a living, growing forest. The one downfall in the book is some of the ideas are a little dated. Fazio's book is very good because of the depth of information and the illustrations, and it makes an excellent secondary book to add to one of the current texts out there.

Farming the Small Forest

A Guide for the Landowner by Laurence C. Walker. Ah, another book from my large library of forestry books. I think this is probably the best manual for someone to read as their introduction into forestry. It has the plainest english, the best layout, and is very clear and concise on all of the major issues. Sadly, it is out of print but is readily available used. The incentive programs are out of date, but they do show the reader the types of programs that could be available. Other chapters focus on management styles including their pros and cons. The book has a large administration section that covers inventory, plans and other info. Financial matters are also discussed including timber pricing, appraising land, and costs. Another section covers non-timber management considerations. Finally, the book goes into stewardship. Overall, I feel this is a great book for the new landowner or an aspiring forest owner because of the broad spectrum of forestry information and the topics on financials and land appraisal. Edit: Found a site selling it new: http://www.cspoutdoors.com/fasmfoguforl.html

The Forest Manager

A Handbook for Farm Woodlot Owners and Others Who Manage Their Woodlands by Dr. Karl Dannecker and published by The American Forestry Association in 1939. The book discusses the topic I have been looking for in forestry books for a long time. Dauerwald, a German idea that treats the forest as a single living organism. The book is actually a translation of the original german text and omits sections specific to Germany, such as laws. It also makes some minor adjustments to adapt the original work to American forests. They actually weigh the options of every management type in the book. You can tell that the uneven aged selection method is favored in specific forms. By selecting the inferior first, you can build a better forest. The inability to regenerate intolerant species such as oak has been the main argument against selection management styles. This is the first book that outlines a method to completely avoid those problems. It is also the only book I have seen that focuses on forest soils as the key to a healthy forest. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to manage a healthy, biodiverse, uneven-aged forest and wants to keep oaks as a component. I believe the reason this method dropped out of favor is it was a German idea in the '30's so American did not want anything to do with it and the Germans actually stopped using it during the war because they needed all the material they could get.

Earth Ponds book review

The book is written by Tim Matson and has seen several editions. I have the second edition. The book starts out in the first half just telling the story of the authors experiences with his and neighbors' ponds. It is entertaining in these chapters, but not very helpful. The second half of the book is the real meat. He goes into the building, maintenance, and restoration of ponds. A little of the info is outdated. He talks about draglines a lot which are not used so much anymore. The information is also focused on New England and traut ponds quite a bit. I would recommend this as a secondary book for someone reading up on ponds. Bob Lusk's books through the Pond Boss magazine site are better, in my opinion.

Management and Inventory of Southern Hardwoods

Another quick review of a book. This book is from the US Deparment of Agriculture Forest Service and is their agriculture handbook no. 181. It was written by John A. Putnam, George M. furnival, and J.S. McKnight in 1960. The handbook has chapters on southern forests including types, preliminary managment, advanced managment, and inventory. There are some great photos and diagrams withn the book. It also has an excellent table listing many of the hardwoods and a few softwoods found in the South with a lot of info about each. The giant tree table at the back is also helpful, though a little confusing until you get used to it. The handbook is very helpful for anyone, even those in other parts of the country to some extenet. As usual, some of the harvest and management information can be a little dated because of the age of the book, but other more recent books specialize in this. I recommend it if you can find one at a decent price used because of the overall picture and helpful tidbits. You can also download it by searching at the Forest Service Treesearch website (which was not working at this time): http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/

Silviculture of Southern Upland Hardwoods, Bulletin 22

A quick review of a helpful little book. Written by Lawrence C. Walker and published y Stephen F. Austin University School of Forestry in January 1972, it is the sixth of a series of books on southern silviculture. I picked it up because it has some helpful info on the Cross Timbers and post oak forests, oak-hickory forests, and southern black walnut plantations. It is a helpful little bulletin with some very specific information. It would be even more helpful for forest owners in the southern Appalachians and the Ozarks of Arkansas. They discuss regeneration, management, and problems to very specific forest types and regions in the south. One interesting tidbit that is a good example of the info inside is that forking in white oaks may be hereditary. Bad news for anyone with a poorly managed stand with forked seed trees looking for regeneration. I hope to find the rest of this series to see what other helpful info they have, hopefully one on bottomland hardwoods.

