Tree Farmer of the Year 2021
21 Woming Tree Farmer of the Year
Delbert and LaRae Blocker
Throughout the decades the Blocker family worked to keep up with the recommended thinning of their ponderosa pine timber stand to help maintain the timber stand health. As their boys, Alan and Daniel got older they helped, Delbert and LaRae as well with some cost share thinning practices to help support some of their school activities expenses. Production and selling of firewood has also been an income and fuel reduction avenue the Blockers have utilized throughout the years.
The family was creative in ways to thin as the different stand diversity of age allowed or necessitated throughout multiple decades. Some stands have been thinned multiple times. At times catching the regeneration at a young age with pruning shears and later moving up to chainsaw for brushing activities with the kids and grandkids help.
Beyond processing firewood from their property, Delbert and LaRae have also added to the diversity of the tree species on their tree farm by adding a small orchard. Which have produced some apple crops throughout the years, but the location is hit and miss due to spring frost damage to the blossoms a lot of years. Mother Nature is not always cooperative, with warm weather promoting budding and blossoms early, then changing back to frost conditions for a few weeks that caused the loss of fruit production for the year.
They were instrumental landowners in the creation of a “Forest Stewardship – The Conservation of Wyoming’s Forest Inheritance” brochure that was utilized for many years to promote the Wyoming Forest Stewardship and forest management in Wyoming. The Blocker’s worked alongside their Wyoming State Forestry Division and industry forester(s) in developing their management plans and getting signed up for the forest management programs to assist with theirs and other’s education of forest management.
In the brochure, the creating collaborators chose to quote Brenda Wilkins as below….
“For those whose steps will follow mine
on this forest path one day;
I’ll manage the resource to ensure,
And someone will know I passed this way.”
In the more recent years Delbert and LaRae helped the Wyoming Tree Farm committee create timber sale ticket books for use by the Wyoming Tree Farm landowner’s timber harvest. They were also instrumental in the production and distribution of more than one thousand “Howdy” signs to promote Wyoming wood, local markets and the western greeting with local businesses and forested landowners.
Plus they have assisted with the local coordination and promotion of the Wyoming Tree Farm program, wood utilization and other education efforts for several years. One example was the promotion of the Wyoming Bucking Horse that was hand crafted from Wyoming tree farm lumber and presented to the local American Legion in honor of their historical years of service to Wyoming and the nation.
Delbert and his grandson Corbin installed a bat house next to the forest on their property to enhance bat habitat for a warm protected area for the little pups. They like to have bats around for insect control and their thinned forest allows for openings for the bats flight routes.
The Blockers are proud of the family work and dedication that they have done to help ensure their forest resources. They enjoy sharing their forest with their family and building memories that will be dear to their hearts for a long time. They have been dedicated Wyoming Tree Farmers and Forest Stewardship landowners with a dream that has seemed to work well for them.
