forestry

Next time you’re in the Midwest  and thinking of hiking, all-terrain vehicle riding, mountain biking or horseback riding, visit the Wayne National Forest in the hills of southeastern Ohio. It’s there you’ll find more than 300 miles of trails to do those things and much more.

The updated Forest Landowners’ Guide to the Federal Income Tax is now available online and includes updated information on Federal income tax as it pertains to timber and forest land planning.

“The main purpose of this guide is to foster good management of family-owned forest land by providing an explanation of provisions and incentives related to forest ownership and management under Federal income tax law,” says Emeritus Research Forester John Greene. Greene authored the guide and is a volunteer for the Forest Service Southern Research Station Forest Economics and Policy unit now that he is retired.

The guide, co-authored by William Siegel, William Hoover and Mark Koontz, updates and takes the place of a previous publication of the same name, incorporating new tax laws and changes through Sept. 30, 2012.  It introduces tax planning and basic tax considerations and explains the Federal income tax as it pertains to timber and forest land. Included in the guide:

More than 108 years have passed since Gifford Pinchot became chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Yet today, with Tom Tidwell filling that role in a very different era, some of the same issues persist, along with others Pinchot might not have imagined.

“We’re fortunate that we have an organization that can handle complex issues, like our Research and Development branch of the Forest Service (efforts) to sustain private and international Forest systems,” said Tidwell.

Pinchot headed the Division of Forestry under the Department of Interior for seven years before the agency became the Forest Service under the Department of Agriculture. At the time, the nation’s forests were seen as inexhaustible, but Pinchot did not see it that way.

For many skiers, it’s up the lift, down the hill and back again.

But a new program pairs U.S. Forest Service rangers and guests at the Lake Tahoe Heavenly Mountain Resort for an hour-long, free, guided ski and snowboard tour.

A team of volunteers from the Payette National Forest have sculpted “Smokey’s Magic” a 12-foot high, 3 foot deep sculpture of Smokey Bear in a wizard’s cloak with snowball in hand for the popular Winter Carnival in nearby McCall, Idaho.   The Forest Service team, whose members all volunteer their off-duty time to the sculpting, are always determined to make a good showing. And Smokey Bear is routinely part of their team.

As the oldest of 11 children, Barbara C. Weber is accustomed to being the “first.” With top family ranking comes responsibility, and Weber had plenty of it.

Growing up on her family’s 160-acre dairy farm in Bloomington, Wis., Weber, along with her siblings, helped clean the barn, pick up eggs and tend to the animals.  Her innate curiosity and connection to nature led to her love of science.

While winter tends to be a quiet time for tourists at Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area in western Kentucky and Tennessee, tourists of a different feather flock to the lakes during our coldest months of the year. 

The  annual winter quadrathlon, staged on the Cibola National Forest and Grasslands, is not for the faint of heart. In fact, it’s so challenging that race organizers post a training program that starts more than three months prior to the event.

Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon athletes must:
·      finish a 13-mile bike ride,
·      complete a 5-mile run on a gravel road that climbs 1,250-feet in elevation,
·      go two miles on cross-country skis for another 1,250-foot climb, and
·      go one mile on snowshoes to gain another 600 feet to reach the 11,301-foot summit of Mt. Taylor.

So many dinosaur fossils are being discovered in a quarry on the Comanche National Grassland in southeast Colorado that experts call the find a “tossed salad of dinosaur parts.”

Last fall, workers found the first Ceratosaurus tooth within the Picket Wire Canyonlands, which is best known for a huge dinosaur track site naturally exposed along the banks of the Purgatoire River.

A new manual released by the U.S. Forest Service offers solutions for using the millions of dead and dying urban trees infected by invasive insects in the eastern United States. 

The free publication, developed by the Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory and the University of Minnesota Duluth, offers insight into the wide variety of products and markets that are available, and practical advice for considering the many options. Uses for insect-killed wood include lumber, furniture, cabinetry, flooring and pellets for wood-burning energy facilities. Last year, commemorative ornaments were made from beetle-killed trees for the 2012 Capitol Christmas Tree celebration.