Maine Forest Ecosystem Workshop Jennifer Dudley
July 21, 2009

ENTS,

First of all, at the end of the last class in this workshop at the
Eagle Hill Institute, the teacher thanked everyone for their various
contributions and when he got to me, the first thing he mentioned was
my ENTHUSIASM! I thought that was pretty funny since it's been
mentioned that that's my main contribution here too.

I learned a lot in this workshop despite my early irritation and
impatience. Just not what I expected or thought I wanted. The teacher,
Norman Richards, was excellent and a really interesting guy. He was a
Professor of Forestry at SUNY Syracuse. He has 100 acres of coastal
forest here in Maine and a tree farm in the Catskills. On his Maine
property he lets most of his forest alone and has small places where
he'll do some silviculture. He's done a particularly nice job with a
stand of white pines near a public road. He's retired and does forest
evaluations for land trusts among other things.  He believes soils
tell the past and can help predict the future of a forest. Despite
myself, I find it pretty amazing the variety of soil profiles that can
be found within a short distance. And they even have the same species
growing on them.  The soils are like puzzles to figure out. What
disturbances have occurred? Farming, fire, logging, grazing, plowing,
erosion, etc.

I learned some general concepts about reading the topography; age of
the stand, species composition and behavior, drainage, slopes,
hummocks and hollows...

He did know some geology, and I was really excited when he pointed out
some gabbro. On that site, there were a lot of white cedars growing
and he speculated that maybe the pH of the gabbro might have something
to do with it. That's pretty interesting. Also, by looking at the
soils, I could see what they would be as sedimentary rocks. Shales and
sandstone and slate for the most part. He talked about glacial till -
which is a significant sediment layer in some places. I got to take a
core of a red pine from a red pine 'farm'. Not so old that I couldn't
count it - 35 years in rings when taken at breast height and then I
guess some years have to be added to account for growth below that
height? I  asked that question and still didn't understand, so I'll
have to figure that out.

The benefit of doing this in Maine is that there are so much fewer
species. And, although the land has been logged and farmed, the
integrity of the trees and soils hasn't been radically compromised.
And the fact that the trees grow back in so quickly gave me some
positive perspectives on sustainable logging.

In this part of Maine there are practically no "immigrant" species
(this is the term Norm used which I like - it takes out a lot of
bias.). There is a serious problem with the Beeches being sick, but
hemlocks grow healthily a bit inland.

I got to eat all kinds of things; blueberries, oxalis, strawberries,
mountain mint, and I forget what else.

Multi-media to come.....

So besides that one horrific hour learning about that prism and some
frustration about the lack of animal discussion, it was a very good
experience. Not too anxious to go digging up soils in NYC though.

Norm would roll his eyes a little because I anthropomorphize
everything, so I've now decided I need to 'dendropomorphize'
everything. All the baby birds are seedlings and saplings depending on
their ages; clothing is now called bark, arms are branches, etc.

Jenny

1. Cedar Swamp

2. Seashore preserve for birdies (particularly to help migrating terns)

Jenny

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The red spruce canopy

The top of Pigeon Hill

I have some video footage.....maybe I'll see if I can attach that later.

Jenny

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Continued at:

http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/13d69f3c86567fc7?hl=en