Three Days in a Forest – YOUR forest!
I can’t think of a place where the ratio between the number of people who talk and think about a place is so out of whack with the number who have actually set foot in the place. The place is the Elliott State Forest in the Oregon Coast Range and, until recently, I was part […]
Forest Products – Reflections On
We were seated in a circle of folding chairs as the summer’s setting sun dropped below the tree line. Looking down, I was surprised by the amount of dust caking my worn boots. Dust lingering from a long day in the nearby forest loading logs from recently thinned trees onto mill-bound trucks. All of us […]
Fence Pulling – A “Four Legged” Rewilding Adventure
The Hyla Woods team is fortunate to be working in partnership with the good folks at Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District to plan and carry out a challenging 60 acre restoration project in our Mt. Richmond Forest on land recently purchased from our neighbors. One part of the project is removing four legs of […]
Illuminated by Fire
Now that most welcomed, cold rains have brought our fire season to an end, it seems constructive to reflect on some of the lessons reinforced by events in the past two months. Though the fires are dwindling, the human suffering related to them is far from over; this is a time to focus on ways […]
BEE – ing
Over the years, we’ve monitored a variety of things in our forests, from birds to amphibians and creek bugs to water temperatures. We’ve often talked about what else to add. Thanks to Molly’s work with native bees and Extension forester Amy Grotta’s encouragement to join her 2019 Oregon Bee Atlas monitoring outings at Matteson State […]
Timber Wars – How Helpful?
Metaphors Matter – It’s Time for a Change: There is so much that is right, good, and encouraging about the accord that was recently reached between representatives of the so called timber industry and conservation groups in Oregon, and there is one key element that is wrong. I hope that we’ll all support the effort’s […]
The Last Call?
Over the thirty plus years that our family has been connected to our current forests, we have listened and looked long and hard for Northern spotted owls. We know that at some time in the past they found suitable homes in these forests, but so far we have yet to encounter one. But they nested […]
Our Focus on Outcomes – Some Tentative News
As forest stewards we believe that intentions are nice, actions are good, but outcomes are what matter most. Accordingly, we are always hungry for chances to assess outcomes. One of those chances came yesterday morning. At 7:15 AM, not long after the near solstice sun came over the hill, we finished the last of three […]
Strangest Yet – The Day The Turtle Flew
Over the years we have chalked up many strange events and mysterious phenomenon in the forests – but this week’s tops them all. The story is short and straightforward. This Monday morning a member of the Hyla Woods team had just started a drive down from the 1,200′ top of Mt. Richmond when a remarkable […]
Flattening Both Curves – Covid 19 and Greenhouse Gases
The Hyla Woods Team is continuing and ramping up our efforts to explore ways that we and our forests might make their greatest contribution to limiting and addressing the climate crisis. While we’re in the process of developing our updated plan of action, we started by working to better understand the larger, longer term context […]