 We have 19 million acres of forest land in Arkansas. We are growing about annually 50% more pine than we're harvesting. And we're growing about 40% more hardwood than we're harvesting. We've got numbers going back for 70 years that tell us that. Well, we've built beautiful, productive forest in Arkansas. 1978, we had 17.8 million acres of forest land. Today, we have 19 million acres of forest land. We have built more forests in these last 50 or 40 years. And we're growing more wood than these really fast, some people call them hot rod sawmills, can cut. So I believe because we built it and others will see that we're growing way more high quality timber than we're sawing or cutting, they'll come, markets will come. We're going to have to be patient, but markets will come. So Arkansas landowners, some 214,000 family forests that we have in Arkansas, they're receiving about $400 million a year in payments for the timber that they have harvested. This typically ranks in the top five in terms of Arkansas crops. So it's very important in terms of landowner income. Then when we look at the logging industry, the sawmill industry, and the paper industry, in terms of value added, direct contributions are about $3.5 billion to the state economy. And when we look at those multiplier effects, it comes up to over $12 billion in terms of output and about $6 billion in terms of value added. This represents about 5% of the state's economy. And when you look at Arkansas's economy and its dependence on forest industry, we are the number three most dependent forest industry in the nation, behind only Maine and Wisconsin. Number 13 southern states, we are the most dependent state on forest economy. So we're looking at about some 60,000 jobs, total contribution. We're looking at average salaries that are about $55,000 a year, which is above the state average. So these are good-paying jobs in rural communities that support a lot of retail, a lot of doctors and dentist offices. They provide a lot of options for people in the rural Arkansas that wouldn't exist otherwise. This track right here, this is one of our tracks and we have just recently harvested, final harvested this track. And we're in the process now of getting it site prepped for ready for replanting this following planting season. We're planting this track with a machine. We are big into machine planting, which we also provide that service ourselves as well. And machine planting is very beneficial. The survival rate is very good on it compared to hand planting. Machine planting is usually about 90% survival plus we're hand planting. You could get 90% but most times from what I've seen, you know, you've got a human area in there that could cause it to be around 70, 75% survival rate. And the growth rate of the machine also helps the seedlings from the rip that we put in, the packing of the soil from the machine. It just gives the trees the best start that they can have. The downside to machine would be a cost. It's just a matter of the client or landowners option to spend that extra money to make sure that they get a good start and good growth on their trees. With machine, we plant those on a eight by 12 foot spacing. That puts out 454 trees per acre. If I'm hand planting, I wanna plant more trees because of the decrease in survival rate. So I'm gonna put more trees out there. Usually it's about an eight by 10 spacing is 545 trees per acre. As far as the acreage that we've determined that it is, we can either GPS the track. If we also do skitter spraying as well, this track will be skitter sprayed. And on our skitter sprayer, we have a GPS on it. So when we spray the track, we've got the number of acres that we completely spray at that time. So I know the acres that the track is and know how many seedlings I need to get for that particular track. And you can do aerial spraying. We do aerial spraying as well. Or we contract out the aerial spraying. This year has been very tough on the logging as well as the planting end of it. Machine planting, like I mentioned it, the wet weather can hurt it because the tracks are too wet and not only is the, we plant with a dozer and a small planter behind it, but that can make the dozer not stand up in wet sites, but it also can make the planter not plant properly. And that's what we've ran into this year, not as much the dozer falling through and getting stuck as much as the soil is just too wet and the pack of wheels are not able to pack the seedlings properly. So we've ran into that issue this year and it has made us move later in the year of planting than we normally would. But I think with the moisture that we've gotten and all the, everything we've been given, I think it's gonna be fine. I believe we're gonna be okay, pushing it that late in the year, so. At about age 15 after the trees are planted on a pine stand, you'll operate or have a first thinning and you'll take out the poor quality trees, the slower growth trees, the smaller trees to leave a good stand. And then after about another eight to 10 years, you will have a second thinning and do essentially the same thing and leave a stand that is ready for your final harvest. So you will have crop trees left, your best trees that are, have your