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

Last Friday and this Monday, the crew split up. Andrew and I went off to work for Travis on one of his projects. We had the task to buffer water in recently harvested clearcuts.

We looked over hill shade maps of units and found draws where natural springs and flowing water could be moving through the forests. We hiked through nine units and marked on our maps where the moving and standing water were at.

This is important to do so that when it comes time to spray the unit with a helicopter, the herbicides don’t end up in the water moving down to creeks and streams. This is a part of site prepping units before replanting it with seedlings.

One of the units we went to was SUPER steep and gets its name, Un-Lucki Ice, because trees were damaged in an ice storm and had to be harvested.

Going down means eventually hiking back up, but it was a lot of fun getting to see another side of forestry.

 

 

– Griffin Puls

The berries are bountiful this year!

We got to start off the week doing some more 20 year cruises, thankfully in some cooler weather.

Berry season is right now, and all of us interns took advantage during our lunch break on Monday to do some blackberry foraging. They were delicious!

On Tuesday, we came in bright and early at 6 a.m. to help Tyler load up some pipes and head all the way over to Florence for a long day of pre-harvest cruising. I think it was some of the biggest trees I have seen, with one having a diameter (at breast height) of 74 inches. 74 inches!

The crew worked hard and got the whole cruise done that day, getting us all home around 6 p.m. Though I think the 12 hour day paid off and no one minds getting overtime.

Wednesday Travis took us out to teach us how to spray herbicide in our younger stands. We learned all of the safety procedures necessary, and were given all of the equipment needed to work safely and efficiently.

We also learned about the chemicals we were using and how they actually affect the plants we spray, and why it was important to protect the young trees while working.

We continued spraying on Thursday and though it was hard work and my shoulders ache, I’m glad I got to learn another hands-on aspect of working in forest management.

This week brought more variety to the 2021 Starker Summer Crew.

Monday, we all went out to do some very much needed brushing and road clearing with Tyler. All of us used chainsaws until 1 p.m., when our fire watch started. Because of the high fire danger, all work involving machinery has to stop early afternoon and, depending on the fire level in the area, a watch must take place for one to three hours to ensure nothing has sparked that could lead to a fie. There was more debris we could have cut up but we will probably go back to finish that up when the days get a little cooler.

On Tuesday, a couple of us (myself included) went out to finish cruising the non-GPS site we started last week.

Yesterday, we went out to work on some more 20-year-old stands where John and I found this massive femur bone. We cannot figure out what it is from.

Because of the hot weather we all went slow and made sure to stay hydrated and watch for any signs of heat stress, which I’ve gotten quite good at keeping an eye out for now.

Thursday, we began the morning with some pre-harvest cruising. Natalie and I got to cruise big timber, and John, Andrew and Griffin laid out boundaries and roads for harvest, which was a fun new thing to learn!

I’m curious to see what Starker has in store for us next week.

– Nic Haye

Last week we got lots of experience in different types and ages of timber while cruising! We started off with the 15- to 20-year-old stands that we’ve been working on, then we got a little bit of big timber in Upper Mary’s as well as in Beaver Creek.

Upper Mary’s was absolutely beautiful and is one of my favorite cruises yet.

Beaver Creek has been fun because we’re learning how to cruise without using GPS. Instead, we were given maps, pre-set routes, and a compass. Using only our pace lengths and compasses, we each navigated our way around the stand successfully to each plot. I think it’s a great exercise to learn how to cruise this way, in case batteries die or equipment is lost, so that we will always know where we are in a forest and how to get in/out if necessary.

On Wednesday, we were all surprised to be called to a potential fire situation and kicked in gear to go deal with it.

It looks like this week we’ll be learning how to do herbicide application by hand with Travis. It should be fun!

– Nic Haye

This week, Fred and Lys started us on a new project that hasn’t been done with the Starker interns before. They’ve had us going into stands that are about 20 years old to cruise and collect data so that we can compare it to the growth model created after these stands were thinned a few years ago. So far, it’s been great practice for getting heights, since stands around this age have a lot of crown cover.

It’s also been fun to see the data we collect be compiled and used to make real forest management decisions. Fred and Lys talk to us after each stand data set is compiled to get our thoughts on the stand as well, potentially helping them make the choice of what to do with each stand moving forward. It feels rewarding to see our hard work actively have an effect on Starker’s management decisions.

On Friday, we were all sent back to Soap Creek to finally finish up brushing and clearing the roads that got all clogged up from recent storms. It seems everyone is becoming more comfortable using saws in the field and working as a team has gotten much better as well.

I feel proud of us to say the least.

 

– Nic Haye

Another week of summer has passed by and once again the Starker Intern Crew was off to learning new things. This last week has focused on learning about inventory and how to cruise timber. Starker’s inventory forester, Lys, as well as Fred who has worked inventory for many years, teamed up to teach the whole crew the process.

As for a basic rundown of what timber cruising is, it is a process of taking inventory on stands of trees ranging anywhere from 10 years old all the way to harvest to gain information on how the trees are growing and the volume of lumber that is in the stands. As interns, we are tasked with taking plots throughout each stand and collecting the species, diameter at 4.5 feet, height, percentage of live crown, and percent of defect of each tree in our plots.

After this data is collected, Lys can use it in a number of different ways. If the trees are about to be harvested or thinned, the cruising data can be used to determine a volume estimate of lumber within the stand, which is directly used when contracting and finding log buyers. For younger stands, Lys is able to use a computer program and the data we collect in order to run the stand data forward into the future. By doing so, models can be used to predict the future volumes of a stand and also see what possible silvicultural treatments could do to these volume estimates.

So far as a crew, we have gotten to learn how to cruise timber at ages like 35, 20, and older stands closer to 70 or 80 years old. The fun part about timber cruising is that every stand is different and comes with its own set of unique challenges.

Stay tuned next week to hear about an exciting new project the other interns and I get to work on for Starker Forests!

• – Andrew Prom