It’s summertime. Many hours will be clocked in near some ocean shore or other vacation spot. But for others, it also means that many hours – or rather works hours – will be earned on the lawnmower. It takes me about 2 to 2.5 hours to cut my grass. I continue to mow it to gain access to fruit trees and to reduce ticks for my children to find. From aerial photos over my road, I can see it’s the one opening in the vast forest. Birds – including New York’s State Bird, the bluebird – are commonly seen along with rabbits, woodcock and others seeking open areas and forest edges.

Summer is rarely without the hum of lawnmowers, chippers, and weedwhackers to beat back the onslaught of unwanted vegetation. Some lawns are quite large, while others are small. Some are rectangular and others oddly shaped with many nooks and crannies to get into and around. Some lawns are blank open spaces, while others contain a few trees the mower must navigate. Perhaps a fruit tree or two, or even a nut tree. Often, tightly packed spruce trees are planted to screen visibility from neighbors or road-travelers. Some people are protestors of mowing and refrain from cutting at certain times in their “No Mow May” to benefit pollinators. I do some of this on hard to mow areas, allowing milkweed to prosper for monarch butterflies. Although I wonder if “No Mow May” leads to “Lyme’s Disease June.” Some neighbors view letting the grass grow as progressive and wildlife friendly. Others view it as just being lazy. Some landowners decide to mow every other year or so to benefit from pollinating plants even more; To each his own.

The point of all this talk on mowing is that either way, it all seems to get done. Whether you believe in mowing or not, it proves that a little bit adds up to a significant amount. A quarter acre here, an eighth there, 2 acres there; It adds up to hundreds, if not thousands of acres in the landscape. The same can be said during the opposite time of year with snow removal. Think about all the sidewalks, driveways, and private roads – before considering public highways – that are cleared multiple times during the winter, by hand and private plow. Imagine if one person or entity had to plan the removal of every person’s sidewalk or driveway in New York State or oversee mowing all lawns; It would be a nightmare.

Little Things to Do in the Woods

While I’m mowing my lawn – for 2 hours – these are some of the things I’m thinking about. What if we put a quarter of this energy into the forest? Perhaps a small cutting on an acre to benefit early successional wildlife? Or a nut or fruit tree in the woods could be released or cut around from encroaching trees to gain access to more sunlight and continue its important mast (i.e. fruit or nuts) for wildlife. Maybe just tapping a maple tree or five for backyard maple sugaring. Or a few pole-sized oaks could be cut for a small shiitake mushroom operation. A small deer exclosure on an acre to protect desirable regeneration from hungry deer. Or a Forest Stand Improvement (FSI) cutting to thin a few acres or more to lower density and reallocate sunlight onto better growing trees.

On a smaller scale, a “Legacy” tree could be planted for the far future – think red oak, white oak, mulberry, or even sycamore. Maybe you have a declining tree that needs to come down and can be milled into boards. Or perhaps individual large trees could be pruned to improve tree-structure to avoid future susceptibility to storm-damage many years or decades from now. Or maybe an apple tree is buried in your backwoods waiting to be uncovered to more sunlight. Other fruit trees – that are good-tasting – might benefit from pruning. Maybe you have a good site for growing ginseng and want to start planting now for a harvest 8 years into the future. Or instead of buying firewood, you decide to focus on four acres of your own woodland or your neighbors to gather from; Knowing which trees to cut and to leave behind can drastically improve quality over quantity, or what we call “forest health.”

There are many examples of how small forest owners can do “little things” to improve overall forest health across the landscape. Catskill Forest Association (CFA) focuses our targets on small forest owners since they own most of the forest we see. Some may look at private land as vulnerable. Instead, CFA sees a vast number of opportunities that aren’t possible on public or state land. CFA offers both educational Events and Programs or field Services to address or fulfill many of these opportunities. Some Programs include Apple Tree Pruning; Wildlife Habitat Management; Apple Tree Grafting; Invasive Specie Management; Forest Farming; Forest Bird; Alaskan Sawmill; Tree Care; Property Mapping; Legacy Tree Planting; & Portable Sawmill. For starters, we offer a consultation where we can assess your forest and see what opportunities exist to make a little bit of a positive difference out there. The average parcel size is less than 18 acres in the Catskill Mountains. We normally work with “forest” owners with a postage stamp to 30 acres. In any case, when you’re mowing the lawn or shoveling snow this winter, don’t forget about those trees, and how they might be improved a little bit at a time. www.catskillforest.org