Hello all, my name is Autumn and I am a Forest Management student. I am a single mom of a 14 year old girl who is just starting high school. I have worked in forestry since 2002 when I started my career as a wildland firefighter for a private company that does other forestry related contracting as well. For the last 2 summers I worked as a YCC crew leader with the USFS working with teens in the woods doing all kinds of things like wildlife habitat enhancement projects, invasive plant removal, and trail maintenance.

So far every day has been packed with so much information, I have returned home tired from processing everything. It is great that we have such a small group, we all are getting to know each other while learning in a positive group setting. I really need to brush up on my statistics calculations, but each day I am excited to see what Jim has planned for us to learn.

 

See you all tomorrow,

 

Autumn

Big thank you to Eric for a great presentation on reforestation on day 3. Much appreciated by everyone.

Day 4 was a trip out to the Five Rivers area in the Lobster Creek Valley where Mike Newton has a young 2nd thinning stand just recently harvested.

We started out day 4 with Jessica leading the group in some team building exercises including a group human knot untying drill

        

Afterwards we had a team field trial on tree height measurements and a field demonstration on the use of cruising prisms. Back to the classroom for snacks and a discussion on thinning management and variable plot sampling. We wanted to get right back to the field so it was off to the vans and a trip out west to the Five Rivers area where we got to Mike’s stand. Once situated we made our way to one of the remaining log decks for a quick briefing, another trail on tree heights and then the students were turned loose for a 20 minute observation walk. On returning we discussed their findings including the large amount of forked tops, several students quickly noted the evenness of planting and spacing, the amount of dead limbs still remaining, etc.

The stand is a 35 year-old planted Douglas-fir stand in it’s second thinning. Heights were a mind-boggling 115-120 feet with as much as 4′-5′ inter-node lengths. Very impressive growth.

Students then went out to cruise the stand using both a fixed plot that included stump measurements and variable plot for stand and tree volume estimates. Stump diameters were matched with DBH to use later to build a stump diameter to DBH relationship for reconstruction of the stand pre-thinning.

 

                                

 

 Increment cores were taken to examine growth responses

Afterwards we met back at the log decks to examine the cut ends of the logs remaining. Logs showed a very clear response to opening up the stand in each thinning and students were able to examine the stand response pre-thinning as growth rings slowed and then accelerated following the post harvest.

Day 3 highlights were all about our site visit and sampling in a reforestation stand in the College Forests. After a brief introduction on sampling methods and the statistics around the reforestation numbers, we drove out to the site and met up with Eric Dinger. Eric gave a great presentation on the biology and management of reforestation including a discussion on how reforestation fits in the scheme of succession dynamics. Good discussion on stand targeting and management practices from the critical point of nursery quality, to planting practices and competition release.

                       

Students were sent out to make personal observations and then we all came back together to discuss.

Great discussion on the importance of root quality and morphology and the importance of the fine root hair system to rapid seedling growth and survival. Eric then dug down along the side of  one of the seedlings to expose the root system structure and the importance of the fibrous nature of a good and viable seedling

Eric showing how to assess damage in a dead seedling, looking for cause whether it be browse, or other aspect. He showed students how to pull and assess dead seedling by examination of the roots, or lack of. In this case, very evident of a seedling that was probably dead on planting due to the container root still being in it’s planted condition.

After the talk we had lunch on the landing and students went out to put in plots and perform the stocking survey. At the end of the day we returned to the Cabin and worked on calculation and results. Spent time on the correct calculation of confidence limits. The day wrapped up with a discussion on the preparation of a summary report and the importance of being brief yet precise on writing the summary. Spent time doing a verbal writing of the abstract.

It’s been a great and really busy first couple of days for the group.

Sunday – Day 1. Started off as all classes do on the first day with introductions, some hesitations about what a new class would be like. But we all settled in and got going right away. I really enjoyed bringing in a short piece on the history of the College, where it all began, where we have gotten to and how we got there along the way. One surprise for the students was that The University has 42 distinguished professors in all and 5 of them are right here in the College! Many Colleges in the Universities have none!!

Net on the agenda was a review of the the importance of field notes and proper procedures. One of the things I have put together for them is a 2nd field book that they will fill in with pages I have put together as a Field Reference manual. Basically, all the stuff you need to know but couldn’t fill your brain cells with; From Relaskop directions to Planting Spacings; Volume Tables to Log Grades, Volume Ratios, Bark Thickness Tables, Metric Conversions… you get the idea. 48 pages of all the useful stuff you wish you had in the field, all in a pocket reference.

