The Tree Cutting By-Law (First Draft)

After months of searching, I've finally found a copy of the Seguin Tree Cutting by-law as originally written, the first draft.

This is the proposed Seguin legislation that caused a near riot of public protest. It's safe to say that in the absence of the civic revolt, the by-law (shown below) would have passed as is. This is the most commonly referred to incident by Ward 1 voters during my campaign.

I cannot express the amount of on-going anger and distrust directed at Seguin council as a result of this document.

I won't comment on the content of the proposed by-law, but I feel that it was such a defining document and moment in the history of Seguin Township that it needs to be available on the Internet for all to consider and understand.

It is presented below in page order ('click' on image for larger view).

page 1

page 2

page 3

page 4

page 5

page 6

page 7

page 8

page 9

The final version which council passed is available on the Seguin township website here.

Raspberry Trail

I'm reverting to my forestry blog ways with yet another woodsy post. Go right ahead and skip over these green-coloured photo sections if you're all politics all the time. I'll be campaigning again this weekend, so...there's plenty more voter quotes to come.

As I mentioned previously, there was a big growth spurt in the forest raspberry population of late. The trouble with having forest trails though raspberry sections (or possibly blackberry) is that it gets overgrown real quick. As you can see in the photo below, the trail simply disappears...


So, on this rainy day I set off with a pair of gloves to pull out the offending plants. I do try my best to pull them out roots and all, but these young growths mostly snap off at the base with root system intact to start growing again tomorrow. Well, at least I can walk this path again without the raspberry bush level-of-hell thigh needle torture treatment.


Sure, I could wait a couple of years for the plants to grow big and woody enough to pull out the roots and all. But that would mean the trail would be overgrown with eight foot tall monsters like the ones in the photo below.


Sure, I get those plants clear once and for all, but I've had to close the trail for three years. And then other seeds take root and we start all over again. Really, there are some sections where wood chips might be a good idea.

The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement

(click image to read more on this historic agreement)

So good to see that the environmentalists and mainstream forestry have signed an historic, wide ranging agreement to halt cuts within caribou habitat in the boreal forest.

The softwood industry has been hit hard with a drop in lumber and paper demand in recent years. I think this is a model agreement that clearly benefits both parties. It's a great marketing coup for industry, and a big win for activist boycott pressure by environmental organizations. As a sustainable forester on a very small scale, I see this as the smart, sustainable move on the way forward for Canadian forestry.

Bravo!

This Week in Deerwood Forest

Here's a small collection of photos from this week in Deerwood Forest.

Beaver Complex

Here I go again with another forestry/environment type of blog post.

All of this nature stuff may seem off topic on a political campaign blog, but maybe not. The more I talk to people about Sequin politics, the more I realize that people want to know who I am. This blog will certainly express my views on local issues and - more importantly - quotes from Ward 1 people I talk to. But I want to avoid the shallow, often meaningless sort of political website that is so sanitized or scripted that you don't get to understand the real me. I write these personal blog entries to show you who I am by the things I do every day.

So, onto the topic of my relationship with the local beaver population....

Enemy Headquarters.

On the edge of my family woodlot (we call Deerwood) is not a beaver lodge, but a beaver fortress. I have no idea how many beaver lodges there are in the fortress, but it's more than I can shake a stick at. Whether they're all currently occupied is another question. You see these beaver are secretive in their ways. They and I interact in a rather passive aggressive way toward one another.

You see, these beaver, who have created a large flood plain around their fort, are always looking to expand operations. One of their many local projects is damming up a lowland in Deerwood with the grand scheme - I'm sure - of drowning the Pocock family out completely.

A vision of the beaver Master Plan.

There's a key, low, beaver dam that floods a good part of Deerwood forest that I'm in the habit of opening up now and then.

It's both frustrating and amusing to know that the very next night, one or all (who knows?) of the fort beaver will waddle out then wattle up the dam again with mud, stick, and rock (up to the size of ten pin bowling ball).

My famous channel through the beaver dam.

Sure, the beaver ought to be allowed to make their way in this world, but what about me? Don't I have any rights?

The other day I walked past the beaver dam which I'd cleared some time ago and was both pleased and disappointed to see that the dam wasn't repaired. I take it as a bad sign that the beaver might be getting a little lazy. I don't want them to go away - I mean we've got 'relationship'. Then again, the beaver do go further afield in Spring/Summer, to conquer new lands, then return in fall to collect saplings for winter fuel.

A happy compromise.

The upside to a small amount of flooding is the creation of micro-ecologies in Deerwood. Forest flatland is slightly flooded, but not to the extent that the trees die off. Forest diversity is an important thing to sustainable foresters to me, as well as the forest's thirsty inhabitants.

And as this year may shape up to be a rather dry one, I better go back and fix that darn dam myself. Now where did I put that beaver suit?...

Stormy Trails

Snow?...

Yesterday gave a good wind blow and some surprising May snowfall. It got down to -6 degrees over night.

One of my many forest manager chores is to walk the trails after a storm. With pruning saw and axe, I clear away fallen branches or trees.

So, today I walked about and did some chopity-chopity.

Chop it...

...then haul it.

Multi-chop.

