Hello everyone!

Last week was an exciting one as we began timber cruising. Fred and Lys took us out to the Beaver Creek tree farm and took us through the process of what to do for each plot while cruising.

Once we arrive at the plot we want to measure, we count the amount of trees close enough to the plot center and big enough to be counted using an electronic relaskop. The goal is to have four to eight trees within the plot.

Once the number of trees in the plot is determined, we measure the diameter of each tree at 4.5 feet, which is called DBH (diameter at breast height). While one person measures the DBHs, the other person starts measuring the heights of the trees, usually using an electronic laser or a clinometer. When the height of a tree is determined, that person also determines what percentage of the tree is covered with live branches.

Lastly, each tree that was considered inside the plot is examined for defects in the bottom, middle, and top third of the tree. Defects are typically things like forked tops, stems that have crooks and bends in them, and scarring or fungus on the tree bark.

We did cruising for a few days, which us interns are slowly getting the hang of.

 

Friday and Monday, we went back to working on our stocking surveys for the summer.

Cruising is a huge part of what we do in the summers as interns so I am looking forward to seeing how that goes here in the near future.

 

–Marshall Brattain

This week, the interns were back at it doing stocking surveys.

Robert and I made a trip out to Alsea to the Missouri Bend tree farm as well as Bummer Creek tree farm. It has been very interesting to see how the trees are doing in different areas and whether or not they have been exposed to browsing from deer and elk.

This week, I encountered a lot of red cedars in some different units. In the 4-year stands they were doing very well and looked healthy, whereas in the 2-year stands I was in, there was more mortality.

I have been lucky to see the amazing views throughout the Starker land, like the one Robert and I saw on Friday at the NW Babe Reed unit in Beaver Creek.

We are about halfway through the summer now and I have really been enjoying the internship, I think the other three interns would say the same. We look forward to what comes next!

— Marshall Brattain

Hello everyone!

After a very eventful Sunday and Monday of last week with the broadcast burn, we spent the next few days doing mop-up in the Crawls Corner unit. I was in charge of Starker’s small fire truck for the week; we used it often for putting out leftover hot spots and even spot fires that were persisting in the unit.

 

Thursday morning, Robert and I went back to the unit with Stephen and Lys as well as a couple of guys who were controlling a drone that would fly over the unit with a thermal camera, detecting where hidden hot spots were under the visible soil.

That was an awesome experience. We saw how technology can be used to make the process of mop-up more efficient.

This week is back to stocking surveys.

 

— Marshall Brattain

July 12, 2022

The past week was a good one. After having Monday off for the 4th of July, we spent Tuesday through Friday doing more stocking surveys.

Things were different on Sunday though. The other interns and I were given the rare opportunity at this time of the year to take part in helping with the broadcast burn that was conducted. Broadcast burning is not done by most companies today, but it is very beneficial when done correctly as it creates great soil conditions for when a unit is planted (which will likely be this fall or winter) as well as gets rid of previous vegetation that was present, which reduces competition for the growth of future seedlings.

 

The burn went well and everything was kept under control, thanks to the great

teamwork between the full-time foresters here at Starker, the interns, and some folks at Miller Timber.

This week, we will likely be mopping up post-fire. Mop up mostly consists of using tools such as hazel hoes and pulaskis to mix up some of the soil that has hot spots underneath the surface and spraying those spots down to reduce any risk of a spot fire igniting.

It was a great learning experience being there for the burn and we look forward to a week of learning about the processes involved in conducting these broadcast burns.

July 6, 2022

Week three of the summer was a good one. Stephen and Lys conducted some stocking survey training for us interns, which is something we most likely will be doing for a good portion of the summer. With stocking surveys, we go out to a unit that has been planted in the last few years (we usually do 2-year and 4-year-old units), and we go from plot to plot recording certain tree measurements, including tree height, species and vigor. We also record whether the tree has been damaged, the most common damage type we see is browsing from deer and elk.

Our first week brought us some very steep units, but when the units are steep that usually means we get some pretty great views from the landings where we park the pickup. Some of the 4-year-old units are covered with vegetation, a few of them have had heavy thistle and poison oak we have had to endure.

With the mild weather we had last week, we were able to get some of the rougher units out of the way so we didn’t have to do them in the 90 degree heat. It has been fun doing these stocking surveys, they were one of my favorite things to do last summer because of how peaceful it can be working on your own, along with experiencing the terrific views.

 

— Marshall Brattain

Hello everyone!

