Contracts

This year we have 1.4 million trees to plant over two contracts. Houston Forest Products (HFP) provides us with a minimum of 700,000 trees every year. It is a preferred bid contract, which means that we just have to give HFP a fair price; we don't need to engage in bidding wars with other companies. This year (2007) we have approximately 700,000 trees with HFP. We also have 6-700,000 trees with another company, Thatsa Timber. This is another preferred bid contract in the same area as the HFP work- this will mean little downtime with moves. There has been small brushing contracts in the summers of 2004-06, and there will likely be one in 07 - we will know closer to the summer. On occasion we pick up other contracts for slash burning, cone picking and silviculture surveying, and if we hire people for these jobs it is from within our group of treeplanters and friends.

Our planting season will be 7 weeks long, starting the first of May, weather permitting. Brushing (if available) is from mid-June to the end of August.

The contract itself is now located near Burns Lake, a small town in the central interior of British Columbia. It is interior planting, i.e. relatively easy, with piled and burned or mounded land (with some non-prepped ground). Both the contracts I bid on this year (HFP and Thatsa Timber) have the easiest planting I've seen in years as contractors are now back in the valley bottoms logging all the remaining bug-infested trees from around the old blocks logged years ago. Fast, flat ground. HFP's trees are mostly in 3 blocks all within a klick or two of each other. Large pieces, excellent access. We do LFH planting (most media acceptable except pure sticks, needles, or moss), and high microsite selection is a priority. We also have new red rot specs that should make planting easier, and a 1.6m minimum inter-tree spacing. HFP is strict (but not unreasonable) with their quality and so are we; our reputation depends on it. Thatsa Timbers' contract will emphasize high spots at 1.5m minimum spacing- we'll be doing the checking on this one.