News
from the
QUIET CORNER
Issue 4 - Summer 2014
a Note from the
coordinator
Greetings and hello from the
Quiet Corner Initiative and the
Yale School Forest. This spring
and summer got off to a roaring
start and we are pleased to get
the 4th issue of the Quiet Corner
Newsletter to you!
The QCI creates partnerships that expand the educational and research opportunities
for students and faculty at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, while
supporting the work of private landowners, natural resource managers, and forest industry
professionals in and around the Yale-Myers Forest. The QCI supports strengthened local
livelihoods, increased forest health, and rural economic development for the long-term
benefit of the land and those that live on it by providing knowledge, energy, and expertise
to our partnering landowners and organizations.
Of hoof and harness
Alex Barrett, Forest Manager
As some of you may know,
Jeff Stoike has moved on from
the Quiet Corner Coordinator
position. A big thank you to him
for all the work he has done. Jeff
and the QCI put on a number of
excellent events this past winter
and spring.
The new year was rung in with
bowls of steaming hot chili in the
wintry Yale-Myers Forest where
folks gathered to witness the second
annual Draft-Power Logging and
Portable Bandsaw Mill Workshop.
In April, members learned about
backyard mushroom production
and went home with their own
hand-inoculated shiitake logs. An
agriculture forum was also held
in April to explore ways for QCI
to better support Quiet Corner
farming. May presented the
opportunity to learn about the
details of conservation easements
from experts in the field in a round
robin workshop. And for the water
lovers out there, a stream gauge
was installed on Bigelow Brook to
begin to monitor the impacts of
Yale-Myers forest management on
water quality.
Stay tuned for upcoming fall
workshops as the QCI team
begins planning the next round of
workshops!
Cheers,
Julius Pasay
QCI Coordinator
Photo by Jeff Stoike
On January 18th, roughly 50 people
gathered in the northern part of YaleMyers Forest to participate in the second
annual Draft-Power Logging and Portable
Bandsaw Mill Workshop. For those of
you who remember the 2013 workshop,
this go around was less bitter cold- the
temperature hovered around 30 degreesbut the wintry sleet made for a pretty
nasty day. Luckily, we were well fortified
with homemade chili, a nice fire, coffee
and hot chocolate and an aerobic boxmaking session to keep us warm.
same time leaving high quality pines to
grow better and provide increased value
to landowners. We chose an area that was
thickly stocked with pine trees of differing
timber quality. Often, small quantities,
say 10-15 stems, of these 8”-12” pine
trees get overlooked- but when you have
a talented horse team, and a local small
bandsaw mill- you can very quickly turn
these pines into a nice pile of useful
boards. The trees that are left are able to
grow freely into the majestic, towering
pines that give this tree its fine reputation.
The goal of this year’s workshop was to
demonstrate how a small parcel of old
field pine can be properly thinned to yield
nice, small diameter timber while at the
Sam Rich and Erika Marczak of Abington
brought two teams this year- one pair
of black Percherons and a team of oxen
who stood placidly in the precipitation
continued on page 2
All events are free and open to
the public. Learn more at forestry.
yale.edu/forests/outreach/events
and download our handouts at
forestry.yale.edu/forests/outreach/
materials.
when they were not being called into
action. Sam and Erika again brought
their wealth of knowledge about how
to operate draft power in the woodsworkshop participants learned what these
animals and their drivers can and cannot
do, and what they do particularly well
when managed by a skillful operatorextract timber from the woods in a low
impact, low carbon, quiet, and peaceful
way. It was a joy to watch the animals
strain at their harnesses or yokes and
then smoothly pull a hitch of pine logs
over to the bandsaw mill. The Percherons
were the speedier of the two teams and
Sam had them practically trotting down
the woods road. The oxen were slow and
steady and proved particularly valuable
when Erika hooked them up to a system
of webbing and chains to pull the logs up
onto the bandsaw mill. Their deliberate
steps and responsive movements meant
that no fingers were smushed loading the
logs onto the saw carriage.

Denis Day of Eastford was the sawyer for
the workshop. He temporarily relocated
his Woodmizer LT 40, a portable
bandsaw mill, from a mill yard on his
Save the date!
