Treasure Lake/ Forest Blog: 16+ years of on and off management. The place i still call home despite rarely being there. Its a look back as the
project begins to evolve rapidly in this new year of 2017. This blog details some of the forestry work i have been doing there over the years to augment the forest composition and bring more abundance for humans and wildlife.
https://treeyopermaculture.com/2017/01/13/treasure-lake-forest-blog-16-years-of-on-and-off-management/
Excerpt:
After 16 years you notice the change. Yes 16 plus years of on and off management of the forest at my families
land, better known inside our circle as the lake, and outwardly as Treasure Lake. My family has owned the property since late 1983 and lies just outside the major metropolis ti-state area of Cincinnati, Ohio. Iimg_1509 have seen encroachment of the suburbs from all directions over the years but it never really reached this tiny corner of Boone County, Kentucky, USA. So as the ‘burbs grow, forests diminish,
water quality drops, and biodiversity is tormented by the invasion of industrialism. But in those last 16 years at the lake, I have seen Paw Paw patches and spicebush thickets on the rise and big
trees keep getting bigger. I have been witnessing the dying of random trees, the sprouting of new seeds of hickory and oak, and the changing mosaic as the
ash tree dies out. It’s like the paw paw knew the ash were dying as they began to sprout by the weakening trees and now that the
canopy break is in full swing, they are popping upwards rapidly.
16 years I have been wielding hand tools and power tools for managing succession in the 40 acres (16 HA) of forest that surrounds the 15 acre (6 HA) lake. It started with clearing old campsites, left over
from the properties recreational area inception in 1947, which had been abandoned at some point as the property changed hands numerous times. We did this initially so we could party out in the countryside relieving us of the monotony of suburban bars, college town forays, and
city nights out. It was me and my brother and friends at first in 2000 before I headed off to Southeast Ohio to get my degree in Fish and Wildlife Management at Hocking Technical College in late summer 2001. In 2001, my grandfather had the lake rebuilt as this 1947 Army Core of Engineers dam had burst in 1992, a tough year for the project. With the lake being built and my spending more time out there and wanting to study nature more, but being so clueless on how, my good buddy Andrew Williamson drug me out of the city on a whim to go and study ecology essentially. The day we moved out there was 9/11/01 by chance.
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