So far, this week has been an exciting one!
The rest of this year’s summer interns have arrived at Starker and are settling in with the company. On Monday, everyone, except myself and Andrew (a returning intern) stayed in the shop to get their first aid and CPR certifications. Andrew and I finished cruising a thinned site I had been working on last week.
On Tuesday, we all took a tour around some of Starker’s land to see different management tactics, including broadcast versus pile burns, site prep and chemical applications, and the actual machinery that is involved in harvests. This included a harvester, forwarder and piler. We also got to watch a skyline cable harvesting system in process.
After a fun pit stop for a big lunch, we got to get up close and personal with a large culvert that goes underneath one of our roads and learned about t
heir importance in riparian management here at Starker.
Today, Tyler took us all out to a tree farm entrance in dire need of clean up and taught us all proper chainsaw safety, usage, and care, as well as teaching us the importance of being aware of potential fire danger when using mechanical equipment in the field during fire season. We also got a brief intro to chainsaw usage and firefighting situations before getting to practice and feel comfortable with the saws.
Next week, we get to go to the local ODF to start getting our fire training certifications, which I’m also very much looking forward to.