Our Forestry Philosophy

We've taken the core principles of Jim Birkemeier's Full Vigor Foresty philosophy and employed them in our own woods, and common sense has emerged as our most valuable guiding principle.  We are not foresters by education, but Jim is and what he teaches is to forget about basal area densities and ages of maturation and instead get to know your own woods - and watch closely.  By working in our own woods year after year, we have the benefit of watching and checking our progress as we go cleaning up an average, invasives-infested, formerly grazed and overlogged woodlot.  Jim teaches "worst first" and that is a key guiding principle -- removing trees if they are dead, dying, not growing, or getting in the way of a "better" tree growing -- in that order.  If we're in doubt as to whether a tree needs to come out, we have the luxury of leaving it there, measuring its diameter, and then assessing the following year whether the tree is happy and growing well and better left with its brothers and sisters or removed. 

In many ways, small woodlot management can be conducted with an eye similar to gardening.  By watching and tuning into our trees, we develop an intuitive sense of what's healthy, what's too cramped, etc. 

It's often our pleasure to be able to walk in the woods with customers and clients we work with and help them see that they too are qualified to make common sense determinations about their sense of and their priorities in the woods.

We value professional foresters highly and employ them when needed.  However, their scientific expertise is best utilized when dealing with thousands of acres of trees in volume, not tens of acres of trees as individuals.  Forester's need methods that allow them to make determinations in stands that might not be walked through or harvested in again for another 10-15 years, whereas we and our clients enjoy our woodlots on a personal and daily basis.