Out to the field for pacing exercises and compass work. Let’s just say that a few people were a little rusty on their pacing… but by the afternoon we saw a lot of improvement. We’ll have plenty of practice on this over the course of the two weeks.

Ann (my wife) came in for a session in the afternoon that we both have found to be very useful and important over the last several years. she started with an introduction on how groups interact and function based on the makeup of the group and then moved on to talk about Humanalities, an understanding of how our personalities shape us and help us to function in the groups we interact with. It was a great session on helping the students identify confidence or lack of and what drives the various types of personalities to be successful. She then had the groups self-divide into their perceived identities and think about how they would interact with the other types in problem situations. They started to understand how to identify and classify other personality types and then create strategies for successful interaction.By day 2, I now realize that we have created a whole class of amateur psychologists as every guest speaker is being analyzed!!

Monday-Day 2

Our first day out to the Club Cabin which will be our “Home” for the next 8 days. After a settling in and breakfast in the cabin, it was off for the first of many field trials. A Pacing trial up past Cronemiller Lake and to the Logging Sports field. A bit over 1800′ and already seeing some great improvement in a number of people. Gold Medal to Robert who missed the overall distance of 1859′ by …………. wait for it ………… 1 foot! Seriously, 1 foot! An overall error of …. well it’s a really tiny number!

Next few hours we tackled aerial photos and interpretation. A good part of that was spent on orientation for stereo viewing and that session went well. But of course, there is always the testing and I gave them all the standard U.S. Army Moessner stereo viewing test. All, of them did excellent on the test. A good thing as I reminded them that in the Army, if you didn’t do well on this test, there was always an infantry position!!

Photo interpretation was next and after a brief discussion on strategies for interpretation I broke out the Photo Interp game, a series of 14 images from around the world, some very difficult and asked them to identify the specific places. Kind of a “Where’s Waldo” from 20,000 feet above game. They did really well on this and I was pretty impressed. The most difficult one was the Beijing Olympic Stadium, which they all knew was some sort of major sports complex, but you had to know that the Olympic symbol  had been rearranged to a bird’s nest for those Olympics to identify it as Beijing.

Lunch time and we fired up the outdoor grill.   Iron Chefs Jessica, Robin, and Tiffany took charge as the guys couldn’t get the fire started, or at least that’s what the chefs said! Great lunch, burgers and dogs. Guest culinary judges Herman, Ben, Colin, and Robert gave them all passing grades. I believe Colin may have been the strictest as for some reason he had to try quite a few burgers before deciding! 

On to a statistics review and all I am going to say is that everyone stayed awake and alert. Statistics after lunch and I didn’t loose anyone. A major success!

Back to the field and now a pacing trial with compass on slopes at the Rusty Axle traverse site. Great afternoon of field work and back to calculations of closure errors and coordinates. And with that, day 2 was in the books.

Hi, and welcome to the 2013 Field School. Throughout the two-week session, students will be posting their photos and thoughts as we move through a fairly intensive, but fun-filled time.

My name is Jim Kiser and I am the lead instructor for the Field School. In addition to being on the College of Forestry Faculty, I bring over 30 years of field experience to my passion for teaching. My wife Ann and I live on a 25 acre farm in Lacomb and when I’m not in the classroom, you can find us out working our wine grape vineyard or playing with our  6 horses in the pastures or the arena. My teaching focus is in the areas of surveying, aerial photography, and forest biometrics

The mission of the field school is to help prepare both resident and transfer students for the upcoming Junior year as they enter the Forestry Professional School. Students in the Professional School have completed their first two years of preparation work and have qualified and been admitted to the Professional School. Field School will build on some of the past field skills and knowledge base, as well as adding new information and skills. All of this will happen around a central theme of examining the forest through it’s growing stages and comparing/contrasting working west-side Oregon Douglas-fir forests with the working mixed-conifer forests of the central Cascades.

Additionally, students will be in field-related exercises where they will be asked to take on leadership roles in group-work situation. In addition to fostering a camaraderie with their peers, this will be preparation for them to go on to take leadership roles in course group work in the 3rd and 4th year classes of the Professional School Program. Throughout the 2-weeks, students will build on a set of student-derived core values related to the goals of their education, confidence as professionals, and an intensive and fun-filled experience.

If you are visiting the site, welcome and we look forward to any comments or questions about the Field School

Cheers,

Jim