A Second Chance for Second Growth

During one of the May rains that finally broke Vermont’s ten-month drought, Gerry Hawkes welcomed the Guild community to his 60 acres in the southern Green Mountains—his woodlot, workshop, and home. The day began with a guided tour of Gerry’s forest, where northern hardwoods now thrive under his careful management. 

Gerry bought the property in 1969, keeping it in the family and immediately setting to work repairing damage caused both by environmental forces—such as acid rain that singed the spruce—and by the mismanagement of earlier generations, who converted the rocky forest into to pasture in the early 1800s, then later abandoned it to revert to woods. “This land has been assaulted. It’s been cleared when it shouldn’t have been…we should be like surgeons.” He affirms, “We should go in carefully, help it recover.”  

When he’s not in the woods, Gerry is in his workshop, building tools to solve problems he encounters on the land. A pioneer in sustainable forestry, he shared several bootstrap inventions that exemplify “Yankee ingenuity,” Connie Englert remarked “like Willy Wonka!” 

Among his inventions are: 

• A radio-controlled thinning winch that minimizes site disturbance and lets the operator stand at a safe distance from the log 
• An armored forestry tractor equipped with a heel boom that lifts logs by the butt, allowing them to be loaded onto a forwarding trailer or bucked into firewood while held at a convenient height off the ground." 
• An electric woodpile mover to ferry firewood from the woodshed to the hearth with ease 

As the event continued, attendees gathered for a group photo with a striking addition to Gerry’s toolkit—his 4 million BTU invasives-busting flamethrower. This eye-catching device sparked conversations about managing invasive species and highlighted innovative methods that can reduce reliance on pesticides and their long-term impacts. 

A standout moment came when Rachel Swanwick, the Guild’s Northeast Program Manager, took Gerry’s electric woodpile mover for a spirited test drive, encouraging participants to think more inventively in their own work. “I have cleaned up my own shop to tinker more,” Connie reflected, “and I was amazed at what a lifelong commitment to this beautiful and important craft could look like in my own woods.” 

Today, Gerry’s practice is defined by steady, attentive care. Every few years he moves through the understory to keep the woods more open, making selective harvesting easier and increasing the value of the property. 

The gathering blended learning, laughter, and community building, illustrating the Guild’s commitment to sustainable forestry and to fostering connections among those who care deeply about the future of our forests.  

It’s a connection the Guild continues to nurture. In July, Gerry will host a tour for the Guild’s summer interns with the National Park Service’s Resilient Forests Initiative, helping to equip the next generation with new knowledge, fresh inspiration, and a renewed sense of purpose in advocating for responsible stewardship. 

Through his patient, hands-on approach, Gerry has brought out the potential of a typical second-growth forest in the Northeast in ways that captivate visitors and offer a powerful example of what long-term ecological forestry can achieve.