Forestry Services Rooted in Your Land

How These Services Work Together Across a Full Year

Windham County has four distinct seasons and each one shapes what work on a forested parcel looks like. Understanding how our services layer across a calendar year - for a single landowner - makes it easier to see what you are actually signing up for. Late winter is often when new clients get in touch. The snow is still on the ground, which is actually one of the best times to read a forest: you can see the structure clearly without leaves, deer browse lines are obvious, and if the land has had any recent logging, the skid trails and slash are easy to evaluate. An initial site visit in February or March lets us assess timber stand conditions and start mapping what a management plan would need to address. Spring is when we do most of the detailed field inventory work. Vernal pools, wetland edges, and ephemeral streams become visible as snow melts, and these are features that belong in any responsible management plan both ecologically and from a best-management-practices standpoint. If you are heading toward a Current Use management plan, spring fieldwork is the backbone of what gets written. Summer and early fall are when the written plan comes together - stand descriptions, long-term management objectives, any recommended timber harvests or improvement cuts, and the schedule of practices that the program requires. If a harvest is part of the plan, we move into the timber sale administration work: marking, bidding, contract oversight, and making sure the job is done to your standards, not the logger's convenience. Late fall is when the annual Current Use application deadline falls on the Vermont state calendar. The Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation and the Department of Taxes set and administer that deadline, and we make sure our enrolled clients have everything the state needs well ahead of it - rather than scrambling in the final days. For many landowners, the relationship settles into a steady rhythm: a site check every year or two, a harvesting project when the stand is ready, and a full plan renewal at the ten-year mark.

The combination most clients actually end up with is a forest management plan paired with ongoing consultation - not as a bundle we pitch, but because it turns out to be what makes practical sense once people understand how the work fits together. Here is how that typically unfolds. A landowner comes in wanting a Current Use management plan because their parcel is already enrolled and the existing plan is expiring, or because they are enrolling for the first time. We do the fieldwork, write the plan, and submit it through the appropriate state channels. That part has a clear beginning and end. What happens next is where the ongoing relationship comes in. A management plan is a document, but a forest is a living system. Conditions change - a wind event takes down a section of mature beech, an invasive pest moves into the softwood stands, a boundary dispute surfaces that requires updated surveying. Landowners who have worked through a plan with us tend to call when something comes up, rather than starting over from scratch with someone new. That continuity matters because the forester who wrote your plan already knows your land, your priorities, and the compromises you made when the plan was being drafted. Timber sale administration is the other service that pairs naturally with a management plan. When a harvest is recommended in the plan and the time comes to carry it out, having the same forester mark the timber, solicit bids, review logger contracts, and monitor the operation means the harvest actually reflects what the plan intended. A plan that recommends a selection cut should produce a selection cut - not a cut that happens to leave a few trees standing. We do not quote prices here because every parcel is different in size, complexity, access, and what the landowner wants to accomplish. See our pricing page for how we structure our fees, or go straight to a free quote if you have a specific project in mind.