Logging question

O

Oxygen

One Hissy Kitty
Registered Senior Member
We purchased some land and went back to spend some quality time with it. The map we have of the place isn't very good, so we're getting better maps from the county. Meanwhile, we went out and wandered the forest.

We know there's been some logging, but they're done with it now and the trees that are left are ours, birch, douglas fir, spruce, etc. As we were walking, we saw various colored plastic ribbons tied around some trees. They were in pink, orange and blue, and din't seem to have any rhyme or reason to their placement. Some were near clearings, others were deep in heavily wooded areas, some were on younger trees, others were on older trees, and some were up near the road which led my husband to think they might have been border indicators, but the ones deeper in dispelled that notion.

Can anyone tell me what the ribbons are all about? We're sure it has something to do with the logging, but what?
 
Condition of the trees from an Arborist's perspective?
 
Ribbons are usually used to mark the boundaries of a sale of timber land.
 
spidergoat said:
I always rip those off when I go hiking. And cut any barbed wire.
Click to expand...

jerk. For all you know those ribbons specify diseased trees. Those are to be cut before it spreads. And when you cut barbed wire, you let livestock get out, cutting into the finances of ranches. Do you also hammer nails into trees so loggers hit them with their chainsaws? How about railroad spikes so the logger gets hurt as well?

Why on earth would you do it??
 
Perhaps the ribbons marked which trees were to be spared from being cut down. The colors suggest that some were to small to cut others were in the wrong area to cut and even others were not the variety that were wanted by the logers thereby saving many trees from destruction and waste. Before loggers would just raze the area where any trees were located and didn't use some of the chopped trees for those reasons. That is why, perhaps, they use this methold now.
 
People use ribbons to mark scientific sampling sites, routes into and out of an area, trees of interest (owl nests?), orienteering landmarks, trap locations, logging judgments, best places to hide a fire so the cops don't bust your kegger, etc.

Lots of these people don't clean up after themselves.
 
Where I go hiking, any barbed wire is vestigal from the time the forests were fields for grazing. These days all it does it impede the movement of wildlife.
 
Without knowing what area you are in heres a couple links. It may be a fire suppression effort underway on your property. Heres one project prospectus with what their ribbon markers identify.

http://plumasfiresafe.org/Projects/Greenhorn_Prospectus 05-21-07.pdf

Heres another regarding the planning aspect for what seems to be a major timber harvest that might help you figure out whats going on:

http://www.mcn.org/d/forestry/costs.html

My location and experiences with timber sales via other peoples experience varies greatly. Some people have been horrified by what occurs on their property with timber sales. Some have not expected the end result as a barrier row of trees was left around a yard area and the 100 acres surrounding that was felled. Others expected the end result. Some have found logging occured on their property when boundries were clearly marked and loggers went in to harvest regardless of protest by landowners.

Your area may have much tighter controls on timber harvest and you may be right that the logging is over. In this area, what you are describing is initial plotting and the major timber removal is yet to occur.

You may want to take the time to investigate what is being planned for your property or make sure the harvest has occurred and what you have left is really yours.
 
Thanks for the link, milkweed. Even if the colors themselves didn't match exactly, it gave me an idea of what they were about. The property is 21 acres of forest and meadow just outside of New Sweden, Maine. According to our contract all logging and timber interests have been released. We have full land rights, including timber, mineral, and whatever else may be within the boundaries. The road that the logging trucks used to get in ends in a very large field where we plan to build. Good clearance all the way in, so building equipment will leave as small a footprint as possible. (And the power lines are on our side of the road!) Our only concerns now are how far down the bedrock is and how deep the well will have to be dug.
 
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