best growth that are gonna produce your most desirable crop tree when it's mature. So along the way, you will perform some activities that include burning, as you can see, this stand has had a fire go through it to control unwanted vegetation or you will have a herbicide treatment which chemically kills unwanted vegetation. That total time period from plant to harvest on a pine stand similar to this is approximately 30 years. This stand is approximately 25 years old, so it has had a first and second thinning grow about five more years before final harvest. If it's a hardwood stand, you have a much longer time period. It usually takes up to 70 to 80 years, maybe 100 years before that stand has a final harvest of mature trees. Southern Pine Beetle is a major pest that we look out for and we've been fortunate over the years that it's not been a major problem the last few years but it's always something that we look for and the major solution to that management is to harvest the trees that have been affected and also those on a buffer that have not been affected. That's always something to look at on a yearly basis to make sure that that's not a problem. There are other pests that are not as big a problem as the Southern Pine Beetle. That's the major devastating pest that we face in a pine stand but you have some pests that will kill two or three trees. You have lightning that occurs that sometimes kills a tree here and there but pesticide treatment is not really an economical option on forest management but there are some that do that but generally it's not an economical option. The first thing that I tell landowners that are looking for that is first determine what your objective is. What do you want to accomplish from this forest from your stand? Once you determine that whether it's monetary, whether it's recreation, whatever it may be, contact a forester or someone that has experience in that area and talk to them about what you want to do and try to accomplish those goals. Sometimes it means you don't do anything. Sometimes it means you want to want to have a harvest, want to have a thin. Sometimes you want to harvest it, replant it. It varies but contact someone that you are comfortable with, someone you trust, check references, visit with someone that you feel good about that can help you establish and accomplish the goals you're looking at. First when the forest department decides that a stand is ready to be harvest on first standing or second standing or even as we see here, clear cut, final harvest my job is come in here, check the boundary lines, flag them so the person on the fell buncher can see the lines clearly. Then check the ground, make sure it is ready to what we won't rut the ground a lot. And then actually when I do that and mark the SMZs I bring the crew in here with crew foreman, walk over the land with him, have any questions for him. I can answer those, make sure he knows where all the lines are and any problem, any SMZs that might occur, answer those questions for him. Then once we bring the equipment in, the fellow buncher will cut up the trees, cut the trees, put them in a pile for the skitter to bring to the de-limber. At the set, and at the set the de-limber de-limbs the trees, then it cuts them up into pup wood, logs and put them in separate piles to be taken to the mill. If you have a super weather and a 40 acre plot it could take anywhere from two to four weeks. And it all depends on if you have breakdowns or if you have the different mother nature brings to you. God might tell you it needs rain and so you have to lay off some, but usually even 40 acres is two to four weeks. Whether this year has been extremely difficult, it has, we have lost some time there, just like anybody else, but to take care of the land and take care of it properly from the planting all the way to the final harvest, the final harvest if you don't wanna rut it too much so it will cause problems on the planting and stuff. So it has been difficult, but nothing that we hadn't experienced before. Trucking is a big part of it. You really don't realize when you go in the logging business you also need to be in the trucking business. So it puts you in the trucking business. When the trucks get, once we get the logs put into the set the trucks come to the logging set and pick up the logs and take them to the mills. We have to have drivers. There is a shortage of drivers in this area in Arkansas and in the logging industry right now, but we manage, we have contract trucks that come haul logs too, but we have to have our own trucks and we have to have drivers. There, trucking is a big part of the logging industry. Here we have around 20 trucks. We have about 10 contract trucks. So we run about 30 trucks up and down the road in Arkansas every day. You'll see tri-W logging on the door anywhere in the state. We kind of cover about a 50, 60 mile radius of rise in Arkansas, but we go to mills all around. Wherever the mills pay for the lumber, pay for the logs, we take them there. Logs cost more than the pulpwood. Pupwood normally goes to the paper mills, logs go to the log mills, make lumber and as far as the value of that load of logs on a truck, you know, you could be anywhere from $300 