Workshop: Protecting Your Home and Property from Wildland Fire - Cashmere

Learn how to reduce the risk of wildfire damage to your property and home by maintaining healthy forests. I'll give a landowner's perspective on the grant programs we've participated in.

Horse Logger West Gustafson Skids the Old-Fashioned Way

A bit of living history was on display at Bridle Trails State Park in Bellevue, where a volunteer horse logger is helping to protect Seattle's electricity supply.

Tax Tips for Forest Land Owners 2013

While there's still time in the year to make tax-related decisions about your forest land, get these timber tax tips from USDA.

"Summer of Fire" video

The lessons learned from the summer of 1988 when fires burned nearly one third of Yellowstone National Park continue to shape the way we fight wildfires raging across the West today.

Wildlife slash pile construction for NRCS EQIP program

We built a second wildlife pile to NRCS specs this weekend. Here are some photos of the process.

Viewing Chelan County land from the air using ARC GIS and Google Earth

There are free ways to display a bird's-eye view of your forest, if you're willing to put the time into it.

This is the Ips Pine Engraver Beetle

This is one reason we're thinning our stand. Pine beetles kill trees in overstocked forests where trees are stressed by lack of water or nutrients. Drought and warmer winters, two symptoms of global warming, aggravate the bug problem because trees are less able to defend themselves. Dead trees are a fire risk.

Birch Burgers, Anyone?

"Getting your fiber" is taking on a whole new meaning. Scientists have found a way to turn cellulose into starch, the most common carbohydrate in the human diet.

Spring Cleaning (Slash Disposal)

Each season starts with burning off last season's slash. This was an easy year.

Marbled Murrelet Habitat Protections Continue

Marbled murrelets and their old-growth forest nesting habitat in the Pacific Northwest remain protected, thanks to a successful court challenge by the Center for Biological Diversity.

Birders, Can you identify these PNW bird nests?

This week we inspected and cleaned the bird boxes we installed in late 2011. We found three distinct types of nests. Do you know what birds built them? Use the comment section to help us identify them.

Cougar

One night this winter the wildlife camera's night vision caught something besides another deer.

New wildlife trail camera first photos

We bought a motion-activated game camera and positioned it where we know the animals congregate when we're gone. These are a couple of the first shots we got from it. In two weeks we had over 550 photos.