From Uncle Gerry

Captain’s Log, Aug 11, 2010

The month of July showed a lot of progress on the projects at the ranch with the help of Patrick, Ben and Gerry.

Brush Piling:
We are about half way through the Swan Eco System Grant brush piling job on section 4 shown on the map of the Forest Stewardship Program, the map drawn up by Gerry and distributed at the board meeting. We are using a TD 8 dozer with a brush blade for the piling and skidding. Pat and Ben have been cutting anything that will make good fire wood and salvaging post and pole materials from dead lodge pole trees as we do the clean up. The north end of section 4 is completed and piled. The forester from the Swan Forest came by at our request and inspected the work and gave us some suggestions. Alan gave us some ideas to help make the work go faster and showed us how to leave some cover for the wild life and grouse. He felt we were doing a good job with it and encouraged us to keep up the good work. Ben came for a week to work on the project and put in a lot of sweat in skidding out poles and cutting more fire wood. We now have what we call Ben’s Mountain of fire wood. We hope to get some pictures off to Uncle Fred to be posted for your viewing. The difference in the way this area looks is incredible.

We hope to find a way to get the ranch dozer back up and running so we can have that to push the piles this fall when we do the burning. We must have the piles burned to get paid for the project. I encourage everyone to pay their dues to help get the funds to pay for the Dozer parts. The new front idlers cost 1,400 for the pair. Some funds to help with putting the master pin’s back in the tracks.

Pasture Fence:
I was able to get all the posts for the pasture fence pounded and all the braces for the corners are done. I was really glad to get that done. Tim came up and helped me for an afternoon and we pounded most of the posts all the way behind the cabins to the barn, spaced every eight feet. This section for the fence will be a rail fence and should look outstanding as well as being a strong functional part of the pasture. I was able to complete the posts on the week end and I think we ended up pounding in 28 posts that weekend. With Tim’s help they came out nice and straight. What is left to complete this project is stringing the high tensile electric wire and building the gates.

Haying:
First, the good news here is that the upper meadow is done and the hay was better than what we have seen in many years. The meadow is still green from all the moisture this spring and early summer. I used my old Farmall Tractor to do the work and had some issues with the coil. Now it is repaired with salvaged parts from a 1971 Datsun.

The bailer required and new chain to run the feeder forks and about 2 days work to make the required repairs (along with much profanity).

Stream and Pond:
I met with Mike Palladini , Swan Ecosystem Center and Greg Neudecker, USFWS Partners for Fish and Wild Life Program State Assistant Director. The meeting was on site at the Clark Ranch, on August 3rd. We agreed to proceed with the restoration project of the stream, with a possibility of an off stream pond.

They will be looking at the plan before we make any final agreement; however, I do think this will work out without any issues for the ranch. Next is the design of the project which we all will look at before the final go ahead. The River Design Group from White Fish, MT will be doing the engineering. I am sending a letter to be posted on the blog site for everyone to review on the meeting. This is good stuff for us and the project is funded at the tune of around 150,000.

If anyone has questions about the project or any of the other projects at the Ranch, please call me. I would love to hear from you and share ideas.

Uncle Gerry