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As a kid living in Madison, Wisconsin, I was naturally a Green Bay Packers fan. During neighborhood football games, I dreamed of someday replacing Bart Starr as the Packers quarterback, but that was a short-lived dream.
I wanted to play football. “You’re too scrawny,” said Coach Scents, the junior high coach. “You should go out for track.”
“You’re too small,” said coach Clement in high school. “You should try wrestling. You’d do well in the light weights.” Admittedly, I was small, but light weights? I lost interest in football, redirecting my enthusiasm to motorcycles, a passion still with me today.
In 1983, I rode my motorcycle to Colorado with my dog Harry. We were camping near the Continental Divide, on the Guanella Pass, outside Georgetown. I carried a tent with me but preferred sleeping in the open air; the stars in the mountains are spectacular! Campers in the Rockies had to park a minimum distance from the road, so I rode my bike a little into the open area and camped on the ground next to my bike. Even summer nights are cold in the mountains; having the right camping gear was necessary.
I had a zero-degree sleeping bag and
Acclimation (Just the Other Day cont’d on pg 4)
Timber Improvement for Wildlife
If a person has timber ground, it is important to decide what one wants to accomplish with that property. It can be managed for recreation, lumber production, or wildlife among other uses. Though I own my timber property primarily for wildlife and specifically for deer and turkey, a good management program will improve the area for many uses. Managing a timber stand is a time consuming and laborious process, but the end result is well worth the time and effort expended on the process.
I have the advantage of a few people with a lot of interest in improvement as well as the energy required to accomplish the goals. Damon and Pat both have the desire required. They both have chain saws and burn wood as their primary heat source.
Rather than working here and there around the farm taking out undesirable trees and clearing small patches of brush as they went, they decided to concentrate on
a patch of woods of about forty acres surrounded by open pasture and hay ground. During the summer, while brush was growing, I sprayed multiflora rose bushes and buck brush with a herbicide that was specific to woody brush. This killed back the thorny invasive plants.
The next step was to go in and cut junk trees for firewood. Hedge, also known as Osage orange, is desirable for firewood and fence posts. It spreads out, shading the surrounding areas, preventing more appropriate trees, such as oaks, from growing. It has little wildlife benefit. Locust trees and hickory make good firewood. Elm and willow trees, in my opinion, have no value. Damon and Pat spent their spare time in the fall and early winter stockpiling large amounts of firewood from the hedge, hickory, and a few dead oak trees. The willow and elm trees that got in the way were dropped and left for wildlife cover.
The next step, for me, was the scariest part. To burn a timber seemed dangerous and counter intuitive. After having seen a controlled burn through a timber and doing some research on the results, I agreed to let them go ahead. After a snow and on a day with no wind, the two started. My biggest concern was being able to control the fire and not burning down a large part of the county. Manned with a drip torch and a leaf blower, they started the
back burn. A drip torch is a great way to start a fire, and the leaf blower will put it out by blowing fuel away from the area to not be burned. The entire area had a ring burned around it to limit the spread. When the fire burned into the timber there was no raging inferno. The leaves, dead branches, and dead brush burned at a nice steady pace. Occasionally, a dead elm tree would fall, or downed oak log would catch fire, but for the most part, there was no drama such as I was expecting. It took all day for the fire to burn to the center of the forty acres and took about a week and a half for the last of the smoldering logs to burn out. I was impressed with the looks of the end result. Grass is already growing in areas that have not seen grass for years because of being shaded by the canopy and smothered with leaves.
Deer and turkey also seem to appreciate the improvement. They have been eating acorns that were previously inaccessible. I am anxious to see the area later this spring as new oak trees sprout and the mature oak, hickory, and walnut trees begin to thrive due to less competition.
Without the dedication and hard work from Damon and Pat, this much would not have been accomplished in one year. Fortunately, they have the same interest as I do on timber improvement but also the energy to follow through.
(Just the Other Day cont’d from pg 1) a mat and blanket for my dog. I unrolled my bag and laid out Harry’s bedding. The wind was calm, so I hung my jacket on the mirror, then took off my shoes and slid them under my motorcycle. I crawled into my sleeping bag, and Harry laid on his mat. I covered him with his blanket, then slid down into my sleeping bag and pulled the drawstring until there was about a twoinch opening left for air. With Harry curled up next to me, we both stayed warm.
