Since October I've been working most weekends on clearing brush on my 39 acre tree farm. One goal was to pass the Forestry Service 5-year inspection which ensures that the marketable timber has "room to grow." The other goal was to clear areas to fill in with more Douglas Firs. 100 seedlings cost about $55 and 1000 seedlings cost about $240. Using simple math, it obviously behooves one to go for 1000 seedlings. Well, at 400 trees an acre, that is 2.5 acres: a lot of brush to clear by hand! A week ago I picked up 1000 2 year old Douglas Fir seedlings and started planting. The first 200 took 8 hours. I gave 40 trees to a co-worker and spent 4.5 days planting the rest. It was tough and I am greatly relieved to be done. This summer I plan to have 8 or so acres of brush bulldozed and then hire a crew to plant.

It was interesting though to be not working and not on vacation. The only time I have had off from work in the past several years I have gone on vacation. There were two trips to Cancun, one to Ireland, and probably a couple of others I can't remember. On all these vacations, I have needed a bit of recovery afterwards. I think partly the trips forced me to be more social as I went with my family. During my tree planting "vacation," other than placing my breakfast and lunch orders, I spoke with no one.