My name is Marshall and I am a returning summer intern here at Starker Forests.

Last summer, was a great experience with an awesome crew. I learned more than I could have hoped and I know this summer will build my knowledge even more as I look forward to these next few months with another great summer crew.

A little bit about me, I am going into my fourth year as a student at Oregon State where I am studying forest management. I have lived in Philomath, Oregon, my whole life, so I am ecstatic to be able to work for a company I have known since I was a kid.

The first day of work consisted of Stephen taking us to the Dan Farmer tree farm. There, we went through some chainsaw training with some cut logs on the ground. We then broke out the pole chainsaws, which we used to clean up some broken branches on trees that were visible to hikers. This area is a popular spot for recreation.

Later in the week, Stephen and Reese showed us the ins and outs of the Starker fire trucks (one of which I got to drive!). We learned about where all the hoses, attachments, and other equipment are stored as well as how to use the water pumps.

On Friday of the first week, we had our CPR and first-aid training. The second week, the four of us interns were off to fire school, hosted by ODF at the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. Robert (another intern) and I had each taken the level 1 classes last summer, so he and I were in the level 2 classes this year. We learned about the responsibilities of a wildland firefighter, safety protocols while on the job, decision making, fire investigation, and we ended with a leadership class that involved some leadership games to conclude the courses on Friday afternoon. It was a great experience meeting some of the ODF personnel and learning about some of the things involved with wildland firefighting.

I am excited about week three, which will bring our introduction to stocking surveys for the summer!

Hey y’al!

Today marks my last day as an intern at Starker. What a summer it has been.

I have learned so much from every project we have worked on.

This has been my first opportunity to gain an understanding of forestry beyond the textbooks, and I have to say that I love it. The list of projects we have accomplished is long! Starting with fire school/training, the stocking surveys, and brushing roads, we moved to timber cruising, selecting and painting trees for commercial thinning, spraying clearcuts with herbicides, and laying out a road. It has been a challenge and a learning experience to work at Starker this year.

My favorite memory is fire school and training. Getting to learn about fighting fire, fire training, and fire equipment was fascinating. I enjoyed networking with ODF personnel and other trainees there and getting to hear their wildfire fire stories. I also enjoyed running pumps and driving the fire engines.

The biggest challenge I had this year was selecting/painting trees for commercial thinning. It has been our last couple projects to walk all over two units and select trees to thin out.

In these thinnings, you have a bunch of goals in mind; reducing trees per acre for remaining trees to have space to grow, removing small and defective trees, but also keeping hood spacing without making clumps of remaining trees. This is physically difficult because you have to walk every bit of a stand and look from the base to the top of the tree to locate defects. You also must constantly visualize the gaps that will be created from trees you choose to remove. The pressure is also on because our choices on which trees to remove will determine what the stands will look like for the remainder of their life and impact the future value of the stand when it comes time to harvest.

Another key thing I enjoyed this year was getting to see so much land and really deepening my connection to the woods. Those days alone or with a partner walking through the woods, hearing it come alive with critters are days I will never forget. And I found some nice hunting spots!

After wrapping up this summer at starker, I head back to OSU to finish my final year in the Forest Engineering program. I feel so much more competent for my future with all I have learned this summer, and I am excited to see where my professional life takes me!

I want to say thank you to everyone at Starker Forests. I had an amazing summer that flew by. I enjoyed working for all the foresters and learning from all they have taught me. I really felt welcomed by the whole company and got treated like one of their own.

Thank you all!

– Griffin Puls

 

Working as an intern here at Starker for the last 7 months has taught me quite a lot, both about myself and what it’s like to work in the world of forestry. I feel incredibly grateful for the hard work and dedication from Lys, Fred and everyone else at Starker who gave their time and knowledge to teach us all what they know.

Because my experience here started a earlier than the rest of the interns, I got to learn a few more things. This ranged from finding my way around the many, many acres of Starker’s forests, to the importance of simple observation, to understanding what it’s like to work alone for many hours and many days. When I first began working at Starker, my job was to go to all of the stands that were between 1-5 years old and observe whether or not there was girdling damage to the young trees from mice. This project took me nearly a month and a half, but I got to visit almost every tree farm and see just how important topography (amongst other things) is to the successful growth of trees. Needless to say, after a month and a half of doing damage surveys every day, I got quite good at finding mouse damage on young trees.

