Tree Farmer - September/October 2009 - (Page 22)

Family PAuL The tools & techniques By Easley The family tree. Immediately your mind jumps to genealogy, the family history. Kathy has traced my family line back to the 1500s in France and her family back to the 1500s in Germany using an online tool called www.ancestry.com. This is an incredible interactive site that is easy to use and interesting, kind of like uncovering treasure. The family tree I am talking about are those that you and I grow. This could be anyone’s story, all of us Tree Farmers have “special” trees or plantations on our land that hold memories and invoke wonderful emotions. All of our favorite family trees would be considered non-crop trees; we love them because of their character, history, and what they personally mean to us. Tracking a tree’s progress helps you to learn information needed for future plantings and it is a wonderful way to become aware of time in your own life. Twenty-five years ago my forester, John Churran, gave me a tip that I thought was great. He said to drive a post in the ground at a plantation and each year at the same time take a photo pointing in the same direction. Set your camera on top of the post and paint a line on the post so you can get the camera pointed in the correct direction each year. I followed his advice for about five years. A very wet spring storm pushed the pipe over and I never reset it. Now 20-some years later I wish I had. Nothing marks time better than a growing tree. It is kind of like marking your height on the back of a door as a kid. I know my height scale really shot up from age 11 to 15. I think mom was pumping a lot of fertilizer into my food. At times when I am walking in our woods, my mind compares the age of our trees with who may have lived here before. Many of our trees are more than 200 years old. Judging by the amount of Indian artifacts found on our land, one might believe I would have to learn a new language to communicate with the humans who were here when the seed that produced these giant oaks was still on the previous generations’ tree. Oh, if only these trees could talk to me. Sometimes they do show their history to me, but only after they are harvested and sliced up on our mill. I have had opportunities to count growth rings back to a timber fire. I have seen bad and good growth years that could be attributed to weather. A few years back, while saw milling a very large oak, I ran into an octagon barrel of a gun. A few boards later, I hit a white powdery substance that proved out to be a leather bag with 32 caliber balls in it. I put the log back together to see how long ago they had been placed there and found it was about 120 years ago. So many unanswered questions: What fate did this person meet? Did he have an accident or just die? No one would just leave his gun and ammunition. The ammo was in a crotch area about eight feet up from the butt of the tree, and the barrel was in an area that looked like it had been struck by lightening. It is this kind of thing that makes me look at my trees and wonder about the history; what legacy is passed from tree to tree? Human life span is so short that we barely have time to really understand The 1990 Illinois Tree Farmers of the Year Paul and Kathy Easley own and manage Oak Leaf Wood ‘n’ Supplies, 210 N. Main St., Moweaqua, IL 62550; . Tree 22 Tree Farmer SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009 http://www.ancestry.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Tree Farmer - September/October 2009

Tree Farmer - September/October 2009
Table of Contents
Cover Story
A Hot Trend: Enhance Habitat with Prescribed Fire
Tools & Techniques
Woodland Security
Taxing Issues
Wildlife Matters
2008 Northeastern Regional Tree Farmers of the Year

Tree Farmer - September/October 2009