A Heart For His Forestland: Profile of a Forest Steward

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- Hi, Sanford Smith here with Penn State Extension.

Today, I'm joined by Glenn Early.

He's a forest landowner in Pennsylvania and also a member of Pennsylvania Forest Stewards, the volunteer network across Pennsylvania that helps other forest landowners learn about managing forest land.

Glenn, how are you today?

- I'm doing just fine. - Good.

- I'm loving it in the woods.

- Yeah, all right.

Well, we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the things that Glenn does on his property.

Glenn, what is your forest land useful for?

- [Glenn] Right now, we're in maple sap harvesting.

We just produced our first batch of syrup last night.

I use it for hunting.

It's usually best for leisure, recreation, and I call this place my peace pill.

- Okay, anything unique about your property that you've tried to enhance or protect here?

- I feel as though our piece of property has a little bit of the ecosystem of every part of Pennsylvania.

We have lowland, streams, meadows, we have hardwoods, we have pine forests, and we have plenty of invasive plants.

- Glenn also cuts lumber and you've used that lumber to build some homes.

There are some improvement projects.

- I do it for paneling improvements in the home.

I build sheds.

Sheds only cost me a few dollars per shed.

Just about anything else you can imagine.

I don't even want to walk into a lumber yard anymore.

- Glenn, you have your own sawmill. Is that right?

- [Glenn] I have a sawmill.

I set up a kiln drying operation.

I do finish lumber all from my own use.

- [Sanford] That makes you sort of an exception really.

Many forest landowners have to send their timber over to a sawmill or lumber mill somewhere.

- Correct, I don't really want anybody else on here because I want it harvested in a sustainable way and I use all the lumber that I can here for my own projects.

- Yeah, you also have some historic features on your property and I've understood that you try to protect those and are interested in finding out about those.

What are those historic features?

- We have an old stone foundation at the end of a hollow and there's a springhouse, the remnants of a springhouse.

I know that there was a sawmill downstream from here and I feel as though this land in the lowlands was the backwaters from the dam, and there's a tail race at the very end of my property which was used to add water power to that sawmill.

- Okay, yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it?

There's a lot of history in our forest.

Glenn, what would you tell a forest landowner who has a piece of property but doesn't really know much about it?

- First thing is just walk, keep walking.

If I'm doing nothing else, I walk around the property and through the property.

I take note of plants that need to be removed.

I take note of plants that need to be released so they can grow better, a crop tree harvest.

Just enjoy the land.

Like I said, I call this my peace pill.

If nothing else, I come out here to relax.

If I have no other projects I can work on, I'm not relaxing, I have a chainsaw, I'm cleaning out invasives or I'm making a path to work on, working around the stream.

And as I find different plants, I start asking questions.

As I find different pests, I start asking questions.

I do research, try to find those answers, and I try to get very intimate with my own land.

Just be a part of it.

- All right. Good advice.

Thank you very much, Glenn.

Thank you folks for listening today.

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