Long chop.

Chop chop.

Bluejay Down

While feeding the cats their breakfast at Ma Pocock's today, I heard a loud thump. That sort of thump could only mean one thing - a bird flew into a house window. A large bird by the sound of it.

I held the curious cats back as I went outside to investigate.

A bluejay had hit the kitchen window.


The bird, still alive, was clearly dazed. It didn't move with beak
open as I approached slowly.


With nothing obviously broken, I held out hope for the
bird's recovery. The beak slowly closed. A good sign.

Notice the loose white feathers below the black neck ring.
There were a about twenty small feathers on the deck around
the bluejay.

Following standard procedure, I cut open a box and placed an
old, clean towel on the bottom with the intent to place the bird
inside it with a loose top as a sheltered recovery space. The
bird moved its head to look at the box - a good sign.

I put on a new glove and gently began to gather up the bird.
This was enough to rouse the bird into flight. A very good
sign only ten minutes after impact.

The bluejay landed on the nearby deck rail.

It stayed in this exact position, eye lids slowly closing, then
opening. Within 30 minutes the bird was looking slowly to one
side then the other, movements getting quicker.

I checked up on the bird an hour later from a distance and
watched as it hopped a few feet along the rail. Then it
flew up, onto a nearby tree branch.

The crisis passed, the bluejay was back.

Removing Obstacles

Here's another sustainable forestry post for your distraction. I'm not pushing sustainable forestry as a political point, just writing about my life and the things I do now and then.

I'm clearing some small rocks from forest trails these days. This is what I do after marking, clearing debris, and cutting trees from the trail corridor.

In spots, the forest trail resembles farm land fence lines with years
of field stones piled up from frost pushing them to the surface
then thrown aside.

I find using a heavy demolition metal pry bar the best tool for
the job of extracting the semi-buried rocks.

The problem, of course, is filling in the empty space created once the rock
is removed from the trail to make a smooth surface. If only I had a rock
I could put in there....

Many of these rocks are like earth bound icebergs - 10% above ground,
90% below. This is a deceptively large rock. A rock/boulder. A roulder.

Part of the 'fun' of removing the big rocks is figuring out how to get the
job done. I fall back on caveman technology here. I brace the rock up
with the pry bar in one hand while I place a tree limb in the hole beneath
the rock to raise it up.

Then pry the rock up some more.

At some point, I just have to get down and push the rock out with leg,
body, and arm power. This is risky as the rock could shift on the
supporting tree limbs and fall back toward me. Got to be ready
to get clear in an instant.

Trail Clearing Injury

*** WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST SHOWS IMAGES OF A MINOR INJURY SUSTAINED AS A RESULT OF FOREST TRAIL CLEARING. SOME IMAGES REVEAL A SMALL AMOUNT OF BLOOD AND GORE THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE TO ALL VIEWERS ***

This is the sort of blog post I would normally put on my sustainable forestry website. But as I'm only writing on my campaign blog for the next little while, I'm placing it here.

Yesterday I decided to clear some trail I'd previously marked. Most of the work simply involves removing forest litter (fallen trees, branches, and leaf piles), cutting saplings along the trail line, and sawing branches that prevent passage along the trail corridor.

Here's a series of photos about my trail clearing and a small injury sustained, of course, just at the end of the job.

Here's the trail entrance before I begin clearing.

Here's the after photo with forest litter cleared. The next stage
of trail clearing will involve leveling out the grade of the trial
surface.

An old hemlock log fallen across the trail route.

I hack away at the log with axe. The log was so decayed
I could have done the job with a sledge hammer.

I lift the cut log out of the trail section. Look ma! Only one hand.
Those old hemlock logs can be pretty light.

With the log out of the way, this section of trail is clear.

It was sawing the very last sapling - being careless - that I cut
my leg with the pruning saw. More hacking than sawing, the
sapling gave way and the saw followed through and sawed into
my leg. Blood soaked through the cut pant leg right away. Uh-oh....

Glad I had some gauze wrap in my first aid kit. I quickly wrapped
a section of gauze around my leg to stop the blood flow. Then I
picked up all my gear and walked back to the Forest Management
Office (FMO). Alone in the bush, walking is better than crawling.

Back in the FMO I got my bottle of hydrogen peroxide along with
gauze roll and package of sterile gauze pad. It was time to get
a good look at the wound and make a proper dressing.

I used my handy-dandy Leatherman multi-tool scissors to cut
away the gauze wrapping.

I got lucky. The cut was so close to the shin bone it didn't cut too
much flesh. The pressure from the first aid gauze helped to stop the
bleeding. Just a shallow flesh wound.

I poured the hydrogen peroxide over the wound to help clean
it and prevent infection.

I folded the sterile gauze pad and placed it over the wound.
Then I wrapped the gauze roll around my leg to hold the
sterile pad in place.

The extra wrap end is cut in the middle then
stripped into two pieces. I wrap the bandage
ends in opposite directions around the leg and
tie them together.

I double knot the bandage strips and tuck the loose ends under
the wrapping so they're out of the way. The gauze wrap shouldn't
be too tight - just enough to hold the gauze pad in place.
I'll live. Now back to work!