Sharing the Tree Farm with Nature's Creatures

By Marc Ahrendt

There are aspects that are understood by all within my family about our property. Some came to us early. For example, it takes a great deal of work to even just keep things maintained, let alone addressing any desired enhancements. Another would be the trade-offs between modern conveniences, like Internet access speeds, and the rural life, like the amazing quiet. Yet one aspect that took some time to fully understand/appreciate was that we do not live on our property alone.

We found bats living in the attic of our home, mice in all the outbuildings, elk amongst all the seedlings, back bear in trail camera photos, and coyotes breaking the evening silence. Early on we saw this as “man vs. nature”, but it has become “man with nature”. Wanting to be good stewards of the property has forced us to respect the overall health of the land …not just our future timber.

Instead of picking photos for this brief article from a good stash of trail camera photos, I simply walked out of the house and over to one of our older tree stands and quickly/easily took the above photos. Amazing to be able to so easily observe so much life in/on/above the ground.

Our compromise with nature so far has been to do what it takes to keep nature outside of our structures and from hampering our future timber from acquiring high market value, while letting them figure out the rest amongst the areas we do not disturb. One such area is along the creek the runs through our property, and another area is an old stand of trees from which we will never remove any wood. Another bonus for them is that we do not litter, burn, or use chemicals.

The family member that takes over our forest management plan in the future will hopefully continue or better implement a “man with nature” perspective.

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