Green Girl Abroad: Week 4: From the forest to the farm

Week four in Finland felt a little less busy than our previous weeks. Not to say it was boring at all, it was simply relaxed and more localized in comparison to the activities requiring more travel since our arrival.

We started out the week by getting acquainted with our forest management stands for our Silviculture class. These personally assigned plots are be the basis for our final report, which examines the stand history, current situation, site health, collected data and risk analysis to substantiate our chosen future sulvicultural treatments. Basically, a forest management plan structured around the knowledge we have built about Finnish forestry in combination with our unique stand characteristics.

Juha drove us out to a nearby forest where we hiked around each of our plots to discuss past treatment operations in the area, species composition, review of measurement techniques and ask any questions we might have. This was a valuable learning experience to see stand I would be reporting on but also how it contrasts to the other students’ sites. The untrained eye might not notice how tree species, age and management practices change across the landscape but it is very clear to see how foresters have purposefully transformed the composition across our plots. Some things I missed from Cal Poly while we were hiking around were the GPS trackers and compasses we are trained to use when identifying points to return to for future study. Out here we only had our conscious memory and each other to rely on for tracking, but I realize now that these are skills just as valuable out in the woods as well as in the city.

The rest of the week was an educational assortment of Finnish language, livestock feed and heat regimens, agriculture machinery and school farm experience. My favorite part had to be the various tractor-driving activities. I never thought I would have to maneuver a tractor backwards with a trailer attached and it was not pretty in the beginning. After some guidance, practice and many wrong turns I started to get the hang of it. Our machinery teacher Juhani also taught us to take a front loader on and off the tractor, which required some strategic joystick controlling and directions from a helpful friend on the ground who can see things you can’t in the drivers seat. During our farm work we moved hay bales much more efficiently than we did last week. It feels good to be comfortable driving these powerful machines in all directions for a variety of tasks! The exchange students were discussing how the learning process here is much faster and involves infinitely less red tape than Cal Poly’s tractor driving class. We didn’t have to sign our lives away or listen to hours of lectures about what knobs, pedals, wheels, or levers are in the machines we would be operating; we were personally shown the controls then we drove! This is a very different system than we are used to at home and you often feel awkward not knowing exactly what to do but the teacher is right next to you, helping calmly and very patiently, understanding when you make mistakes and advising how to do it differently next time. I feel very lucky to enjoy such an extraordinary learning experience and truly feel like my practical knowledge has grown exponentially because of it.