Tuesday And Saturday

Being a producer for the Oregon Woodland Co-Op has given us the opportunity to clean up our forest after our storm damage and subsequent logging. We have been using the wood that is not viable to make poles or lumber by removing the excess scrap wood left in the forest. We are cleaning up our forest by removing the wood that would dry out making fuel for a wild fire. In the beginning we anticipated this project being on a fairly small scale but we are finding that the more we clean up the woods, the more we find that can be done to make our forest healthier.

We are still leaving plenty of debris piles for those small creatures of the forest along with the rotting wood needed to promote the spores, fungus and underground creepy crawlies.

During this time of year, our forest is off limits to all machinery due to the steep terrain and non-rocked roads. We have to rely on the tree length logs that we removed after the logging process and stacked in the landings as well as the dried wood that is stacked in the barns already processed into firewood chunks. Our summer stockpile is what we are using to make the firewood bundles we are selling through the OWC to the local stores.

Since I am gearing up for my next week of training with REALOregon and know I am going to be away from the farm, I contacted our OWC liaison to say we will be off-line this coming week and will not be able to deliver a load. This information was sent out a week ago when our current inventory of ready bundles for Tuesday delivery was checked. As we delivered our truckload of bundles for the week, the weather forecasts began ramping up about the upcoming storm system that is to bring a rather nasty round of weather our way.

Since we did not have pressing work to do with the cows, we started bundling up for what would be our next delivery in two weeks. We worked in short bursts between the daily chores and small tasks not in a hurry but wanting to get a jump on our inventory. By Thursday, the forecast was becoming ominous and more widespread with official Weather Service announcements about the Coast Range, the Cascades and possible snow/ice in the Willamette Valley that includes Portland. We get quite a bit more snow that Portland and are expecting it to dump here at the farm before turning to ice. We started working longer stints and on Friday, I called the OWC guru of matching store orders with producers to announce that we could fill a second truckload and deliver before I need to set off for my next REALOregon adventure. At this time I still did not have enough bundles for a truckload but was confident that we could have enough by Sunday to do a delivery if needed.

Sure enough, less than 24 hours later, stores were calling and requesting early deliveries. Their customers in Beaverton and Portland were watching the forecasts and loading up on their supply of wood before the storm event. Our guru got a hold of us and said we could deliver another truckload. Saturday is the second delivery day of the week and we are now once again out of firewood bundles. Looks like I have my work cut out for me when I get back from my training session.

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