OUR
COMMENTS - NOVEMBER, 1998
We are now settled into our home in Falmouth, Maine and were able to share Maine's beauty with a number of visitors this past summer. A few of the Indiana guests also made the drive north with us to visit First Mountain. Unfortunately, most of my time this summer has been devoted to establishing our Maine home and working on the the small woodland around it. My work at the First Mountain Forest has suffered as a result, but work is underway to remedy that next year.
I met last month with a certified forester in Whitefield, NH who is associated with the New England Forestry Foundation and also heads the foundation's Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) team. The forester has agreed to help me by reviewing, updating, and certifying my original forest management plan so that I can obtain funding under the USDA Ice Storm Stewardship Incentive Program (SIP). The SIP program will reimburse me for the majority of the cost for my plan and will also share in the cost of approved ice damage repair to the trails and forest at First Mountain. I met a wildlife biologist and a habitat & trail design/builder, also members of the EBM team, at the Coverts Project training course in September. I hope to use their services in trail design and in assessing the wildlife potential of my forest under additional SIP programs.
As mentioned in our last column, Ginger and I have been extensively involved in planning the construction of our cottage at First Mountain. Unfortunately, the cost of that project has grown so large that we are now ready to cancel, or at least delay, the building of a four season cottage there. The log landing has been cleared of the past four years growth and remains the ideal building spot, but grading a drive to get heavy equipment up to the site will be expensive. It has also been estimated that a well will likely require drilling to 600 feet, another expensive proposition.
To be able to work efficiently in the forest at First Mountain, I need a place to stay overnight so that I can work uninterrupted for days at a time. I think our best option at this point is to build a simple camp with woodstove and without running water or other facilities. I'll do the construction myself and haul materials to the site with a 4 wheel ATV and trailer. We won't build the camp on the log landing in order to keep it open for future permanent construction. I am beginning to think that a rustic, simple camp on the mountain might be more in character with its wild nature and will suit our needs just as well.
The colors in the White mountains and the Mahoosuc Range were brilliant this past fall, but are now gone and snow is beginning to fall in the high country. I plan to make a few more work trips to the forest during the late fall and will clean up some of the hanging white birch trees near the landing and also remove some of the downed timber there, in addition to scouting for a possible camp site. I will also make another exploration of the wetland below the mountain's cliffs to see if our resident moose survived the recent moose hunting season in New Hampshire. Our new neighbor, on the east side of the stream fed from those wetlands, has reported that our moose has frequently knocked down his electric fence while coming down to socialize with his draft horses. We will soon have our first opportunity to see the First Mountain Forest under winter snow and will take our snow-shoes or skis to scout for possible C-X ski trails throughout the forest.
Larry
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