Learning through doing on Martin Farm

Less than two years ago I had my first PBA burn on our farm. PBA is an acronym for “Prescribed Burn Association”. Our local PBA is the Sandhill’s PBA which has been developing fire familiarity and resources in our local area. Jesse Wimberly has taken this project on and as he says, its “neighbor helping neighbor.”

I decided during the last year, that my major project for the next ten years was going to be to see this land return as much as is possible in so short a time, back to a pine savanna. At first, it will be a loblolly dominated savanna with a very impoverished understory. It may look ghastly at times, either due to mechanical removal operations to take out mid and understory deciduous trees. Or from my own attempts at this through a rather robust effort at sweet gum girdling. But I hope to at least have set a strong course by 2032 so that this ship will have been righted and others that care about it can see it forward as I am unable too.

My family, perhaps unbeknownst to them, are my partners in this endeavor. I’m the one infected by this bug currently, but if I have my way, there will be an outbreak among my kids and neighbors by that time. Actually, it has already started. My adjoining neighbor to the south has already burned some part of his land last winter in two separate burns ! I estimate that the land he burned had not seen fire in 50 – 75 years to any significant degree. I rely now on the PBA and my kids to do the burns. Its asking a lot of them, but it is kind of fun, and very rewarding and a good bit exciting. I expect as we gain more experience, more of the burns will be just us (without SPBA help). And that is as it should be .

I have been thinking lately about how to best leave a record of this journey. I have decided that the best way to do that would be through a blog. First of all, it would be available to everyone, both now and into the future. Secondly, the blog could also contain other, unrelated posts that would be tagged differently and possibly private from general public. Thirdly, if I record useful things to others that may be attempting something along the lines of what we are doing here, then the blog might be a useful resource to others. On the down side, the blog is requiring some upfront costs and a strong learning curve. Hopefully, it will get easier and quicker for me to place a post. Also, there are so many options. Once I settle on the look and navigation of the site, that will probably simplify as well.

So no matter what has brought you here, I hope you find something useful, or interesting, or both?! Please feel free to leave a comment. Happy burning!