My neighbor is clearing some of his trees off the property.

My neighbors, Lori and Kent, are among the original Corbett Creek property owners having been in their house 25 years. They have witnessed a lot of growth in the area, particularly their own lot which is 6 acres. Because pines and cedars grow slowly, the trees just kind of sneak up on you.  Kent has stated that every summer seems to bring stronger winds flowing down our mountain and the thought of a 100 foot cedar crashing thru the roof is not an image someone want right before you go to sleep.

My neighbors have a beautiful log house with a wrap around porch that is surrounded by 80 to 100 foot pines and cedars. At one time I'll bet Kent and Lori had a wonderful view of the valley below.

Recently, because of the horrendous fire damage in Central Washington this year, Kent was informed that if a fire were ever to hit our area the fire crews would strive to save houses with good fire breaks and a house circled by such large trees would not be high on their list as a salvageable property.

So because of the high winds and fire dangers, our neighbors set out this summer to open the acreage up to make it safer. At this point the area on the other side of the house has been thinned already, but as you can see the driveway is pretty dark even at noon.

 Just beyond the blue tarp used to be a sunny garden area which by noon is now in the shadows.

Here the loggers have just started a few days ago and already have logs for a couple of logging trucks to haul away.

Ron is the feller and tractor operator and from what I gathered owned the logging operation. I watched him fell 20 or 30 trees and every one dropped exactly as he said it would. Ron hit an old 16 penny nail in a cedar that caused a minor disruption in order to sharpen the damaged chain blade.

Monte is the "log bucker", which is the guy who trims off all the branches and slices the tree into proper lengths for the logging truck. Found out from talking to Monte that he is quite the poker player in Northeast Washington.

From my house is this view across the street to Kent's driveway in the morning.

Here it is again after the loggers gave it a hair cut.

Donna and I weren't the only neighbors keeping and eye on the progress, here Becky and her grandson are watching the trees come down.

The garden at noon is great for cool crops such as lettuce or beets, but lacks enough sunlight to grow tomatoes.

After a few weeks of logging... I think Lori will be able to grow all the tomatoes she wants next summer. Lori is a local caterer, so having the ability to grow her own fresh ingredients will make a big difference in her product.

Ron's tractor is all-wheel drive-steering with an incredibly powerful claw that grabs huge trees and drags them in and out of the ravines. If the tree is small enough, Ron will just push it over with the tractor.

This is one of more than a dozen cedars that was in the 100 -150 year old range taken to the lumber mill.

After the logs have been bucked and sized, a lumber truck backs in and offloads its own trailer. 

Using the same arm that uncoupled his trailer, the logger starts to load up his truck. If you look near the middle tires you'll see that he has outriggers so as not to flip the truck and trailer when loading large logs...such as this one.

The truck is about halfway full at the moment and only took approximately ten minutes for him to complete the job.

Nice load of logs off to the lumber mill. So far there have been at least 10 or more of these truck loads so far, with a few more before all is done.

The view has really opened up and made for a safer property in the mountains. As you might see from this photo, the smoke from fires 30 to 50 miles away is still a problem here in Colville.

Two months ago a person couldn't walk from one side of the ravine to the other without a machete, now look at it...wow

Kent is showing me the downside of having your land logged. While the workers down, buck and load up trees for removal, it is up to you to clean all the slash and make piles to burn in the fall. Kent is also going around the property and cutting some of the stumps down a little closer to the ground.

I'm experimenting with video on this blog so I hope all short movies play properly.

Here Ron just pushes a small tree over.

One 100 footer coming down.

Another tree comes down.

Ron is repairing the saw blade after hitting a large nail embedded in an old cedar.

Trucker is now loading his rig.

A better look at the trucks outrigger.

They say it's all about size...I'm questioning this chains size.

The End.