The interplay of trees is a key to happy wildlife.
Photo Above: Eli, Sam and Granddad prepare the chainsaw for a morning in the woods.
Photo by Bruce Ingram | Photo styling by Janette Spencer.
The time is an early Saturday morning in February, and Elaine’s and my 38-acre woodlot in Botetourt County, Virginia, needs tending. I call our daughter Sarah and ask her to send grandsons Sam and Eli across the hollow. It’s time for the boys to learn another lesson in stewardship—a rural landowner’s responsibility to do what’s right for the land and the wildlife that live on it in these mountains.
First, I ask Sam and Eli if they remember how to gas and oil a chainsaw. At ages 11 and 9, respectively, they’re too young to actually operate it, but they are old enough to see how a saw can help us manage the land our two families live on. Sam holds the funnel while I pour in the oil, and after I replenish the gas, Eli, when prompted, recalls that the primer bulb has to be pumped a dozen times and performs that chore.
Then it’s time to trek down the path that leads to our seeded logging road which winds around most of the land’s perimeter. Our first stop (and lesson) is at a dead sassafras tree pocked with openings. I ask the grandsons if they know why we’re not going to cut down the sassafras, and they seem confused. But when I explain that the tree’s openings supply homes for nesting tufted titmice, Carolina chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches and woodpeckers, they understand.
Our next sojourn is at a dead ash, much taller though considerably smaller in circumference than the sassafras. I inquire if the boys know why we’re going to level the hardwood for firewood, and both recall how the emerald ash borer decimated the ash trees native to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Sam, always thinking, suggests that we cut the ash in six-foot lengths and later haul those out of the woods…instead of slicing it into woodstove fitting lengths and making multiple trips to the woodpile—a prudent recommendation.
Then we trek to a dead Virginia pine that has fallen across the path near its intersection with the tote road. I expound that this pine species often only lives 60 or so years, and its soft wood is no good for firewood. We will only cut enough of the evergreen so that it no longer obstructs the trail and leave the rest to rot and return to the soil.
We next amble to a fairly dense stand where white and post oaks and Virginia pines and red cedars predominate. I tell the grandsons that, by far, my favorite part of managing a woodlot is conducting activities that make the land more hospitable to wildlife. All four species, I explain, are native trees to our region and offer value to wildlife.
But, I continue, that though the two evergreens provide thermal cover to birds and mammals, we have many other pines and cedars on our land to do the same. And after we daylight those oaks, the increased sunlight reaching them will allow their crowns to expand—which will allow the oaks to bear acorns much sooner. The result will be that those nuts will one day feed deer, turkeys, bears and numerous other species of birds and mammals. Indeed, I conclude, the decisions and cuttings we make today will positively benefit the forest and its wildlife many years from this day.
We then begin the process of levelling the Virginia pines and red cedars. I show the grandsons how to notch a tree so that it falls away from a hardwood I am daylighting. A half hour later, we admire a newly created grove of white and post oaks ready to respond to spring’s sunny days. All that’s left is to return to the ash lengths, haul them to the woodpile, cut them into 14-inch lengths, and use them as our firewood for the day – a most productive one.
The story above first appeared in our January / February 2025 issue.
