After an incredible weekend up at the LSSR it’s back to work for HRF. September has brought many more acres of cedar encroachment removal. What amazes HRF is looking at the growth rings on some of the felled cedar trees. It’s very easy to see how in only 10-15 years what looks like very small cedar seedlings can completely overtake a site and grow quite large.
The first area has many open grown trees. This may make it seem as though progress would be very quick. The unfortunate reality is that although lesser in numbers, their outward growth is ridiculous in some cases. Branches by the dozens can literally snake out horizontally as far as the tree is tall. Therein lies the consumption of time. One needs to cut and clear a path just to reach the tree itself.
On the other hand the second area is densely populated and naturally pruned. There are many more trees but they should be easier to access and hopefully easier to fall as well. All in all it makes for a nice project, and with some prescribed burning in the future, these areas will become useful once more.