Shortly after I finished this project, I was moved to completing our 10-year-old stand surveys. This was one of the more challenging projects for me. Not because of difficulty in the actual surveying and data collection, but instead in learning how to navigate such densely packed stands. See, 10- year-old stands are often right when the crown is closing, so it is rare to see more than a few trees in front of you from all of the branches blocking the view. Many of these stands also have large patches of blackberry that are not always avoidable to get to the other side. Working alone this can be especially frustrating, but I got through it! And so part of me is happy I completed this project, because I feel I proved something to myself by doing so.

Then came the post-thinned cruises! Probably one of my favorite parts of this summer. After Lys showed me the ropes on cruising older trees, I got to cruise all by myself. This also came with many beautiful, forested views, and many steep slopes. I even got to go on a few prospect purchases with Fred and Lys to help them collect data on potential new ownerships.

After a brief side project of tree marking for an old progeny site, I did a few more post-thinned cruises before the rest of the interns showed up. That’s when the real internship started.

In the first week, we were taken on a tour around Starker’s land to see all of the different stages of management in forestry, from site prep for planting, all the way to final harvest. After that we got some training in power tools and saw usage, which we immediately used for brushing forest roads that very much needed it.

Then fire school started! We learned all about wildland firefighting, chain of command, topography and weather importance, and the nitty gritty of actually digging a fire line. I’m thankful to be fire trained and even happier that I have not had to use it due to any Starker fires.

After fire training, we all learned about stocking surveys and how to do them. We also learned about their importance and why we spend so much time and energy to make sure the young trees do well in the first 5 years.

Then came cruising lessons for the rest of the crew. We cruised everything from 20-year stands, to 30, 40, and even some harvestable aged stands!

Travis trained us all on backpack spraying herbicide and the importance of site prep and maintenance on young stands.

To finish off the summer, we’ve been marking stands to be thinned, and are actively making decisions about the future of the very stands we are working in. Many interns have already left, and now it is just myself and one other for this last week.

Again, I’m very thankful to the Starker crew for giving us all the opportunity to really see what it’s like to work in forestry. I’m excited about the new experience they have given me, and I can’t wait to take it further into my career. Thank you!

 

– Nic Haye

 

 

As my second summer of working for Starker Forests as an intern has come to an end, I am once again grateful for how great the summer has been.

After learning much hands-on forestry knowledge used in the field last summer, it was great to come back and expand on it this year.

As someone who didn’t come from a forestry family, I could not have asked for a better way to learn everything I’ll need to use in my future within forestry.

One of the best things about working as an intern for Starker has been the amount of time and effort all the foresters put into training the interns and the fact that they value the data we provide for them in return.

We were told from the start of the summer that the data we collect is directly used for management decision and it’s very cool knowing that we’ve all had a small impact on Starker Forest lands. Being able to see firsthand how a smaller company like Starker manages land has been very interesting to me, and I’ve enjoyed seeing all the ways management decisions revolve around every aspect of maintaining healthy forests.

If you are somebody reading this who is looking for an internship in the future, or know someone else who is, I highly recommend pursuing an internship with Starker Forests as they will put in the time and effort to train you properly and show you a broad range of the jobs that foresters do.

As for where I go from here, I am about to start my final year in the Oregon State Forest Engineering program. I am very excited to graduate next year knowing that my time at school and two summers working for Starker have prepared me well for my future endeavors.

I’d like to give one final thank you to everyone at Starker Forests for all the teaching and advice these last few summers and I cannot wait to use it all in the future.
– Andrew Prom

This week, Natalie, Marshal and I continued with our surveys of some 20-year-old stands. We spent Monday and Tuesday over by Norton Hill. Even though there were some steep slopes, we got to see some beautiful sights of the surrounding forests. The sun shining through the fog on Tuesday morning was a sight to behold.

On Wednesday, Fred and Lys gave us a fun new project to start. It involves going into a (nearly) 40-year-old stand in our Alexander Schoolhouse Tree Farm that has not yet been thinned and teaching us how to best choose and mark trees to be thinned in the upcoming weeks. They said that this will be the only thin they do in this stand until the final harvest in about 30 years. After we go in and mark everything deemed necessary, they’re going to have us go back and cruise the same stand to see if we met our goal in tree density after the thin. I know myself and the rest of the interns are excited to be getting more hands-on experience with real silviculture decision making. We get to choose which trees will stay, and which will grow another 3 decades, how cool is that?

We’ll probably finish marking the trees to be thinned Friday, and will hopefully go back in to cruise on Tuesday after a restful Labor Day weekend. Can’t wait!

– Nic Haye