• 1st Annual Harvest Festival
September 26, 3 - 10pm
Please join us for the 1st annual
Yale-Myers QCI Harvest Festival.
Live music, forestry competitions,
bee-keeping demonstrations, a
local food banquet, a screening of
the movie King Corn, and much
more! A great opportunity to
meet faculty, staff, and students
from the Yale School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies.
Mushroom mayhem
property, where he saws everything from
red oak tomato stakes to custom slabs
for cabinetmakers. After setting up the
machine, he demonstrated how he can
take logs and turn them easily into lumber.
The hum of the mill and Denis’ measured
steps back and forth as he worked set a
rhythm to the day. Workshop participants
learned about wood utilization and the
important calculations that the sawyer
must make on the fly in order to end
up with uniform 2 X 4s and not a series
of 2 X 4s and then one errant 2 X 3.72.
They also learned about the versatility and
flexibility of small-scale, portable wood
processing.
As the boards flew off the mill, Monte
Kawahara (MF’13) led a team of Yale
Forestry students who took the boards
and turned them into windowsill planter
boxes for workshop participants to take
home as a memory of the day. The YMF
(Yale-Myers Forest) Cattle Brand was
back in full effect and few boxes were
spared from the hot iron. All in all, it was
another very successful workshop and
we’re hoping for a three-peat next year!
continued from page 1
Blair Rynearson, Master of Forestry ‘15
Everyone left with a log. While this may
sound odd, it was a clear indication of a
successful shiitake mushroom cultivation
workshop hosted at Yale-Myers Forest
on April 13th. The Quiet Corner was
blessed with the presence of Ken Mudge,
professor of Horticulture at Cornell
University and avid forest farmer, who
espoused the merits of earning income, or
just producing food, from fungus.
The event kicked off with a background of
forest farming, and touched on a variety
of cultivars, from ramps to ginseng. The
lecture progressed into an overview of
the science of mushroom cultivation
and transitioned into an instructional
lecture on the best management practices
of establishing a small or large shiitake
operation. With background on the why
and how of shiitake cultivation, workshop
participants were let loose to prepare their
very own inoculated log!
It was quite the operation. Ken trucked
down supplies, modified angle grinders,
hot wax and saw dust injectors from his
home in Ithaca, NY. He discussed the
merits of different systems of inoculations
and demonstrated the superiority of
drilling holes in the log with an angle
Photo by Jeff Stoike
grinder, via a race with the unfortunate
owner of a cordless drill (the angle grinder
has 5x the horse power!). Following a
hands-on demonstration, participants
jumped into a shiitake log production line
that yielded more than 40 inoculated logs
in less than two hours.
techniques. Ken instructed differing
methods for proper storage of inoculated
logs to encourage fungal development. He
covered “Japanese hill-side stacking”, “crib
laying”, “A-frame laying”, and discussed
the advantages of differing sites based on
shade and moisture level.
All that log lifting worked up an appetite,
which was satiated by an amazing meal
of burgers made from local beef, and a
delicious mixed green, shiitake salad.
After digesting and chatting around the
campfire, the well-fed group headed
down the hill to learn about “log laying”
With that, the group dispersed, logs over
shoulders and cordless drills in hand,
excited about the mushrooms that would
fruit in a years time. A big thank you
to Ken Mudge, Carl Whittaker, Colby
Tucker, the QCI staff, and all those who
participated!
Micro-hydro at
yale-myers
LEAVING A (PAINT) MARK ON THE LAND:
STUDENTS help MANAGE LOCAL WOODLOT
Drew Veysey,
Master of Environmental Management ‘14
Claire Nowak, Master of Forestry ‘14
Micro-hydroelectric may be an option for
power generation for landowners in the
Quiet Corner. A cursory evaluation of
the Branch Brook by Yale-Myers Camp
revealed that the brook or similar brooks
in the area might be able to provide
relatively consistent power to Yale-Myers
Camp or off-grid residences. However,
seasonality is a big concern because power
generation could be extremely low during
dry periods or none at all if the stream
freezes in the winter.
