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11-3-2018
Quincy Grange, 78314 Rutters Rd, Clatskanie, OR 97016
5:00pm Fried chicken dinner
A short business meeting will follow dinner
Following the business meeting, Park Ranger and mushroom expert Dane
Osis will discuss mushrooms in Oregon
More details will be posted soon
This year our host is the Dahlin Family out of Warren Oregon. They were gracious enough to invite us to their 170 acres for our summer picnic.
You will literally be taking a walk in the woods. Dick Dahlin has been busy building a trail with several bridges through his property. The walk will be over 1 mile long so please do not attempt if you are not up to a long (woods) walk. On your walk you will see a young (15 to 20 year old) Douglas fir mixed hardwood stand.
Dick is a retired forester and has established growth plots that have been maintained for several years. As you progress you will come to the Dahlins picnic/campground, further you will see Sly Creek (medium fish stream with previous beaver activity) and finally you will come out on their new (several years old) road with Sly Creek stream crossing. From there a short walk or ride to our catered lunch from Sunshine pizza.
For those not going on the walk covered seating will be available (to get out of the sun or rain)
How to get there: Follow the Tree Farm tour signs off of Highway 30 at Slavens Road then follow the signs to Oester road then to
55696 View crest Place
Start
8:30 coffee and donuts
9:30 take transportation to start of trail
12 to 1 lunch.
RSVP Mark Dreyer 503-369-9592 or email mdreyer51@msn.com
The Lincoln County Chapter
OSWA Annual Dinner Meeting.
EAGLE ROOST TREE FARMJoin us for an afternoon of fun, information and dinner!
This is an opportunity for a pleasant afternoon, visiting with Neighbors and Friends along with an update on current events affecting us in the timber industry with and dining out.
Our keynote speaker will be Mr. Kevin Masterson, the Oregon DEQ lead person on testing, for pesticides, bringing us up to date on those issues.
Jim James, OSWA Executive Director will bring us up to date on how we as OSWA Members have an impact on the course of changes that affect us.
We will hear from our Own Extension Forester Valerie Grant, as well from our new County Steward forester.
Our meeting will close with the traditional raffle of donated items.
Social time 2:30 PM, 3:15 PM Speakers. Dinner @ 5PM.
The Annual Meeting will be short after dinner with Members
The Meeting provides a great opportunity to invite neighbors and friends to experience the benefits of becoming an LCOSWA member.
Please feel comfortable to bring a guest.
Time: 9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Place: The Rediscovery Forest in the Oregon Garden
Focus: Families are invited to participate in three 30-minute concurrent sessions in the Rediscovery Forest.
1. How to determine density management with Mike Cloughesy, OFRI, and Stephen Fitzgerald, OSU Extension
2. Being successful with reforestation with Glenn Ahrens, OSU Extension
3. Managing ponderosa pine with Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine
Time: 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Place: The Discovery Pavilion
Focus: Forest discovery station for young family members. Hands-on funand learning with Rikki Heath, OFRI
Families are also welcome to tour The Oregon Garden on their own or ride the tram before or after the luncheon! Admission is included in registration.
New this year! Inspector annual meeting and workshop. Inspectors that attend workshop do not have to pay for luncheon. Hosted by Tamara Cushing, OSU; Lauren Grand, OSU; and Mike and Connie Atkinson, OTFS inspection coordinators.
Time: 9:30 – 11:00 a.m.
Place: Oregon Garden Resort
Focus: We will explore the wealth of information from the national woodland owner survey and discuss approaches for engaging more family forest owners in a meaningful conversation about their woods.
Also, updates on certification requirements.
Time: 11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (lunch)
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 (awards)
Place: Oregon Garden Resort
The sessions will be followed by a brief Oregon Tree Farm System business meeting and then a lunch (pricing on back) honoring the
County Tree Farmers of the Year. The high point of the day will be
a video featuring all the County Tree Farmers of the Year and the
announcement of the Inspector of the Year and the Oregon Tree
Farmer of the Year for 2017.
Oregon Tree Farm System, Inc
Oregon Small Woodlands Association
U.S. Forest Service
Oregon Department of Forestry
Oregon Forest Resources Institute
OSU Forestry & Natural Resources Extension
Sustainable Forestry Initiative
For more information, contact Jim James at 503-588-1813 or jimjamesoswa@yahoo.com.
Download the complete OTFS Annual Meeting Flyer and Registration flyer here.
Send your completed registration, along with fees, to the address on the back.
Nine Oregon Tree Farm System (OTFS) members have been nominated for 2017 Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year. Inspectors are visiting these nominees this summer and the selection of Oregon’s 2017 Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year will be made at the OTFS Annual Meeting on Saturday, October 21st at the Oregon Garden in Silverton.
