"We like lots of snow."

Wood Stock Investments

Woodland Stewardship Institute
presents
Wood Stock
Investments

More than 30 years ago I started cutting trees because I was crazy about wood. I loved to make things out of it. All the varieties of species and types of wood and all their different qualities and uses fascinated me. Of course this led into the tree business. Used to take my logs to our good old friends Earl and Sally Arndt in Juliaetta Idaho. These were great memories. Earl had a sawmill he built himself along with his wood shop and various other tools he had made. Wood is so interesting. I would never tire of seeing a new pattern of grain and color with every cut. He built the most beautiful grandfather clocks. Made from walnut, cherry, ash, locust, maple, sycamore, oak, etc. We still have a lot of that wood. I kept Earl supplied with wood and my share went to my collection.

Now after all these years of collecting wood and having others saw it up, we have our own mill. Also after all these years most of the hardwood in this area is still going to waste. Hauled to the dump and buried at a high cost, or burned for firewood. This is a crime against nature. We don't believe in wasting anything. Especially our natural resources. The logistics of establishing a hardwood supply have always been overwhelming. You have to acquire trees and logs. You have to haul them. You need room for a log yard. You have to do the milling. You need acres of storage to keep it all dry. Then the marketing. And you need to acquire enough inventory so that people will learn that you have what they want when they want it.
This is the strategy I've had in mind for several years. We have wood galore here. Logs and lumber and slices and slabs of wood with a potential value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And there's a lot more where that came from. We are often paid to get rid of wood for people because no one will take it. We just need investors willing to buy inventory at 50% of minimum retail value. This way there is no debt and no risk. That equates to 30 cents a board ft. for softwoods and $1.50 a board ft. for hardwoods. The base price for good softwood is 600 dollars a thousand board ft. and hardwoods start at $3.00 a board ft. This would enable us to keep the mill going and provide steady work for 2 people. There is a risk then of having inventory you can't sell. My strategy then is. If you have a good selection and a good supply it is inevitably going to sell. You will have a certain amount of by product and surplus material to deal with. This is where the wood shop and manufacturing come in. Later we will write about the Woodland Structures Inc. and some of those inventions and ideas.
Stock holders will have certain options and benefits for reclaiming their investment. They can trade back for any lumber or wood they might want at cost plus 10%. This means they can basically get the wood they want at wholesale price. Of course the other option is. When the wood sells they can make 20 or 30 % on their investment.
The other part of the agreement is that we can buy the wood here on site and use it at cost plus 10% for our wood shop and manufacturing.
What makes this whole thing work is the little metal dog tags that we will use to tag everything and keep track of it. See the articles below about our qualified wood program.

Woodland Solution to FIRE!

Woodland Stewardship Institute
presents:
The Woodland Solution to
F I R E !

There is only one real solution the fire problem in the forest. Trees and Mulch. Or in other words leave a forest behind. Yes trees are the answer, but mulch is the solution. This needs to be done through selective logging without burning. Often controlled burning is a valuable, beneficial tool. However, many woodlands need careful management and the last thing they need is more burning. Logging slash chopped and scattered [Mulched] on the ground, can be burned safely and beneficially if ladder fuels are minimized and it's done in the right weather. Mulch retains moisture, and only the surface burns. This of course has many benefits. Seed germination, nutrient changes, certain weed eradication, fire prevention etc. Remember though, weeds and trees germinate and thrive in bare mineral soil. When trees start to mature though, they need mulch. Naturally they produce their own mulch, but it takes roughly 100 yrs. to produce 4 inches of duff! Generally 4 inches of duff will absorb all the water of a 100 year storm! Forests that have been overcut or clearcut often seem to grow back very well [Along with the weeds and the brush.] but if you get out of your car and look close you will usually find little or no duff. Extracting 2nd and 3rd growth timber and not leaving the mulch [fiber] behind creates deficiencies and long term problems. You can actually build up a forest and restore nutrients with good mulching practices.

Woodland Supply Inc.

Woodland Supply Inc.
assoc. of
Woodland Stewardship Institute
Wood & Steel Inventory
Supplying the Basic Pioneer Trades
Woodworking, Carpentry, Arboriculture, Silviculture, Blacksmithing & Leather craft.

Custom Lumber and Hardwood. Your original source for WSI Qualified Wood. We have the largest capacity mill (to our knowledge) in the world (along with it's predecessor in Portland Oregon). We can cut logs up to 8 foot in diameter and 32 feet long! Also, we can cut forks and curves into slabs bigger than a pickup and trailer! Then of course we can also cut beams of any size up to 32 feet long.
More about this later.

World Wide Community Tree Fund

Woodland Stewardship Institute
presents
The World Wide Community Tree Fund

The reasoning behind our tree fund:

This is one part of another WSI program, "Woodland Social Intervention". The other parts are the WSI Deacon's fund, which co-ordinates with the Woodland Scouts International, and the WSI vocational, rehabilitation training program.

