Ask, Evaluate, Do, Part 3

"Find something you love doing and do it” Mildred Davey

Assuming you have asked and evaluated and want to do something, the next is do.  My best suggestion is find someone else who is experienced to do it.  These are real stories, the office manager who retired after 40 years of employment, decided to re-roof the house and fell to death.  The A-type personality who bought his dream forest and died from a heart attack planting trees and clearing brush, it is hard work.  He was found several days later.

Work in the woods is dangerous and can easily result in death.  A small tree weighs has much as a full grown bull, larger ones the largest whales, a stick is a baseball bat, and if they don’t fall they can roll.  Working in the woods, for someone who knows what they are doing can also be rewarding as recounted by William G. Robbins in his story, My Summer with Ernie and Mo (Citadel of the Spirit, edited by Matt Love) “It has never ceased to impress me that these hourly laborers were already working at least fifteen minutes before the official start of the workday”.

The 2008, 9’s narrowed the selection of people available to do the work, but those who did make it through are true pros.  They have the equipment and core of knowledge to do what needs to be done.  The community of logging operators is pretty small, ask someone who knows the group, they have probably worked with them and know what they can do.  If you decide to do it yourself, use all of the appropriate personal protective equipment, and listen to your body, a 4 to 6 hour day may be the right length of time.  Old time hand loggers ate 8-12 thousand calories a day and were as thin as rails.

Doing is a big step with legal, tax, forest law, and a host of other considerations.  It is also the way for you to help a forest and reap a benefit, perhaps financial, of knowing that you have acted as a steward to a piece of earth and its living creatures.