When I was nineteen years old, I planted some black walnut trees at the home where I grew up.  They were mail-order from Miller Nurseries in Canandaigua, NY. Each sapling was only about eighteen inches tall and the diameter of a pencil.  They had no branches but were just sticks with some roots. I planted them because of my growing interest in wood, and I especially respected black walnut.  I never imagined I would harvest them for lumber.  They were simply planted as a gift to someone in the future.

During the following ten years, I attended SUNY Oswego and married my high school sweetheart, Sarah.  We lived for a while in Mexico, NY, then Glens Falls. Finally, we moved back to Clinton, where we built a home on part of my parent’s property. This lot is where several of the walnut trees were growing.

Saving Lumber After A Lightning Strike

Jump forward another thirty-four years.  Almost two years ago, lightning struck one of the largest walnut trees.  It opened a tear in the bark nearly the height of the tree. This opening quickly grew larger and was an open door for insects and rot into the heart of the tree.  If I were to save the beautiful lumber that had grown for the past forty-four years, the tree would have to come down.

The Health of the Forest

I spent a lot of my childhood years in the woods on the property.  Back then, it was a young forest, and the branches of the red pines grew right down to ground level. All the trees were healthy and thriving.  They all grew and competed until overcrowding had taken its toll. Today, the woods look much different.  Only the very tops of the pines are green with needles.  A large portion of them have lost out to competition for sunlight and stand as bare trunks until nature takes them down.  The same is true with the cherries and maples.  The cedars which were plentiful fifty years ago, have been mostly lost to competition.

Sustainable Harvesting

While I planned to have the lightning-struck walnut tree cut, I decided to harvest some of the other walnut trees I had planted. Over the years, squirrels have buried the nuts from the trees, helping to plant many more of them. Dozens of young walnut trees can be spotted up to a couple hundred yards from their parents.  I will leave some mature walnuts standing to act as seed-trees so the squirrels can keep doing their good work.

I scouted the woods and tagged other trees.  Most of them, although quite stressed, would likely make good lumber. Some had few live branches left in their crown.  Others had patches where the bark was coming off the trunk. One ash had recently died, most likely due to a disease caused by the invasive Emerald Ash Borer.   While harvesting these trees for lumber, we would open the canopy to sunlight, enabling the remaining trees to thrive again.

The trees that have already died off will be left standing as habitat for insects and the many birds that feed on them.  Small limbs that will not be used will be left in concentrated piles as a habitat for animals like rabbits and mice.  Ultimately, these benefit higher-ups in the food chain, such as hawks and foxes.  Likewise, the remaining stumps will benefit insects, mice, and snakes. 

Energy Savings

My workshop is heated with a wood stove.  The limbs from the harvested trees will be my firewood source for the next three or four years.

After being felled, the logs need to be trucked only five miles to a sawmill.  After being sawn, they will be trucked back to my place for the drying process.  The minimal transportation involved helps make this project as environmentally friendly as possible.

Supporting Local Businesses

I’m happy to have local people working with me on this project. Travis Barrett, the logger; Jon Loughlin, the log trucker; and the Amish sawmill owner are all hard-working small businessmen who live just a few miles from me.  Besides being skilled at what they do, they are awesome people.

The Trees Live On

After it is dried, the lumber will be used to create art and furniture in my workshop. I like the idea that by doing this, the trees will live on for many more years.

Harvesting trees is like harvesting many of the other resources we use.  Their time frame is longer, but remembering back to when I planted the walnuts, it really is just a blink.

Beautiful art for life well lived,

Moe