READY T' GO

Had the pre-work meeting for the fire rehabilitation contracts yesterday---start flying Sunday. Will be good to get this going. Last contract like this I did was finished on December 28---hope this one gets done before Christmas. That was really bad for the people doing the work.

I printed the sunrise/sunset tables this morning to make sure I knew when we could start and had to stop flying. I was quite amazed that I can sleep an extra half hour before I have to start driving to this one. It is not that I didn't know the days get shorter but I was amazed at how fast that happens. For the seeding contract just last month we had to start driving at 0530 to be there for the safety briefing daily. It is an hour and a half drive to both areas we are going to rehab so starting at 0600 will work to start and by the end I can start at 0615.

The weather has been beautiful up until now and I am hoping it stays that way until we get the mulch out. After that we need to get a ton of snow for next year.

HERE IS HOPING THINGS GO WELL!!!!!

READY, SET, WHOA

I have been waiting for the last couple of weeks for the contract to mulch the fire rehab areas to be re-awarded. I got a call from the owner of the helicopter company yesterday and he said the contracting officer had contacted him and told him everything was in order and they would get the contract. He also told him that they couldn't make the final award until the NEW finance system the FS went to in October had some problems fixed.

This is disgusting to me. How on earth can you change finance systems and have glitches in them. I would think there would have been a Beta test first that tried to iron out all the glitches before it was implemented. This isn't the first time a new system has been implemented that had lots of problems identified as soon as it was put in play. JUST ONE MORE REASON THAT I AM STILL HAPPILY RETIRED!

I will happily wait until I can go to work on this contract because it is a really good part time job and I truly love doing this kind of work. This is a picture of two helicopters delivering straw to the areas. This go round we will have either four Hueys or two Hueys and one K-Max---will be good to get started.

This picture shows the straw hanging below the helicopter in the delivery net. This is an awesome process to watch.

IT'S TOUGH JUST WAITING TO GET STARTED---HAPPY WE ARE GOING TO GET STARTED!

WHERE I HAVE BEEN

For the past 12 days I have been working as a contract inspector for a contract to seed 17,155 acres of land burned in 2012 by wildfires. I struggle a little with uploading photos onto blogger so these are exactly backwards from how I wanted them. I am very happy that the Forest Service still calls me to do these kinds of jobs. I love doing them and really like to see the recovery after a year or two.

In my experience all fires recover. In three to five years most of them are fully recovered and the worst (those that burned the hottest) of them recover in ten years. I am not saying the same type of vegetation will be growing there. What I am saying is that the area will be fully occupied by the roots of the vegetation that is there and the soil erosion will have ended. Where the areas are seeded the recovery is complete in three years and the managers have some choice in what vegetation is growing there.

These projects are very effective and save thousands of tons of sediment from getting into our stream courses.

Photos of the helicopter picking up a load and heading out for the area where it will be spread.

Camera phone shots where you can see the helicopters returning for another load. There are two helicopters in one of the photos but you can't see the second one unless you know exactly where it is. It looked a lot better on the phone.

This is the building where I spent most of my time monitoring the helicopters seeding the areas from flying seeders.

The seeders are like the little hand held seeders you use on your yard to spot plant grass or to fertilize but they hold 400 or 900 pounds (or more) of seed at one time. This will seed from 10-20 acres for the little bucket and 45 to 90 acres with the big bucket. The acres seeded depends on pounds per acre of seed that is to be put on the sites. The buckets are calibrated to spread the desired pounds per acre at a fixed rate of speed. My Grandpa used to tell me all the time that "Nothing is as easy as it appears at first glance." These prop jocks know what they are doing or they would never be successful with these types of projects.

IT IS FUN FOR ME TO PARTICIPATE IN THESE PROJECTS AND I LOVE TO SEE THE RECOVERY A COUPLE OF YEARS DOWN THE ROAD!!! I WOULD PROBABLY DO THIS FOR NOTHING IF THEY ASKED ME TO.