All family forest landowners are invited to participate in the meeting program and awards luncheon.
Download the complete OTFS Annual Meeting Flyer and Registration here.
The nominating chapter of the 2017 Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year will be asked to sponsor OSWA’s 2018 Annual Meeting in conjunction with the Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year woods tour.
OSWA’s Marion-Polk Chapter has just published a new newsletter! Read here to keep up to date with all the important news, events and local information for Summer/Fall 2017!
Lane County has agreed to host the 2017 OSWA Annual Meeting. They were invited to host the meeting when Lane County’s Dave and Dianne Rankin were selected 2016 Oregon Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year. This continues the tradition of coordinating OSWA’s Annual Meeting with the Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year woods tour.
The Annual Meeting Committee is working on the details of the meeting, but here are the things that have already been decided.
The meeting will be open to OSWA and non-OSWA members.
The meeting brochure and registration forms will be mailed to members and local family forest owners who are not OSWA members in April. It is not too early to be thinking about items to donate to the silent auction and to be marking your calendars and planning to attend.
This will be another great OSWA Annual Meeting.
From left to right, Jess, Nathan, & Sloan Defrees; Dean & Sharon Defrees; Lyle Defrees; Tyler Defrees with wife Max Patashnik; and Dallas & Riley Hall
Thirty years after a fire razed 500 acres of forestland at Defrees Ranch, Dean Defrees still remembers the harrowing ordeal with all five of his senses. “It was extremely smoky, it was hot, and you can feel the fire,” Defrees says. “My dad did suffer a burn on his arm as he was putting in a dozer line. When the fire starts to crown, which means it’s running through the treetops, it can be extremely impressive, with flames probably 150 feet in the air. It also makes a tremendous amount of noise. It kind of sounds like a train – just a big, rumbling noise.” Ever since then, the Defrees family has done all they can to minimize the risk of a devastating fire at their 2,000 acre tree farm in Sumpter Valley, about 25 miles from Baker City in the northeastern corner of Oregon.
Each year, the Defrees family removes smaller trees, brush and debris from about 30 of the farm’s 1,227 forested acres and maintains fire lines throughout their property. With financial support from the National Resources Conservation Service, a program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the family also installed a series of 1,400 gallon water troughs and a 2,500 gallon cistern storage tank to ensure that in this dry, wildfire prone region, water is readily available. “Those troughs also benefit the wildlife as well,” Defrees says. “The benefits are threefold: They provide water for wildlife, firefighting and livestock.”
1400 gallon water trough for fire engine tenders,
wildlife, and livestock
The family keeps their creek and stream banks well planted to prevent erosion and preserve water quality, and they built water bars on their logging roads. The diagonal channels across the sloped roads divert surface water, which would otherwise flow down the length of the road, to the sides of the road, preventing road degradation and helping to keep silt and debris out of nearby streams.
That commitment to responsible land management earned them recognition from the American Tree Farm System (ATFS), which named the Defrees family its 2016 National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year. The Defrees family and the ATFS’s regional outstanding tree farmers of the year were honored at a reception on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. on Dec. 6 that celebrated the ATFS’s 75th anniversary.
“We’re really honored and can’t believe that out of the 74,000 tree farmers across the nation, we won this award,” Dean Defrees says. “It’s really something. We’re still trying to digest that fact, and it’s been really exciting for the whole family.”
The Defrees family has owned their land since 1904, and Dean Defrees is the fourth generation of his family to call it home. His grandparents raised chickens, sheep and dairy cows, and in the 1970s, the family entered the timber business, harvesting some of the ponderosa pines that dominate the forestland.
Dean, 57, and his wife, Sharon, live on the farm with Dean’s father, Lyle, 83. Dean and his wife have three children: Nathan, a medical doctor in Boise, Idaho, who plans to move back to Baker City in 2017; Tyler, an attorney in Seattle; and Dallas, who lives in Baker City and is pursuing her master’s degree in grazeland ecology at Oregon State University.
Dean and his wife live in a house built by his grandparents, and Lyle lives in a house built by his brother. For Lyle, the thought of leaving the farm never had much appeal.
“I live about a third of a mile from where I was born,” he says. “I’ve traveled quite a bit, and I’ve never found a place I like better. My heart is here.” Dean, who earned a bachelor’s degree in animal science at Oregon State, says he feels the same way.
“When I left for college, I kept my options open, but when graduation rolled around, I felt that this is where I wanted to be” he says. “My wife, who I married right after college, loved the place right after she saw it and was willing to live here with me, so that’s what we did. The land means a great deal to all of us, and I guess that’s why we spend so much time with it. It’s been in the family for so long, and we want to keep it healthy and sustainable for the next generations.”