Basic Pond Management, the book

The book is written by Bob Lusk with Mark McDonald. It is a basic primer on pond management with chapters on planning and building a pond, fish, stocking, harvest, habitat, existing ponds, and wildlife. The information is presented well and should be read by any aspiring pond owner whether they will guild or buy one. I wish I had read this before my purchase! I especially liked the chapter on evaluating existing ponds, even though mine was in hindsight. All of the chapters are very informative and will create a knowledge base for your continued education if you feel that necessary. The broad scope does limit the details and a knowledgable pondmeister will probably want to skip it. I have found myself pulling it down off the shelf several times as a starting when I want to bone up on some pond information. It is definitely a book not to judge by the cover, love the '80's shorts and hat, so do not believe the out of date clothes mean out of date info. This is a timeless classic on ponds that can be found here: http://www.pondboss.com/books.html.

A Manual of Forestry

I found this interesting book online. It is A Manual of Forestry with special reference to forestry problems in East Texas by the Texas Forestry Service, Bulletin 45. It has some dated information, which is to be expected for a book published in 1952. One great part of the book is it is tailored to East Texas, which my property is in the northern portion. It also has some interesting chapters on some subjects rare to the average landowner book. It has a chapter on fire prevention, including the use of fire breaks in your woods and the types and factors of fires. Another interesting chapter is on forest enemies including many insects, weather, and domestic animals. Domestic grazing animals is the other unusual chapter. They discuss in depth how to graze livestock in a forest with as little damage as possible to the forest. It is definitely an intrigueing way to earn more money in certain forests as long as you are not looking fot any regeneration of tree stocks. I recommend this book for anyone with a woodlot in East Texs who has already read the usual landowner forestry books, especially if you also run cattle on the property.

Woodlot Improvement 4-H Club Bulletin

I have a very helpful bulletin from the Cornell 4-H club. If you are looking for a straight forward manual on improving your woodlot, then look no further. It is a short educational bulletin meant to teach the young club memebers on how to improve a woodlot quickly and correctly. The bulletin goes over what a good lot is, the form and species fo trees to keep, the differences between even-aged and uneven-aged woodlots, making an inventory, and harvesting. The copy I have is Bulletin 43 Woodlot Improvement: Managing the Woodlot by J.A. Cope and Fred E. Winch Jr., of which there are many reprintings. I do not know if the 4-H club has a current edition. The closest I found was this website with some of the bulletins info: http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/info/pubs/management/working.htm

Working With Your Woodland by Beattie, Thompson, & Levine

In my opinion, this is one of the best books for a landowner to read about forestry. If you can only get one book on forestry, this is the book for you. My only quible is that they concentrate on New England forests, but they at least explain that this is where their experience lies. The authors cover almost every aspect a landowner needs to know. The book is broken down into chapters on woodland potential, foresters, management plans, management techniques, harvesting products, and finances. Each of these chapters goes into depth on the topic without becoming to academic. They weigh the pros and cons of many different competing ideas including management types, competing land uses, and foresters. They also discuss how to decide the future of your forest in the last chapter by weighing all the book has taught you and deciding what end result you desire. It is also the only book I have seen on forestry that goes into the financial side of things, especially taxes. Having perfect trees is wonderful, if they don't cost a fortune to grow. There are many different editions out there, so be wary of the tax info is you purchase an older edition. The appendix will also help New England forest owners with a lot of state info. Read this book, it will pay for itself many times over.

Southern Woodland Trees by James Berry

I thought I would post a quick review of another book I found very useful. It is an old (1924) book, and is easy and cheap to find. The reason I found it useful is it has a very good chapter on identifying trees by their endgrain, bud structure, and leaves. It is a simpler and cheaper option before stepping up to the technical texts. Another unusual part of it is the sections on unusual trees from the south. Unusual trees can be a niche market for their lumber to the hobby woodworker. There is a break down of different oaks beyond the typical red and white. Berry also identifies the property differences among the hickories, which I have not found in any other book. Hickory was much more valuable to industry in the past so the difference in properties was important, especially strength. Each tree species has a geographical and plant description, a drawing of the leaf and fruit, tree form, occurence, distinctive characteristics, wood qualities, and uses. It is also interesting for its historical perspective on tree distribution and uses.

Quick book review

Here is a book I read recently and found helpful on the basics of a woodlot. It is The Country Journal Woodlot Primer by Richard M. Brett. It is a great introductory book on how to manage your woodland. It is a bit old, but most of the information is still relevant. There is quite a bit of information on what a woodlot is and what you can do yourself. I especially like the section on planting your own seedlings, since this can be a high dollar area is someone else does it for you. It also oultines a lot of the equipment you need, just ignore the chainsaw section unless you KNOW how to handle one. I also like how the book goes about the telling you about the different paths a woodlot can take, identifying tree quality, and that it tells you to enjoy your land. First and foremost, enjoy your land and what you are doing to it.