Due to April weather slowing down all of our efforts and the fact that we don’t see any slash piles anywhere yet, we’ve decided to push back our early summer Chipper Weekend to 6/27-6/28 this year.

This will give everyone another 6 weeks to fire up the chainsaws and continue with the great work they’ve been doing for the past couple of years. I think many people have been so active that they’ve gotten completely caught up with the beetle kill and have now moved on to proactive measures such as thinning to promote a healthier forest.

We still need to be on the hunt for “hot” trees….i.e. those with living Mountain Pine Beetle larvae about to emerge and fly to the next tree(s). These trees should be our #1 priority for removal. Please spend some time inspecting your properties and looking for the tell-tale signs. http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05528.html

We’ll also be thinking more and more about wildfire preparedness as we decide if we should cut breaks and remove additional fuels from areas adjacent to our homes.

Thanks to a new subsidy by Clear Creek county, we are pleased to announce that we’ll be able to offer the chipper service this year for $5/FHAPOA member and $20/non-member.

As always, we will limit use at any individual’s property to 1 hour. With that said, we’ve got the Vermeer BC1000 reserved again, so it won’t be a problem to tackle fairly large amounts of slash continuously, provided we get the same level of volunteer support to assist in feeding the hungry monster.

FYI – this Vermeer unit is an 84HP beast capable of handling entire trees up to 12” in diameter. Just be sure to limb everything off flush with the trunk so we don’t have to fight with jamming problems.

Please locate your piles near your driveway or access roads, but please don’t put them in the drainage ditches adjacent to county maintained roads. This is counterproductive to our on-going discussions with the County R & B dept regarding their summer maintenance program.

Please contact me directly if you would like to participate. We’re hoping that at these reduced costs, we’ll see a lot of new faces on this go around as well as the same hardy lumberjacks we’ve come to expect.

Also, please contact me if you would be willing to volunteer to stay with the machine from stop to stop….even if for just a portion of the weekend. We’ll have lunches provided both days and I’ll have earplugs, safety glasses, work gloves and dust masks to go around.

This has been a very good thing; lets keep the momentum going.

Have fun and be safe!

Joshua Lewis
Contracts Manager
Rocky Mountains

Mobile - 303-898-6991
Office - 303-542-1900
Fax - 303-542-1903
www.patdrilling.com