Timber harvesting accounts for about 40 percent of the family’s business, but due to a sluggish local market for saw logs, the family has recently focused more on its core business, raising beef cattle. The farm is home to about 500 head at any given time, half of which are female cows used for breeding. The beef cattle are born on the farm and spend 14 to 16 months there grazing the meadows, grass fields and forestland before going to market.
But Defrees Ranch is much more than a cattle farm – it’s practically a zoo. Dean says his family has identified 42 species of mammals and 133 species of birds on their land, including white tailed deer, mule deer, elk, antelope, turkey, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, Canadian geese, Sandhill cranes, ducks and woodpeckers. The family frequently hosts hunters, and birdwatchers, and Sharon, a high school biology teacher, often brings classes on field trips to the farm to walk the trails, identify animals and trees and learn about land management.
“They discuss all aspects of habitat and forestry,” Dean says. “We’re trying to get the kids a little bit familiar with what goes on out in the woods on a working tree farm. All the kids love it here so much. It’s just a fun place to go.”
The farm has its own sawmill that the family uses to produce wooden fencing, livestock corrals, scale houses, garages and machinery sheds. “Everything that you need on a ranch that you can make out of wood, we’ve done it.” Dean says.
Students touring the Defrees Ranch
Back in 1968, when a fire ravaged their property for two weeks, the family wasn’t sure how much of their land would be left. Initially, the Defrees family and their friends and neighbors battled the blaze alone while the Oregon Department of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service focused on fighting the fire on federal forestland. After several days, those two agencies were able to lend support to the family, but in the end, 500 acres were lost.
“It was pretty devastating to us,” Dean says. “It was so hot and windy that it was really difficult to control, so we put all the resources we had personally on it with our equipment and friends and neighbors. The Forest Service was tied up with other fires at the time. It was kind of a widespread forest fire summer here that year. We did everything we could. We were so busy at the time that it was hard to assess the damage as it was happening. There wasn’t a whole lot we could do, but we did save a pretty good chunk of land that didn’t burn.”
After the fire, the Defrees family got to work restoring their land, planting Douglas fir trees, ponderosa pine, western larch and white pine. Today, those trees measure about 20 feet tall.
“We planted quite a few trees, and we’ve had a lot of natural regeneration, so it’s come along pretty well,” Dean says. “But we’re not like the fast-growing forests of the South or even the coastal region of Oregon. Things grow pretty slow here because we’re in eastern Oregon. It’s dry here, and timber just grows a lot slower.”
Shortly after the fire, the Defrees family faced adversity again, as a mountain pine beetle infestation took over sections of their forest. The family harvested the affected trees and left some dead trees throughout the property to provide habitat for woodpeckers, who feed on the beetles.
“Woodpeckers will make a nest inside the tree, but the tree has to be dead and the wood soft enough for them to excavate a hole in the tree for them to nest in,” Dean says. “So, we try to leave those snag trees, or wildlife trees, placed throughout the property so that we have a good, healthy woodpecker population. One of our goals here on the tree farm is to keep the habitat diverse enough so that we can continue to support these animals.”
The Defrees family joined the ATFS in 1980 and has used it as a resource to better manage their land. The family also has mentored other landowners on the importance of forest management, has participated in state advocacy efforts and presented ATFS events.
“We use their literature a lot and try to keep to their standards,” Lyle says. “When we wrote our management plan, we tried to meet the standards of the American Forest Foundation and the America Tree Farm System. When the AFF’s evaluators were here to consider us for the award, we learned something from every one of them, and we really liked having them here so we could learn.”
OSWA’s Marion-Polk chapter has a Winter-Spring 2017 newsletter to read!
Date: November 21, 2016 Time: 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Place: World Forestry Center
Portland Sponsors:
Time: 9:00 – 11:00 a.m
Place: Cheatham Hall, World Forestry Center
Presenters:
Do you have a succession plan for your tree farm? As American Tree Farm System celebrates its
75th anniversary, it’s a good time to look ahead at the next 75 years. Good succession planning is a
way of building shared vision and passion for the land among the family. A panel of presenters will
discuss succession planning and provide insight into important discussions to have with heirs and/or
charitable planned giving entities. Bring your family for the workshop; there will be time for any
questions you might have about communication and legal aspects of succession planning.
Place: Miller Hall, World Forestry Center
The workshop will be followed by a brief Oregon Tree Farm System business meeting and then a lunch honoring the County Tree Farmers of the Year. The high point of the day will be a video featuring all the County Tree Farmers of the Year and the announcement of the Oregon Tree Farmer of the Year for 2016. The workshop is free; the luncheon is $30 per person ($15 for each additional family member after 2 full registrations).
For more information, contact Anne Hanschu at 503-357-2551 or netvetrdh@gmail.com.
