Long View Client Field Tour

​On Saturday, October 24, twenty Long View clients gathered with six Long View staff at Irwin and Melissa Post’s woodlot in Chester for our Long View Client Field Tour. The purpose of the day was to highlight the active and continuous style of forest management that Long View practices and to begin to build a community of Long View clients who can share ideas, experiences, and inspirations with each other based on a shared interest in well-managed forests.
 
The Post woodlot demonstrates a densely-packed array of varied management techniques in different stages of development. Irwin does the management and harvesting himself and it was amazing and informative to tour the different projects that he has completed or currently has underway. His encyclopedic knowledge of what was done when and how puts the whole management process into nice perspective. The take home message: our forests have amazing potential to grow great trees.
 
 We saw white pine thinning and then regeneration, spruce/fir management in a beech-forest-matrix, pruning of young white pine, and the most recent area where Irwin is taking a repeatedly high-graded stand and rehabilitating it via what might be called an irregular shelterwood approach. Long View’s Dan Healey did a demonstration of a brush saw as a young forest tending tool. In areas where 3-6’ high undesirable species are on the verge of outcompeting desirable ones, judicious brush sawing can re-direct the development of the forest nicely.
 
As the tour wrapped up, we spent time reviewing the roads, culverts, and temporary stream crossings that make up the essential forest infrastructure of the property. Like Long View, Irwin utilizes a cut-to-length harvesting system to fell and process the trees in the forest. This harvesting is then paired with a forwarder which picks up the wood and drives it out of the forest. The central forwarder roads that we toured on give reliable access to the woodlot for management activities, but also double as a fantastic recreational trail network for cross country skiing, birding, or walking in the woods.
 
We ended by sharing a lunch featuring hamburgers made from beef that was raised 2 miles down the road. Thanks to everyone for bringing the yummy food contributions that rounded out the meal. After lunch, Irwin demonstrated what his sawmill can do as he processed some of his wood into boards. If you need some good, local wood- please check out Irwin’s business: http://www.goodwoodvt.com/contact.html
 
As we debriefed the day, we were stuck by what a neat and special event it was and resolved to do more. We hope to see you at one of them soon.
 
Alex Barrett

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