News and Updates for LCSWA Members

 The board of directors for the Linn County Small Woodlands Assoc. will meet this week for its quarterly meeting. Board members will gather Wednesday March 3 at the Fun Forest open-air barn off Berlin Ridge Road. The meeting is to start at 2:30p.m. Among agenda items will be updates and financial results on the annual seedling sale. The 26th annual sale was operated under COVID rules this year. Another agenda item will be an update on the Bob Mealey Sunnyside Park project. Ponderosa pines are expected to be planted later this week at the park. The board is also expected to discuss operation of the chapter website. The group is looking for a person to become webmaster as well as updating the existing HTML site. All members of the association are welcome to attend the board meetings. Contact any director for directions if needed.

Shirley Holmberg and Jim Cota have been re-elected to the Linn County Small Woodlands Association board of directors.  Some 60 ballots were returned to board Secretary Jonathan Christie. Membership overwhelmingly supported the board recommendation to re-elect Holmberg and Cota for three-year terms. Holmberg is the association treasurer. There were also write-in votes in support of Mike Barsotti. He is a past board member and has recently stepped away from the state-wide OSWA presidency.  Long-time board member and past president Jim Merzenich is leaving the board. Most recently Merzenich has been membership chairman. Current membership is about 110 families, with another 40 or so associate memberships on the books. 

  Linn County Tree Farmers of the Year Transform the Forest Linn County Tree Farmers of the Year Transform the Forest Cat Bailey Ten years ago, the 80-acre property near Scio, Ore., affectionately named “Bogwood” by current owners Lee Peterman and Shirley Jolliff, looked very different. What was then an overstocked mix of conifers and hardwoods has been transformed into a substantially less-dense property, allowing room for native trees and plants to thrive, as well as local wildlife to move in and get comfortable. Lee Peterman and Shirley Jolliff own and operate Bogwood in Linn County, OR The transformation isn’t limited to the landscape; it extends to the property owners themselves.  In less than eight years, Lee and Shirley have gone from academics with little woodland experience to 2020 Tree Farmers of the Year in Linn County, Oregon.  A Bog to Call Home When Lee and Shirley first set foot on the property in 2013, they knew it was home.  All they needed to see were the grand maples