Well done Nagual!
I have a 100 acre site specifically set aside for these courses. Hats off to the lads and lassies when they come as they make a grand job in their efforts and thin the woods for me. Ten years on and there are now some fine timber trees appearing from the scrawny stuff we started with. Medium sized for your next course!
I have also started to host climbing training and certification. The 'small trees' that are marked to fall can be spiked in a practice session.
One difficulty was finding a tree with many low branches suitable for ariel rescue etc as trying to grow good timber involves cutting off all low growth so there are no knots in the final product.
I found a nice Oak with the help of the regular instructor and enjoy watching the trainees as they scamper up and do all their ropework.
They also perform minor surgery for real on nearby damaged trees which is also good practice.
I'm a great believer in 'learning on the job' so set small tasks for each group to perform on the day. This involves simple things like accurate cutting to length and leaving low stumps (that extra cube in timber volume soon adds up and goes in your wage packet!) although not useful in 'Tree Surgery' is most important in good 'Forestry practice'.
Finally apologies for the length of post (my passion...!)
and good luck in finding a job
Swyn.
