1.0 Northwest forest general
Read MoreMap of Area 1, northwest forest
1 Northwest Forest map
Looking across the fence to the north, my neighbour is making much larger piles and cutting out a lot of the smaller trees, presumably to encourage deer as well as to see them better. This higher piles will shelter more animals than my log dams, but my log dams will produce good soil quicker, I think. five years instead of ten, maybe.
Looking northwest from OP 17. The western part of the 1.NorthwestForest slopes from the north and northeast down toward the southwest toward 2.ForestCreek and where it flows out to the west. This is a downed tree that is pretty close to on contour, so I've piled branches and pieces of trunk from another tree that had fallen up hill from it. The tree that had fallen must have been one of the dead standing ones because it came down and shattered into many smaller pieces that were small enough for me to haul over and put in place. The concept is that along this line a fairly thick bed of rotting wood will help accumulate more water for the hillside than having is scattered around. Also, runoff will be slowed, though in the direction I'm facing, toward the northwest corner, there is no evidence of runoff erosion ditches, leading me to think this part hasn't had much human activity in the past except for clear cutting maybe 60 or 70 years ago and probably cattle grazing up until maybe 30 or 40 years ago.
Looking south from OP 17 in the western part of 1.NorthwestForest, you can see another fallen tree laying along the contour, sort of. It fell across a fairly major erosion ditch caused by the work on the old road further upslope where it looks like there was dozer work at sometime in the past. Perhaps as little as 20 years ago. I piled lots of dead wood upslope from it last summer. This is not really a dam, it is not intended to stop the water, only to slow it down and catch more of it thatn was being caught before.
three serviceberry in northwest forest
This south west facing slope becomes quite shaded in the summer. The bush honeysuckle invasion has reached down into here, but so far they are mainly the small easily pulled up ones.
Snapping turtle having difficulties getting through the fence.
I'll have to check again, I'm sure there's a way out under the fence at a couple of places.