Countless large beautiful trees, that would take 50 to 100 or more years to replace, are being ruined by improper trimming or neglect, or terminated because of failures - due to improper trimming or neglect. Many of these trees have, fortunately, never been trimmed. Some of the best specimens have survived naturally with little or no care. However, this is a very small minority. Many more trees would survive with fewer and less damaging failures with proper, periodic maintenance. The best thing about neglected trees a lot of times is they have all their lower limbs. This gives them a low profile. Humans tend to hack the lower limbs off so they can waste money on shrubs and turf. Then they wonder why tree climbers are so rare![Can you imagine kids growing up never climbing a tree?] Nature will often knock the top center out, with wind or lightning, and then the tree begins to spread. A lot of these grand survivors belong to people who have no budget for such things. Consequently, they succumb to the low bid butcher, or they're talked into removing the tree under false pretenses. Often because no one there can climb it or trim it. Anyone can cut a tree down. How many things they wreck or how many people they kill might be another story. The people that own these trees need to be informed, and their trees need to be nominated to the WSI World Wide Community Tree Fund. Hopefully before it's too late!
This is a revolving fund. The customer pays 25% or 1/3 down if they can. Then they pay whatever payments they can manage. Some people have only been able to pay $100 down and $50 a month. Yes, you guessed it. Some can't pay anything. Regardless, the trees are preserved. The owners never get a bill and are never turned over to a collection agency! [These should be illegal! You should collect your own bills.] No one likes the former or the latter. Instead. They receive a note from WSI with our site address. Here they can see [by their cross reference number, for privacy] how much they have contributed and how much has been absorbed by the Tree Fund. Then hopefully someday their name will appear in the "funds donated column".
Excess funds are used for worthy projects in conjunction with the Woodland Scouts or the WSI Deacon's Fund, and possibly the WSI Vocational Rehabilitation Training Program.
This could include pruning in the parks or cemetarys that are often neglected because of budget shortages.
Trees belong to everyone. This is an opportunity for anyone to contribute to a real practical tree fund that works.

World Wide Wood Registry

Woodland Stewardship Institute presents WSI Quiet Wood
The Most Wonderful Wood in the World
The WSI World Wide Wood Registry

This is a simple, sensible, qualified wood program that anyone can use. You can be a part of our World Wide Wood Supply of Integrity! There are two major objectives to our qualified wood program.

Objective #1. Protect, preserve and promote people.
Quiet means; small, careful, qualified, independent arborists and horse loggers trained the old fashioned proven apprenticeship way. Quiet is about people and jobs. Not more labor saving dangerous noisy machinery. [Almost all accidents are equipment related] Safety programs, conservation programs, etc. are incomplete, inadequate, ineffective etc. unless they begin to minimize equipment. A true safety program like anything else in life, has to be based on the first and greatest commandment.

Safety Rule # 1

It's not about money. If making money is your first priority, you have your head on backwards and your just making noise.

Safety Rule # 2

It's not about production. Volume should not be your first consideration. "Work without faith is vanity". "A good name is worth more than gold". Accidents happen when your going too fast, things get out of control, your too tired, and there's too much noise. You can get more work done when you have your head on straight and your thinking. Consider what your doing, consider Nature, consider others, consider what time it is. "There's nothing wrong with being a workaholic as long as you know how to tell time!" M.St.G.

Safety Rule # 3

It's not about equipment. I know machinery and technology have been a great American tradition that has put us ahead of the world. However, "Knowledge without faith is dangerous."
"When America ceases to be good she will cease to be great."? Albert Schweitzer said, "Man has lost the capacity to foresee and forestall, he will end by destroying the earth." God says "He is going to come and destroy them that destroy the Earth."How do you compete without the latest greatest equipment? We can be very competitive climbing trees with ropes. There is a good share of the tree work that is too small, too tall, or too inaccessible for expensive lift equipment. The only way a bucket truck can compete with good climbers is to hack and chop and run. It's not practical to do quality work with a bucket. They're always cutting too many lower limbs, cutting things out of their way, wrecking the lawn, compacting the soil, breaking the roots, etc. etc.
It's the same with horse logging. If you want to promote the best quality logging, just write the specs. There's no machine that comes close to the efficiency, versatility, economy, and reliability of horses. Even if you had a machine that could skid 2000 lbs.- or more with the right arch, and negotiate a 3 foot wide trail. What would be the point. You can be sure it would be expensive, smelly, ugly, greasy, dirty, unaffectionate, always breaking down, and NOISY!

Objective #2. Protect, preserve and promote the resource.
What are the rules? Same as above. Plus, we want to remember tree safety and health, forest health and diversity, and of course, fire prevention. Quiet means working with Nature. Quiet means knowing that Nature is the best teacher. Quiet means leaving a healthy, natural, diverse forest behind. Quiet means knowing how to climb a big tree and taking the time and effort to trim the whole tree for safety, health and strength. Cutting trees for no good reason is the loud sound of bad science. Cutting trees just for money is profanity! If we are going to create a demand for Qualified Wood, we have to understand and abide by the simple, basic, best criteria. Otherwise it would not be "The most wonderful wood in the world."