My family owns about 60 acres of timberland in the coastal mountains of Humboldt County. The home that I was raised in (designed and built by my parents with the help of seasonal carpenters from the area) sits in the middle of it.
The property was logged during the 1950s, and my parents purchased it some 20 years later. Since my family came to live there we have practiced mostly salvage harvesting for firewood with very rare occasions of taking young Douglas firs for use in pole construction for the house, barn, and some fencing here and there.
With the death of my father a few years ago, my mom has had her hands full trying to keep up with earning a paycheck and the work required to continue carving a life out of the woods. My father spent about half of the last 20 years of his life working around our property and the other half as Chief of the local volunteer fire company. Ironically, his sense of stewardship towards the land prevented him from practicing some of the fire prevention techniques that he often advocated in the community, such as clearing a 150 foot fire barrier around structures. He simply could not bring himself to cut down that many trees on his own land.
Aside from helping to pioneer the volunteer fire company, both of my parents were also passionately involved in a the grass-roots community conservation effort that became the Mattole Restoration Council. My mom is the artist responsible for their salmon/river logo. 
She also functions as their bookkeeper, which has grown into quite the job, as the non-profit group has grown to being one of the communities largest sources of work and income in the area, bringing in millions of dollars annually in the form of government grants and environmental impact studies.
This past year my mom and many altruistic members of the community have joined together in two major projects on our property that are of great signifigance to both our family and the greater community. A firehouse dedicated to the memory of my father was built on our property near the county road. It now houses a firetruck and a tanker truck from the donated, second-hand, perpetually breaking-down fleet that provides fire protection and first responder rescue services for some 300 square miles.
And, most amazingly, my mom finally bit the bullet and decided to do what it takes to clear a 150 foot fire buffer around her house. In cooperation with the Mattole Restoration Council and the Bureau of Land Management, she filed a special Timber Harvest Plan for just such a purpose. Filing a THP enables a land owner to try and recoup some of the expenses incurred with such a project. Based on my mom’s preliminary numbers, over $12,000 was spent on the project, and they look to make about $10,000 in the resulting timber sales, leaving my mom with paying about $2000 out-of-pocket for some hard-earned peace of mind and a metric assload of firewood.
For most of this past August, various crews of workers and heavy equipment descended on mom and the house. Unfortunately, my girlfriend and I missed all of the fun, as we visited for 2 weeks in July. Though I had hoped to witness and participate in the project, such an endeavor is difficult to schedule and it didn’t come together untill after we had left.
I did take a slew of “Before…” pictures while we were there though.
BEFORE…
From one front corner of the house (Believe it or not, the tall scrawny plant trying to swallow the front of the house is a lilac. It offers up blooms larger than an adult human’s head, which bend down to nose level as you walk along the deck)
More Behind the house (A pile of scrap wood from a deck repair project waits to be burned along with all of the slash that is soon to be piled up around the house.)
Outward view from the front stairs (This picture was taken after she’d dismantled a storage shed that sat under the large Douglas fir, but before she FINALLY had her two long-dead VW buses hauled away)
Outward view uphill (The all-important hydraulic log-splitter is parked in front of our car. The crews also had their work cut out for them trying to protect the dozen or so fruit trees growing around the house)
Outward view from the compost pile (Mom had to relocate her propane tank and take down the deer fence from around her garden, but she hadn’t been planting much for the last 10 years or so because the forest had grown up so much she didn’t get much sunlight anymore. Opening the garden back up was yet another perk of the project.)
I only have a handfull of “During…” pictures, but they are certainly impressive.
DURING…
Dragging a load of “little stuff”
Getting used to a view of stumps
Preparing to pull it away from the house
AFTER…coming soon
I’m still waiting for more pictures now that the project is complete. She’s just now starting the slash burn piles. Hopefully I’ll have more soon and I’ll post an update.
