Betty Udell’s annual Tree Day provided myriad new experiences for the Runyon family of Corvallis as the children climbed in and around a Weyerhaeuser helicopter, learned about logging with horses and much more about forestry.
The event was held at the Udells’ Happy Valley Tree Farm on Bellinger Scale Road, north of Sweet Home.
Friends in 4-H told Mark Runyon and his family about the annual event and the Family Adventure Camp, which begins on Friday leading into Saturday’s events.
Mr. Runyon, Mrs. Sarah Runyon and their children spent Friday doing a variety of events, including stargazing and an owl tour. They also enjoyed nature crafts. Saturday, they practiced throwing the axe, and the children, Emma, 3; Alyssa, 7; and Daniel, 10 checked out the helicopter before Oregon Department of Forestry and Weyerhaeuser started a firefighting demonstration.
“What we wanted to,” Mr. Runyon, a fire prevention and protection specialist in the lumber industry, said. “This looked like a lot of fun, but it gives us a chance to learn about forestry.”
He wanted to expose his children to the tree farming industry. Tree Day shows a broader view of the timber industry, which is more than just cutting trees, Mr. Runyon said.
Emma and Alyssa enjoyed petting Bob McGowan’s draft horses, Plugg and Nagg, Saturday afternoon.
“I log here all the time on this tree farm with these horses,” McGowan said.
McGowan appeared recently in the draft horse competition at the Sweet Home Rodeo and Calapooia Roundup. He placed second, but since then he has placed first in five additional contests throughout Washington.
He participated in a demonstration Saturday. Another exhibitor used a springboard, hand fell a tree and bucked it. McGowan yarded it to a clearing where a portable mill was used to cut it into boards.
Those are techniques that went out around the 1940s with the advent of the power saw.
The horse logging didn’t go away though, remaining a part of the industry in different situations. McGowan’s father logged at the Udells’ tree farm, and McGowan has followed in his footsteps.
“Look at Bert’s tree farm,” McGowan said. “It’s beautiful here. You can hardly tell I’ve been here.”
The horses don’t leave ruts or damage anything.
“Small landowners like it because I can go in and thin their timber out without making a mess of their place,” McGowan said. “There’s a definite place for this. In small timber patches, you don’t want to move in a million dollars in equipment to log a small area.”
The horses are the most non-invasive way to log, he said. Where he logs on Happy Valley Tree Farm, the Udells get 100,000 to 200,000 board feet of timber each year, but “this patch grows more in board footage than what we log.”
McGowan works with one other man, who falls the trees, so McGowan can yard it out.
Selective logging continues annually on the property using the Udells’ “carrot” method of harvesting bigger trees and letting the smaller ones have more room to get bigger.
The purpose of Tree Day is to acquaint the public with some of the activities that are connected with a modern tree farm.
The tree farmer of today must combine science, nature, common sense and hard work to keep their farms solvent, the Udells said.
The farm includes about 400 acres and is home to numerous events and studies.