On October 22nd, the 3rd and 4th grades of Leeds Central School visited the 360-acre Curtis Homestead Conservation Area on the Bog Rd. in Leeds, guests of the Kennebec Land Trust.

Participants in the Kennebec Woodland Partnership conference joined the students to learn more about how the KLT works with schools to teach about forestland conservation at their twelve acre demonstration forest at the Curtis property.

The students were given a brief history of the Curtis Homestead which was settled in the early 1800’s and remained in the Curtis family until 2000 when former Maine Governor Kenneth Curtis and his sister, Rebecca donated the 360 acres to the Kennebec Land Trust.

Currently, the Homestead has over 3 miles of trails which meander through the fields and woods, offering visitors a variety of hikes and a chance to see diverse habitats. In addition to their various school programs, KLT coordinates various outdoor programs throughout the year ranging from appletree pruning clinics to winter x-country skiing and snowshoeing adventures.

For the Leeds Central School event, Leeds logger Nat Bell was on hand to demonstrate how he is logging the Curtis woodlot under the guidance of Harold Burnett, from Two Trees Forestry and Andy Shultz from the Maine Forest Service. Burnett is in charge of Forest Management for the Curtis Homestead. After an introduction, half the students followed Bell’s skidder into the woods to see him select a tree, cut it, and twitch it out to his woodyard in the field. Ken Canfield from the Maine Forest Service accompanied this group to guide the students in identifying various trees and explain the selection process. A high point was when Bell demonstrated how, using the principles of geometry, you can estimate the height of a tree while it’s still standing.

While the group was in the woods, the remaining students watched sawyer Bruce Bell cut some of the logs harvested from the Curtis woodlot into lumber. Bell had his portable sawmill set up in the field, and with the help of Burnett, explained how to estimate the number of board feet of lumber the logs would produce, and then demonstrated how the saw worked.

At the end of the day, all the students had a much better idea of what the Curtis Homestead has to offer and how the small trees they saw growing in the woods could eventually become large enough to harvest and be sawn into boards.