CHMF cooperates with various agencies to sponsor forest and farm demonstrations.  Our fescue pastures are being converted to tall grass prairie; our managed forest is being used to demonstrate sustainable forestry.   CHMF demonstrations serve as examples of what we believe are best management practices. Management decisions are made by the Clay Hill Advisory Board.  The professionals on this board provide science-based natural resource management advice that allows us to be flexible and responsive.  Below are links to photographs of a few of our management activities over the last few years.  

Prairie grass management

Horse-drawn mowing fall 2005

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Prescribed burn November 2010

 

Forest management

Horse logging 2005

Eight and one-half acres were selectively logged.  The goal of this logging was to improve the diversity and quality of an existing  stand  As a result of this cut, 23,000 board feet of lumber was sold.  All profit from our share of this sale was deposited in the Clay Hill Memorial Forest Endowment Fund.

 

Making lumber

Storms brought down many large trees at CHMF during summer 2005.  After getting approval from the Board of Advisors, we decided to produce lumber from these logs and use this as a demonstration project.  We contracted with two different band saw operators to do this work.  Approximately 2000 board feet of lumber was cut in to dimension stock.  this consisted of more than 800 bd ft of cherry, 350 bd ft of sassafras, and small amounts of white ash, yellow poplar, American elm and mockernut hickory.  This lumber is being air dried at CHMF and will be sold or used for projects at CHMF. 

 

Drying Lumber

 

The James Sander White Solar Lumber Kiln was used in the summer of 2011 to dry over 2000 board feet of yellow poplar lumber for the Ken Weddle Center for Visually Impaired Children. We used sunlight heat the lumber and to generate the electricity needed to power fans. The fans circulate the heated air through the lumber stack.

CREP: Planting Walnut Trees

About 75 local land owners and interested persons came to Clay Hill to learn how to use a tree planter. The planter will be loaned to CREP participating land owners who are planting trees on their land as required by the CREP program.  About 90 locally grown walnut seedlings were planted as a row crop in a fescue pasture.