What do you all figure it cost you to put out wood ?

[simon lenihan]

The same study today would probably be double, its better off i do not know, it would drive me mad.
simon lenihan

[Gabe Ayers]

So one lesson in doing all the studies of cost is that we have to establish a cost that we base the price of our services upon and find landowner’s that are willing and able to afford those costs of operation, and then we are in business.

It seems that the knowledge of our operating cost acquired by government or
academia is seldom used (or never in my experience) to build a foundation to support the economics of establishing a living wage for the ground level worker that provides a superior service. To the contrary – the evidence is used to justify dismissal of our practices as to expensive, to low production and therefore not practical. Hogwash, reductionism, marginalization….
perpetuation of the status quo…. little help for us there, except maybe from a few rare individuals of the study group.

So I gave up on giving that group much attention years ago, mostly because as mentioned earlier, there are no quantifying the values or costs of quality of the services. We would be wide open to participating in academic or government studies if they include the considerations we base the quality of our services upon.

I think the question Lance asks about – how do you educate the private landowner as to the benefits of practicing restorative forestry? – is one of the primary goals and objectives of HHFF.

Anecdotal Story – anthropological culture
Many years ago (while working in a private forest) a local big time conventional logger that had draft horses that he just used as a hobby and showed up and stopped by our job site. After admiring the horses and appreciating the arch he turned his attention to the silviculture we practice. At the end of the day he made a profound statement that has been a part of our practices ever since. He said something to the effect of, “the way you guys cut timber the landowner can afford to give you the wood and still would come out in the long term from the improved future timber value”.

We have taken that old loggers view and refined it to the point of calling it “restorative forestry”. We only want to work for landowners that have the vision to appreciate that economic as well as aesthetically pleasing forestry.
As mentioned before we pay for stumpage on a sliding scale keeping every thing below a certain average that we need as an operating cost similar in money to what Carl does. Anything more valuable than the operating cost is split with the landowner on a percentage basis. The key is having landowners that desire the conditions that result from a worst first single tree selective harvest, as their primary value, not the money that comes from “cutting their timber”….

Yes, it takes years to establish a reputation for doing this kind of forestry, but there is no way of doing it without getting started – now. As also mentioned earlier the demographics of land ownership and forest type vary across the country. This is a method that has been developed specifically as practiced in the Appalachian forest type in a mature state or with an average age of 75 years and up.

There are many ways to educate the public about this work. Free media coverage helps. Use the local papers by inviting a reporter out to do a story on the work and try to avoid them focusing on it being the “old way”, by presenting it as a new “green” approach that uses less fossil fuel and keeps more of the money in the community and requires less capitalization to start up. Be sure to ask your landowners if they are willing to respond to request for references and if they are willing to allow public access for and organized event to occur in their woods. Hold “open woods days” where the public is invited to come see the work in action. Define it as “Restorative Forestry” as being the best of sustainable forestry available anywhere. Contact your public TV station and invite them to come see your work.

These are some of the ways we have developed a long list of landowners waiting for our services and maybe some variation of the same will work for others. I know that this is repeated information as I have written about this in detail previously on the DAP site. I hope some find it of use.

One thing is for sure. People will use you to death if they can get away with it. It is up to you to protect yourself.

If you stick to your principles and do what you say, your services will be very valuable. It just may take some innovation in how you sell the services to the growing number of small landowners that may be open to this approach.

[Carl Russell]

Whenever I leave the farm for hourly work, whether for forestry consulting, working with the horses, or chainsaw work, I charge $50/hr. I generally find that at the $/MBF rates described before I can easily average $35/hr putting out logs. This I figure is pretty good money especially as there is generally a fair amount of work to add all those hours together, as apposed to a few hours here or there.

Being a forester first, I always see my harvesting as “forestry”, and not just cutting, so there is always an element of extra services. I often have to figure in to my cost estimates, hourly rates for non-commercial work such as TSI, and aesthetics(ie. piling brush, or trail building…in excess of what I have to do normally for harvest).

Unfortunately I am not a machine, so some days I work harder, or am more disciplined than others. Some days I get wander lust, and end up following a deer trail, or checking out an old cellar hole, or casting a line in a beaver pond. I also like to break up my day, attending to more than one enterprise somewhat simultaneously, so I find it easier to make an estimate of daily average production, based on focused work, and to take a few lumps financially, than to try to keep track of all the different cost/profit centers and to charge/pay accordingly.

In other words, I have just found over the years a range of harvesting cost/income that I know I can be comfortable with given an appraisal of the variables of different jobs/sites. I prefer using the flat rate $/MBF method as it enables me to present my services as value added to the land holding, at the same time providing some stimulus to actually get some work done.

Carl

[near horse]

Put it this way – I had to use a lawyer to draft a legal notification (essentially a letter) and was charged $120/hr! By a barely “wet behind the ears” lawyer so don’t sell yourself short on hourly rates – other groups charge those rates to you (mechanices etc) so It IS the cost of doing business!

[Scott G]

I prefer using the flat rate $/MBF method as it enables me to present my services as value added to the land holding, at the same time providing some stimulus to actually get some work done.

I have to admit I also get wanderlust in the woods. As a forestry nerd I’m always hacking away at stuff looking for the latest bug or crud. A fair norm here is to bid by the acre for TSI, sanitiation, or fuels reduction work. I’ll estimate time/resources for a unit and bid a set price for what the landowner/agency want. That will take the “ride hard” factor out of the job. This is especially helpful if the unit contains some nice pocket water containing stupid brook trout! 😉

[cousin jack]

Thanks for the advice boys, some sound reasoning amongst it.

[Rick Alger]

Scott,

Have you had ny luck developing your cost calculator?

[Scott G]

I’ve started, Rick. To be honest, it is down a few notches on available “quality ‘puter time”. I have to mess with a few of the equations to better reflect animal operations distinct from mechanical. I will try to put a slot in for equipment like saws, forwarder, truck/trailer, etc and that gets a little tricky when you are trying to put apples and oranges on the same spread sheet.

There is a lot going on in my world right now. So much forest and so little time…

[Author]

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