Sign Me Up!

Intern Alex (L) and land steward Jason Morris (R) work on signs

The volunteer sign workdays keep getting better every year.  Partly that's because we have such great volunteers, many of whom have mastered these skills and come back to help year after year, but also, we keep tweaking the process each time in order to make it more efficient and effective.  This year saw some major changes, thanks to land steward Bob Macentee, who singlehandedly conducted a comparison study of different materials and techniques to see what might be most cost effective for the Forest Society over the long term, while still maintaining the rustic hand routed look of our signage. Though we didn't end up changing the untreated pine sign stock itself, the whole process did go from 14 steps to 11, because we changed stains and eliminated the several coats of spar varnish we usually put on the signs.  The thinking is that although spar varnish does keep out moisture for a few years, it eventually cracks and peels, and then tends to trap moisture in the wood, leading to rot.  The new stain alone should allow the wood to get wet and then dry thoroughly, hopefully extending the life of the sign.

Routing in progress

Hiel chopping signs to size

Another change this year was in painting the white lettering on the signs.  Normally we do this by hand with tiny brushes, and two to three coats are required.  This year we used large syringes to paint the letters!  Paint is sucked up into a large-needled syringe and then the syringe is used to fill up the entire routed letter with paint.  Then, the paint is simply sucked back out with the syringe, leaving a nice thick coat on the routed surface.  On many of the smaller signs, only one "coat" was required with this method, which saved us lots of time.  We completed at least 50 signs during the 2-day workshop, and everyone kept busy with all the different tasks to be completed.  Eleven steps is still a lot of steps!  Thanks to everyone who helped out during the workdays this year!

Stewards Gale and Schuyler work on stenciling letters

Stencil layouts

The sign crew on Day 1

Seth (L) and Gale (R) stenciling

Stewards Bill Bruce (L) and Michael Bettencourt (R) sand routed signs before staining begins

Land Steward Peggy Ueda (L) and Michelle Whisnant working the "syringe" method of letter painting

The whole Whisnant family came out to help with signs!

Stewards Bob Lyon (L) and Fred Tobbe (R) staining signs

Tree ID Workshop

The workday season has been a bit slow to start this year, especially with all the rain lately, but we did hold a great land steward tree identification workshop last week.  The workshop was led by one of our field foresters, Gabe Roxby, who led a group of about 18 people around the Merrimack River Outdoor Education and Conservation Area (affectionately known as "the floodplain") in Concord. Gabe had scouted out 20 common tree species prior to the workshop, and used some interactive and small-group techniques to get people to notice different features characteristic of each species.  I'm pretty sure everyone (even Wendy) learned something about a tree species that they didn't already know, and most of us gained a wealth of knowledge!  Many new and veteran land stewards attended the workshop, and we hope to host others like it (maybe winter tree ID?) in the future.

A small group of stewards look at defining characteristics of a shagbark hickory

Comparing maple leaves

One funny thing about our Concord floodplain property- when Gabe was scouting trees, he realized that two of the very most common trees that we find in practically EVERY forest in NH- American Beech and Hemlock- are totally absent there!  Gabe had to tote in samples from his house!