When Larry and Nancy Mauter got married in 1992, they decided they wanted to have a plan for retirement – something different.

Larry was a newspaper editor at the Telegram-Tribune daily in San Luis Obispo, Calif., at the time. He met Nancy when he suffered an injury and visited her physical therapy practice.

Although San Luis Obispo, where Cal Poly State University is located, is considered one of the more desirable locations to live in in the Golden State with its “Mediterranean” climate, they wanted something “greener,” Nancy said.

“We wanted to be in a forest environment.”

Larry said they considered “different things – not necessarily a business.”

“We looked at starting a trout farm, fish farming, and that was way too complicated.

“We looked at Christmas trees, also pretty complicated,” especially since they were still living and working in SLO.

“So then we started looking at timber property,” he said. After searching in Oregon and Washington, they found an approximately 15-acre mixed-forest parcel on Bellinger Scale Road, near Mallard Creek Golf Course.

That was a plus, since Larry also liked to golf.

Nancy Mauter, left, has nurtured a pollinator garden in a meadow that was a failed planting during the El Nino year of 1997. – LCSWA photo

“I saw the plans for the golf course two years before it was built, right? I said, ‘OK, well, there’s another factor.’”

They did the deal and bought the land in 1997, making the 850-mile trip a few times a year to stay in a fifth-wheeler and work on the south-facing property, which had been logged and had not yet been replanted, Larry said.

Larry, who has a double major in journalism and environmental studies, said that the internet was just starting to take off in the 1990s, so he was able to access Oregon State University Extension Service information on the computer.

“I kind of self-educated myself.”

They finally moved to Lebanon, in 2015, after Larry finished his working career with seven years at Hearst Castle, north of SLO. They built a small, comfortable house and settled down to grow trees.

Thirty years later, they’ve been named the 2026 Linn County Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year by the Linn County Small Woodlands Association.

“They don’t have a real big tree farm, but they’ve done an exceptional job with it, especially controlling all the noxious weeds,” said Jim Merzenich, LCSWA president and one of the early Tree Farmer of the Year honorees. “Nancy has the pollinator garden and they’re kind of emphasizing that. It’s just well taken care of.”

Linn County is one of five Small Woodlands chapters in Oregon that name a Tree Farmer of the Year, and a state selection team will visit each honoree’s woodland this summer, Merzenich and Larry Mauter said. A recognition luncheon will be held in November, where the state Tree Farmer of the Year will be named.

Getting to this point has been a long process for the Mauters, a lot of it just learning about trees.

“There were some challenges,” Nancy said, adding that the distance between SLO and their tree farm did not work in their favor, statistically.

“I read a study once looking at what are the reforestation rates in terms of closeness to your forest. You know, one to five miles – success. When they got out to the 800 mark, it was like ‘Don’t count on it.’”

Discussions on the trail June 20 included chats about habitat piles and maintaining a mixed-species tree farm. – LCSWA photo

The weather didn’t help, at least initially. That first year, 1997, they replanted in what turned out to be a hot, dry El Nino year and that – especially the southwestern exposure to blazing sun – didn’t help their young trees.

“They got cooked,” Larry said.

They did a replant two years later, this time with a lot of Willamette Valley ponderosa pines, which were better suited to the conditions.

Another challenge has been the soil. The best ground is near the base of the property, along Bellinger Scale, rising 200 feet to the top of the property, he said. “Up the hill it’s mostly cobble.”

“We have a very diverse forest property,” he said. “We’ve got a mixed age and a mixed stand. We’ve got about 30 varieties of trees on the property, so it is forest property rather than a typical plantation farm.”

Merzenich said their land, which once comprised the south end of the Udell property, is “volcanic ground.”

The soil looks like it’s in Sisters, Oregon. It’s remarkable what they’ve done with it, the success they’ve had with Douglas fir and cedar.”

Over the years, the Mauters have both been very involved in LCSWA. Larry was one of the creators of the Robert H. Mealey memorial at Sunnyside Park, a demonstration forest featuring 60 Willamette Valley Ponderosa pines and a memorial information kiosk. LCSWA members maintain the grove. They’ve also been very active in the LCSWA Seedling Sale and on the Scholarship Committee.

Larry has also been a board member for the organization and has handled much of the publicity, including writing articles that appear regularly in The New Era.

They’ve put in a lot of work on the property, which now is covered by a wide range of conifer species and hardwoods. Bluebird boxes line the hillside along the trails, and Larry said they have a wide range of wildlife on the property.

The Mauters hosted a tour of some 45 visitors, including some family members, of the property June 20. Even that was an educational experience.

Larry Mauter surveys his forest, which includes a wide variety of species, during a tour of the property. – Photo by Scott Swanson

“I was asking a lot of questions,” Larry said. “‘How would you have handled this,’ or ‘What should we be doing?’ I got a lot of good responses.”

They showed off the forest and Nancy’s pollinator garden, which is a recent project.

Nancy said the property finally looks “healthy.”

“Everybody says it’s very healthy, whereas before it wasn’t healthy.

“It’s a really nice forest now. It’s looking good.”

Merzenich credited the Mauters with taking on a daunting project as retirees.
“They wanted to physically do something, get involved some place,” he said. “They didn’t want to live in a retirement community.

“Every tree farmer, big or small, has a story to tell other tree farmers and I thought they have a really good story.”