to $1,000 per load. South Arkansas, one of the biggest industries in South Arkansas is timber. Of course, this timber is grown here, but it goes all over. So it takes these trucks to get it there. Most of the time, private landowner tracks, they don't have good access. So we have to build roads in to get the large equipment in and be able to pull the logs out with the trucks. So we come in prior to the logging job moving in. A lot of times we'll have to bring some equipment, some logging equipment in, such as the fellow bunchers or the skitters, to cut trees out beside the road. Then we'll bring dozers and track goes in, dump trucks, build the roads, get them compacted. We even put a roller packer on this road to make the compaction good because we're coming up a pretty steep hill coming out of this actual location. Most people think, well, you got timber, you just hire a logging crew to come in and cut it. Well, that's not usually that. We normally don't have access. As in this case, the land, the track of timber does not touch the county road. So we have to get access from the adjacent landowner that would connect us from the track of timber that we're working on to get us to the county road. And in the process of being able to haul out on to the county roads, we also have to talk with the county judge, put up bonds, stuff like that to be able to use the roads in their counties. My interest in forestry started in 40 when I was a kid. And that led me into college with a degree in forestry and I went to work for a couple of industries around and then went into business or self in about 1972. And from that we've grown into where we are now. We bought timberland and owned timberland. But the main thing was to offer services to landowners in order to do it. And that's what this sawmill does. It gives an end product to the landowners in developing when they grow their trees to maturity. We sell here at our mill, we've got hardwood, making ties, lumber for furniture, for pallets, for trailer flooring, the hardwood flooring for houses, all of the products that we make here end up going to those to the final process. As you harvest timber and you harvest the pine, it ends up going into sawmills, the construction lumber for homes and buildings and treated products that people have used all along. Utility poles comes out of the forest here. We have a utility pole treating plant here in Ryzen. All of those things come out of the forest. We have, as you've seen where we had harvested the trees, some of that product goes to the paper mill, which ends up making a paper product, such as paper towels, toilet paper, magazines, used to be newspaper brands, not as much as they used to be. And all of that comes from the forest that we harvest. The logging produces the logs out of the woods for the landowners, and then they go to a final destination for harvest. Some goes to paper mills, some goes to OSBs, which is in construction now. It takes a small log and makes a good product out of it for cheating and plywood. A lot of the landowners are small landowners that have, it's a family history in their land. So their history was to grow trees, and to produce a product, and to keep a perpetual income coming from that forest. Over the years that has developed into what we call the even age management, which is clear-cutting and planting and having row crops in pine trees or row crops in hardwood trees. I started out with the desire to help landowners. I wanted to see that the landowners got the full value for their products that they had on their land. And so we've developed our company along that line assisting landowners. We assist landowners in planting trees, because they're growing trees and harvesting trees, and now in milling trees and producing the final product of it. And so I've seen it come from wagons to skitters. At one time we took farm tractors and made skitters out of them, take dozers and make skitters out of them. Now we're producing equipment that is specialized in going out into the timberland. We see the cutting machines, the skitters, and all the products that are specialized. We have technology in this mill that replaces, we have young people out there that run in the mill that used to, an old man had to do it because he had to have the experience and the experience and the know-how of managing the equipment there. I can remember where a logger, if he thought he could get four loads a day, was doing good, and now we can get 20 loads a day. And that lowers the cost of producing the product to the home owners and others that are out there because everybody's got to make a living, but the more we can produce with the equipment, the better off we are. Nothing we do in Arkansas, in forestry, in timber markets now is independent or in a silo away from the rest of the domestic market or the international market. Tariffs in China affect loggers and sawmillers in Arkansas, big time, especially in the hardwoods. And so we are connected to everybody and the good thing for the markets for timber is the population continues to grow. It's a little scary about that on some other things, but we have the supply of wood for paper, for shelter, for furniture, for the growing world population.