A stream gauge installed on the nearby
Bigelow Brook (see article on page
4) will help link discharge patterns
to preciptiation events and allow for
better evaluations of micro-hydro power
generation. Presently, impulse turbines
using Pelton wheels may provide a good
option as they work well under low-flow
and high-head conditions. Small systems
like these would not significantly alter
the stream ecosystem and could provide
sources of clean, renewable energy for
Yale-Myers Camp or small residences.
Blair sizing up the big timber. Photo by Eric Hansen
A forester’s day sometimes starts with
a fairly ridiculous ritual: standing in
the morning light on a gravel road, my
classmate Julius and I each grab a onegallon can of blue paint and proceed to
shake it vigorously in silence for several
minutes, an unlikely fitness routine
performed in work boots and dirty
sweaters.
It may look funny, but it is very serious –
if you don’t shake it, the paint will clog up
the spray guns we use to mark trees, and
neither Julius nor I want to slow down
the team today. It will be our first time
working with a consulting forester to turn
a landowner’s Management Plan into a
harvest. The operation is a first time for
the Quiet Corner Initiative too, and we
are excited for this new development.
The forester is Eric Hansen from Ferrucci
& Walicki. Eric starts by showing us how
he tallies. Every single tree to be taken
is painted and recorded: the species,
the number of logs, and the quality of
each log. Looking at a plant and seeing
a finished product is not an easy mental
process, but Eric is a patient teacher.
Ben Hayes measures streamflow in Bigelow
Brook. Photo by Jenn Hoyle
We are starting to know the area fairly
well. John and Daryl Basch received a
Management Plan two years ago from
Evan Ray (MF ’12) and Alex Barrett
(Forest Manager, MF ’12). The year after,
I was part of the team that wrote the
Harvest Plan implemented today. As we
walk through the woods, I recognize the
old apple tree, the gravel pit, the streams
draining towards towering hemlocks.
In one spot, we will work around wolf
trees to open gaps where young oaks will
grow. In another, we give beautiful maples
sun and room to extend their crowns
and produce sweet sap for a future sugar
bush. Down by a stone wall the calls of
wood frogs and the green flash of a skunk
cabbage alert us to an ephemeral pool that
we flag to make sure no machinery disturb
it. When marking timber, each woodlot
becomes a unique puzzle in space and
in time: looking at every tree, we gauge
the architecture of its branches, the shape
of its crown, and try to picture how our
decision to take or leave it will change
the intimate mixture of the landscape
for decades to come. When we’re done,
we will see if a logger can come cut the
timber; if not, John Basch will use our
paint marks as a blueprint to manage his
woodlot.
We stop for lunch, sitting on a fallen tree
as Eric shares his experience as a forester
– how landowners often ask him to do
what’s best for the forest, but how there
is no such thing as a single best solution.
A few weeks from graduation, I see that
listening to people’s vision for their land
has been one of the most important lessons
I’ve learned here. And the best classroom
to learn it was not in New Haven, but in a
quiet corner of Connecticut.
stream gauge
installed
Molly Roske,
Master of Forest Science ‘14
Students begin calibrations on the newly installed stream gauge. Photo by Jeff Stoike
This spring, thanks to the
generous support of a QCI
landowner-partner,
students
installed a stream gauge on
Bigelow Brook near Westford
Road in Ashford, CT. This
gauge collects 30 min. averages
of head and temperature. A 12volt marine battery, charged with
a solar panel, powers the data
logger. Students are currently
measuring velocity to calibrate
head readings to discharge. In the
future, we plan to add features
to monitor rainfall and stream
turbidity. Students hope to use the
gauge data from Bigelow Brook to
monitor changes in stream flow
associated with changes in land
use and land cover, particularly
forest management operations,
in the 17 square mile watershed
upstream of the gauge.
Issue 4 / Summer 2014
The QCI Newsletter is brought to you by the Yale School Forests / 360 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511
Words by Alex Barrett, Claire Nowak, Julius Pasay, Molly Roske, Blair Rynearson, Jeff Stoike and Drew Veysey / Layout by Claire Nowak and Julius Pasay
Yale School Forests
360 Prospect Street
New Haven CT-06511