In the fall of 2019 I worked with a private forester and decided to do a timber sale. With Brad the forester we walked all 30 acres and we agreed that a thinning of the forest was needed.

The above picture was taken in the fall when leaves had been dropping. You can still see how dark the forest is and how little is growing on the forest floor.

The photo above shows a very large Red Oak with my son-in-law pictured for scale. But notice the lack of sunlight, except for on the left where a large Sugar Maple had just fell. Also notice the hole at the bottom of the tree.

This is a closeup of the hole on the big Red Oak. We put a flexible metal stick up the hole and couldn’t touch solid tree for around 3 feet up. This tree is going to fail as it rots in the middle.

The above is a large White Oak. The problem with this tree is that the right side of the tree is dead. This will eventually kill the entire tree. So it is ready to be harvested.

And finally the above is a picture of what used to be a 3 stemmed Red Oak clump. As you can see only one stem is left. The other two have fallen in the last 5 years and cut into firewood. The ridge of my woods has a lot of large multi-stemmed Red Oaks. I believe this is because it was logged around 100 years ago – meaning around 1919. Red Oaks are known for growing from cut stumps. One last reason for a timber sale is to sell Ash trees before the emerald ash borer kills them.

So I decided with Brad’s help to log selective trees from the forest. In early October of 2019 Brad and I walked the forest and together made decisions on which trees to offer for a timber sale. We marked around 120 trees. Brad then put together a request for bid. The bid had two parts. A firm price on 20 very large and Black Walnut trees which held the most value. Then a bid on the Red Oak, Hard Maple, Ash, Basswood, White/But Oak, and Black Cherry which was a price per board foot calculated after the trees are cut. In late 2019 we accepted a bid. I will do a post on the actual timber cutting.