Harry kept pushing closer and closer until, eventually, he was on top of me. By daybreak, I was having a hard time breathing with his weight on my chest. “Harry, what are you doing? Get off me,” I complained while trying to nudge him to one side or the other, but Harry wasn’t budging. I loosened the drawstring and pushed open the top of my sleeping bag; that’s when the snow fell on my face. “This isn’t good,” I told my trusty canine.
There I was: at an elevation of almost twelve thousand feet, in the mountains, on a motorcycle with a dog, and five inches of fresh snow on the ground. “We’re in a predicament here, son,” I reported. It wasn’t very cold, but it would be challenging to get down the mountainside in the snow.
I shook the snow from my sleeping bag, Harry’s mat, and blanket and stuffed them into a saddlebag on my bike. With the mild temperature, the snow was already melting, and the outside of my coat on the mirror was I put on an extra flannel shirt, then my coat. I buckled my helmet chin strap, then pulled my gloves from my coat pocket. Fortunately, my gloves stayed dry inside my pockets. “Get on, Harry,” I said, and he jumped into the backseat. “Here we go,” I said.
The back tire spun slightly in the snow, but we got back to the road without much trouble. “It’s all downhill from here,” I joked with my dog, but Harry wasn’t laughing.
I kept the pace nice and slow as we started down the mountain. Even though I tried to go slow, the heavy bike picked up speed. It was kind of scary, but what was really frightening was the first hairpin turn ahead of me.
The bike was still gaining speed. If I applied more pressure to the brakes, the wheels locked up, and the bike continued to cut through the snow like a razor. I was probably only going fifteen or twenty miles per hour, but I had no control of the bike. As I approached the turn, it felt like I was going at least a hundred. I reached behind me and pushed Harry off the motorcycle.
“By God, if I’m going over the mountain’s edge, he doesn’t need to go with
me,” I said.
When I pushed Harry, my movement caused the bike to wobble and fishtail.
The back wheel locked, and I went down on my side. I envisioned myself going over the edge.
When I came to a rest, I lay there for a moment, confused and unsure if I had gone over the edge.
Harry ran up next to me.
“What just happened,” I asked as I got up. I looked at my bike lying on its side with a berm of snow in front of it. “It’s like I wiped out in slow motion,” I answered myself.
“The motorcycle pushed snow like a plow until the bike stopped. That was a pretty neat trick,” I said as I looked to heaven. I still had several more hairpin turns to negotiate.
I got on my knees and dug the snow out from under the bike with my hands, and then stood the motorcycle upright.
“Let’s go, Harry.” We climbed back on the bike and started down the hill again.
I tried to keep the pace slow, but the bike still picked up speed against my will. If I got going faster than I was comfortable or approached a hairpin turn, I would call out, “Harry, get off,” and he would jump off the bike without me pushing him. Then, I would turn the handlebars slightly while locking the rear brake and gently lay the bike down in the snow. It took a while, but we were finally out of the white stuff about halfway down the mountain. When we returned to Georgetown, I was grateful that the roads were dry and the sun was shining.
The roads were dry, but I was wet from being on my
knees while digging the snow with my hands and laying on my side when putting the bike down; and when you’re wet, you’re cold. Harry and I rode to the gas station, and I used their men’s room to change into dry clothes.
After changing clothes, the cashier grumbled something about the bathrooms being for customers only, so I bought a large cup of coffee and a sandwich. I took Harry’s food and water bowls outside to the motorcycle, and we sat on the curb to eat breakfast. Although we still had a couple more days, after the morning’s ordeal, Harry and I decided to head toward home.
Driving east on I-70, I turned the radio to News Radio 85, KOA. It was mid-morning Sunday, and all the talk on the radio was about the Denver Broncos. All the scuttlebutt was about some new snot-nosed Stanford University quarterback drafted by the Baltimore Colts but refused to play there. The quarterback wanted to be traded to a West Coast division team, and if Baltimore didn’t trade him, he would accept the option of playing baseball for the New York Yankees. “And so today rookie quarterback, John Elway, will make his debut before Broncos fans in this first preseason game here at home in Mile High Stadium,” the announcer reported. I had never been to a professional football game and thought it might be fun.
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