It definitely wasn’t spring the other day but there was some snow melt which made walking to check browse levels and maybe even working in the woods possible. Field south slopes had some open ground but in the woods snow was still at about a foot high and slow going. As stated our hunting observations and fall camera survey pointed to an outrageously high deer population. With it being just a few short years after pretty much an entire generation of deer was winter killed we were slightly unsure of our survey conclusions. Within a few minutes in the woods though it was obvious that the population was indeed as high as the camera survey had indicated. A field of five to six ft. tall red pine had been heavily browsed, junipers were eaten to the ground, red cedar was eaten to five feet high, sumac bark eating had already started and even spruce was heavily browsed. The red pines below only three weeks before were green all the way down to the ground.
Only one button buck was found dead--probably had gotten himself hurt during the rut by one of the yearlings. The button bucks were very active in chasing/following all the action.
Thousands of poplar sprouts were eaten but still thousands remained. Red Osier dogwood and willow regrowth were about 50% browsed which would be excellent in April but very heavy for now. Easy to reach blackberry was heavily browsed but just slightly out of the way still had lots of browsing left. Service berry and apple were hit hard but still had some browse left also. As normal, Multi-flora Rose and Prickly Ash looked untouched, while the nasty old buckthorn had some browse action, the deer were working on the remaining berries. It sounds bleak but the amount of nice browse left was huge as compared to before we had logged. Ie; 50% left of nothing equals nothing but 50% of trillions of plants is real money so to speak. The thirty plus acres of rye and winter wheat were showing very tiny green shoots on the wind swept knolls of the fields and the deer had recently been working them over. And this pic taken within the last few days of a very young doe with last years fawns shows them to be in OK condition.
Still though it looked like it was time to hit the old browse bank so out came the chainsaw. Just over forty trees were marked for cutting on one day and the cutting was planned for the next. I like to be deliberate in planning out which trees to cut and in which order. The planning reduces some of the risks involved. Once the cut was marked and planned out a handful of trees were hinged until they dropped to jump start "new" browse availability.
The rest were cut halfway thru and left standing. An ice storm was forecast for the coming evening and the added weight at the right time would likely "gently" lower the half cut poplars to the ground. At least that's the plan.
In the pic. above you can see the cuts made on the poplars marked with tape. Cutting halfway thru, and accounting for the lean allows cutting dozens of trees without getting the blade/bar pinched sometimes. Getting the bar pinched is a big deal as the tractor and side by side are put away for the winter and working conditions are very frigid. When a bar is pinched the saw has to be removed from the stuck bar and the bar replaced with a spare and did I mention it is brutal weather for that kind of activity. Otherwise a second saw needs to be carried in to cut the tree in a second place. As you can see the cuts are not exactly perfectly flat--they are meant to be flat but I'm a little rusty this time of year. So home I went with a total of 39 trees hinge cut with just one small tank of fuel. A couple of marked trees were not cut as marked because other trees already cut would have made me too vulnerable to them if they fell with me under them. Not a big deal they can be cut after all trees have fallen if need be. The freezing rain started falling just as I left the woods. The next day I returned to see how the cut went.
Note; I am not recommending that others do it this way but am simply sharing how it is done here.
