A LOT of Opportunity and Activity! – by Jody Dickson SO much is going on right now around wildfire preparation and mitigation which is very exciting to see. As I mentioned last time, we are preparing for our summer season at Saws & Slaws. The first events are getting scheduled. We still have spaces available, so if you are interested in hosting an event in your neighborhood this summer, please contact us at SawsandSlaws@gmail.com or call Linda Martin at 720-326-7739. We are also planning our Chainsaw Skills and Safety class for this spring. In order to be a sawyer at one of our events, it is required that you take…
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Saws & Slaws News December
Celebrating 2022 by Jody DicksonWe always like to take a little bit of time at the end of the year to celebrate another year of Saws & Slaws! We had another excellent year with five regular events doing good fire mitigation work throughout the Coal Creek Canyon community. Officially, we had over 275 volunteered hours of service which represents a value of almost $7,000 of work. Our volunteers don’t get paid, but as you can see there is significant value in what they do! It is important that we recognize that. We had 50 unique volunteers at these events. Not everyone needs to volunteer at every event. We can share…
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Saws & Slaws News November
November Update by Jody DicksonAs is often the case, unfortunately our October event had to be cancelled due to high winds that day. We plan to get back there early next season. We’ve been knocking out some of those smaller projects that we had on our list to do. Mostly it has been chipping slash piles and then hauling the chips away! As we mentioned last time, if you’ve been waiting for us and haven’t heard from us in a while, please don’t be shy about giving us a reminder!! Email sawsandslaws@gmail.com or call us at 303-588-6639 By the time this issue prints, Jeffco Slash collection continues for one more…
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Saws & Slaws September News
What to do with that slash!?! by Linda Martin & Jody DicksonSaws & Slaws has been chugging along this summer and we still have plenty to accomplish. We have been really excited to be debating the ever present question “what is the best thing to do with the slash?” Believe it or not, there seem to be multiple answers and lots of variables to consider. Slash is a pain in the ash. It’s the bain of fire mitigation and takes a lot of energy, time and money to deal with. Here are all the choices (see where you would lie on the spectrum): – cut tree and process firewood, leave…
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Saws & Slaws August News
Application of Fire Ecology by Jody Dickson & Linda MartinWhen we are deciding what work we need to do in order to be effective, it helps to have a basic understanding of fire ecology and behavior. Fire ecology looks at fire’s role within an ecosystem, including when and why a wildfire happens as well as the impacts of that fire on the ecosystem. We know that our particular forest ecology is fire-dependent which means there are native plant species that NEED fire in order to be healthy. Since animals, including humans, depend on plants, the plants being healthy is necessary for us and wildlife to be healthy as well. However,…
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Saws & Slaws July News
We are excited for summertime and our 2022 summer season being in full swing. Our June 11th event went well, despite the heat and steep slopes. We worked in the area around Lionel Lane and Coal Creek Heights Dr. We processed a lot of tall trees, so it created a lot of logs (and firewood. See below.) We got slash out of the forest and hauled a few loads to the Nederland sort yard. An especially big thank you to our drivers who made the trips over to the sort yard. This batch was mostly dry and dead, and we acknowledge that is the hardest stuff to load and unload!…
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Saws & Slaws June News
Fantastic Start to the Season May was an amazing start to our 2022 season. At the very beginning, we hosted our Spring 2022 Chainsaw Skills and Safety class. We hold this class every year as it is a requirement for being a sawyer at one of our events but also to give everyone a chance to learn more about operating a chainsaw safely and effectively. This year we had a couple of people from not associated with any group, a small group from Axe & Snax, our peers in Gilpin County, and another person from the Crescent Park Community Fire Protection Agency. It is great that we can share the wealth…
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Saws & Slaws April News
Keeping it Local by Jody DicksonWe are SO blessed as a community to have multiple dedicated efforts around wildfire mitigation. Saws and Slaws is just one of the many groups operating in Coal Creek Canyon on the shared task of making our community safer and more resilient through a wildfire event. Going from east to west, at the mouth of the canyon, the Blue Mountain Forest Stewardship Initiative has done amazing work and has completed the tasks for the Blue Mountain section of our Community Wildfire Protection Plan. The Crescent Park Community Fire Protection Agency has just formed and started doing work last year to address the specific needs of…
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Saws & Slaws March News
Getting ready for a full season!! by Jody DicksonI cannot believe it is already March which means our season of events is only a couple months away! We are busy getting our events scheduled and finalized, so we can deliver on a season full of improving forest health, improving our resilience through a wildfire event, and building our amazing community. We can all make this place a better and safer place to be and enjoy ourselves while we do it! I also enjoy the sense of accomplishment at the end of every Saws & Slaws events. It is absolutely something to celebrate every time, even when things don’t always go…
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Saws & Slaws January News
Happy New Year!! 2021 flew right by, but we are very excited for the new year of 2022. For this year, with the end of our paid resource in Nathaniel, we are looking for some new organizational help. If you are interested in supporting our efforts through volunteering outside of events, please let us know. (Of course, you can volunteer at the events, too!!) Just like at our events, we have a job for everyone: operational (e.g. organizing events), education, marketing, communications, fundraising, community organizing, partner management and more. It doesn’t matter if you have a lot of time or a little, every little bit helps our small and scrappy…
