Owners: Russell and Forrest Freeman and Katie Campbell-Nelson

Presenters: Forester Ron Frisbee and the landowners

84 wooded acres. The property was purchased by Katie and Russell in 2018 and they began living there full time in 2019 when they also began forest management.

To focus their efforts, they secured a forest management plan written by Ron Frisbee, paid for by USDA-EQIP funds. Contracts for conservation practices (brush management and timber stand improvement) will begin when EQIP funds become available again.

From their forest management plan:

“Our vision is to develop a climate resilient forest with improved biodiversity and wildlife habitat that can be a place for education of future generations.

This vision will be achieved through several goals and objectives:

1. Coax a multiage, biodiverse forest out of the trees, including flora that has been present for over 2 centuries.

2. Utilize bi-products of forest stewardship- find multiple purposes for the forestry we conduct.

3. Develop drought resilience with respect to water quantity and quality and support downstream ecosystem health.”

Things to see: a portable sawmill operation.  We recover lumber from undesirable trees as part of our timber stand improvement and mill them on-site. Thus, small scale forest openings are created throughout the property while putting low quality timber to use.

More to see…  a 4-story barn re-habilitation project utilizing timber from the woods,  a several hundred log shiitake mushroom operation, maple sugar-bush conversion, hemlock grove

If conditions permit, we will get a a peek at a blackgum bog.

Please RSVP with Carol at happyinthehollow@gmail.com by November 6th.