LCSWA Past Activity Reports

On the evening of March 6, 2019,  Linn County Chapter hosted a Woodlands Information Night at the OSU Extension classroom in Tangent, OR. W.I.N. is an annual event sponsored between the Linn and Benton Chapters of the Small Woodlands Association. This year's event was well attended with more than 26 people present. On this occasion, there were two guest speakers and both spoke on land management planning, with additional emphasis on products and other opportunities to profit from non-timber products. Matt Fehrenbacher of Trout Mountain Forestry in Corvallis and Portland, spoke specifically about Management plans for small woodland owners.  He touched on some of the concerns and what land owners and managers should consider before and while writing and implementing their management plans. Jim Merzenich, Brownsville area landowner, also spoke about his land management plan, but with a greater emphasis on non-timber forest products and projects on his tree farm such as; run

Close to 100 volunteers over two days pushed the 24th annual Linn County Small Woodlands Association seedling sale to near-record numbers. More than 9,000 seedlings were sold Feb. 2 before noon — including almost 150 pre-orders that were packaged Feb. 1. Both those figures are near-records. “It was one of our best years ever,” said Sherm Sallee, a co-founder of the event. Next year’s silver anniversary seedling sale will be Saturday, Feb. 1 with preorders packaged Jan. 31. The event at the Linn County Expo provides $5,600 in scholarships annually to both university forestry students and Linn County 4-Hers involved in forestry. In addition, the event allows LCSWA members and the general public to get quality nursery stock at a good price, said event chairwoman Bonnie Marshall. Scholarship winners, 4-Hers and their parents along with membership set up and operate the sale. “I just love seeing the generations come together, with the 4Hers, their parents and our members part

Weld Family Tree Farm Tour By Jim Merzenich Past president Sherman and Leslie Weld were selected as Linn County’s tree farmers of the year for 2018. The Weld family tree farm consists of 140 acres overlooking the Calapooia river valley near Holley. The property was purchased 50 years ago by Lester and Faye Weld, Sherman’s parents. About 8 acres of the site was a landfill for the family’s Sweet Home Sanitation business. Today that acreage is a 25-year-old Douglas fir plantation. The acreage also includes former grazing and orchard land. In the past twenty-five years much of this land has been cleared, sprayed, ripped to a 36 inch depth and planted in Douglas-fir. These stands are now being commercially thinned. The tour of the Weld Family tree farm was held on Saturday Sep 22nd beginning at 10 am. Over seventy guests in addition to many members of the Weld family participated. A tractor drawn wagon was provided to transport guests to the five tour stops but many people cho

By Lee Peterman Linn County SWA president The Linn Chapter of OSWA hosted a Woodlands Workshop Night Oct. 11 at the OSU Extension office in Tangent. Attendance was good, with nearly 20 individuals and represented members from both Linn and Benton chapters of OSWA. There were four guest speakers and a wide variety of topics covered. Heather Tritt  is from the USDA / Farm Service Agency. She is also the executive director for Linn County FSA. Tritt gave a brief, but information-packed presentation on the FSA "Disaster Assistance" programs available to small woodlands owners, such as after the ice storms of 2015 - 2016. Her focus was simple: if your property or trees were affected by a natural disaster, such as an ice storm, contact your local FSA office to begin a claim. Ray Dodd , brought his a specialist knowledge on bats with ODFW. Ray had a great slide-show with numerous photos of the local Oregon bats. He detailed how the ODFW is learning about bat population dens

October 19th 2017 Growing A Diverse Forest By Lee Peterman Brad Withrow-Robinson OSU Extension Forestry & Natural Resources Extension It was a dark and stormy night on October 19th, as Brad Withrow-Robinson; OSU Extension Forestry & Natural Resources Extension Agent gave a woodland talk about ways to enhance and diversify woodland property for wildlife habitat and aesthetic values. So dark and stormy in fact, that only a few brave and hardy souls were in attendance to gain knowledge on aspects and methods to diversify private woodlands through a slide presentation and lively Q&A session of the "Cookie-Theory" of forest diversity. What, the reader may ask, is the "Cookie-Theory" of forest diversity? During the talk, Brad W-R postulated that enhancing diversity in private woodlands is akin to observing cookies; in that a stand of trees might be of a homogenous species -- such as a recently replanted-after-harvest stand of Douglas-fir and that

October 27th, 2017 What Your Watershed Council Can Do For You By Lee Peterman Eric Andersen Council Coordinator of the South Santiam Watershed Council On the evening of October 27th the OSU Extension in Tangent along with the Linn Chapter; hosted Eric Andersen, Council Coordinator of the South Santiam Watershed Council, who gave a talk on the topic of watershed councils and some of the programs they can offer small woodlands owners. It was also an attempt to tie-in to and drum-up interest in a woodland tour occurring ten days later at "Bird-Haven" a private woodland in North Linn County, on the North Santiam River as an example of what restoration projects a watershed council can assist in. There were approximately a dozen attendees, including members of other watershed councils, as well as the Executive Director of the Calapooia Watershed Council. Eric's presentation included a slide-show with photographs of past and on-going projects being performed through t

NL 1017 Linn Forest Protective Association Law Enforcement Committee By Sherm Sallee Mid-August is the time frame for the annual Linn Forest Protective Association (LFPA) Law Enforcement Committee meeting. It precedes the hunting season and is a time for forestland owners to learn about problems law enforcement officials are finding in the timberlands as well as to discuss the availability of their lands for public hunting with local law enforcement (State Police and Sheriff’s Office). This year’s meeting also included an update to the status for preparation for the upcoming solar eclipse event. By the time you read this article, you will know the outcome of the event on the forestland in Linn County and throughout the state. Hopefully it will be a non-event as far as forest fires are concerned. As of now, the forestlands are extremely dry. As a result, almost all landowners are discouraging visitors until a significant rain event occurs. Gates are locked and signs are posted to d

August 12, 2017: Picnic By Sherm Sallee On a perfect summer day in August, a group of small woodland owners and friends gathered at  Udell’s Happy Valley Tree Farm  near Lebanon. The purpose was to meet new and old friends, learn a little about tree farming and have a great meal. All these objectives were met. We started at 9:00 am with coffee, tea, juice and pastries. Following introductions and a brief description of the property, we took a pickup tour to portions of the property. This included a look at the results of a couple of small clear cut areas. We discussed the procedure of site preparation and planting. One area was treated in the fall following harvest and planted that winter. The other area was left untreated for a year to allow the vegetation to sprout and was then treated and planted the following year. The area that was planted in the first year following harvest shows the results of an extra year of growth while the area treated after letting vegetation grow

February 2017, Seedling Sale Linn County Small Woodland Seedling Sale The 22nd annual Linn Chapter seedling sale was a two-day event. Friday was the day to pick up seedlings from the nurseries, prepare tables in the Santiam Building at the Linn County Fairgrounds in Albany, fill the 130 pre-orders and finally set up for the public for Saturday. Saturday was the day for customers to pick up their pre-orders and visit the Good from the Woods displays. Also, there were about 100 walk in customers to purchase seedlings. All of this ran very smoothly thanks to the help of volunteers from the Linn Small Woodlands Chapter, 4-H members and their parents and our college scholarship recipient. This year  Bonnie and Lance Marshall  chaired the seedling committee for the first time and they did a fantastic job of ordering the seedlings, getting out publicity, thanks to  Katie Kohl , processing the pre-orders from our customers and answering phone call and e-mail questions.  Don and Car