Forest Ecology and Regeneration

This seems a very suitable photograph for the day, as I am deep in Suzanne Simard's book "Finding the Mother Tree". 
As I read this book I thought about many similarities with Richard Power's book "The Overstory". Power's Pulitzer prize winning book is fiction, whereas Simard's is autobiography, a memoir. It was no surprise to read on Wikipedia that one of Power's characters, a forest ecologist Patricia Westerford, was heavily inspired by the life and work of Suzanne Simard.
Anyway, back to my photograph. 
15 years ago the 120-year-old forest growing here was felled and we found that without the trees there was a wonderful view opened up to the distant horizon. Since this is 5 minutes from our house we built a rough bench and table and often carried our morning coffee up here. Those bits of grey timber in the foreground are the remains of the bench and table, where we sat and enjoyed the view.
Now, 15 years later, I'm standing on a large hummock above our coffee spot and despite being 6 feet above the bench can only just make out the horizon. There has been a lot of growth in 15 years!
Simard's book is partly about her research finding that birch and fir trees cooperate via the Mycorrhizal fungal networks linking up their roots. By doing this both the tree species and the fungii benefit and are less vulnerable to catastrophic changes.
The tree species most visible in my picture are those birches and fir trees she wrote about. There are quite a few rowans too. All those have grown from small trees left by the tree-feller, or are self- seeded. 
Pines are the most valuable crop so after the forest was felled the farmer planted pine seedlings but they didn't thrive and he had to replant a couple of years later, and once again in some places a year or two later. I can only see one pine in my picture, the top visible on the far left and looking like a bottle brush!  They grow more slowly than the firs  and are also considered far more tasty by deer, elk, voles, etc. so they have a hard life, until they get large enough to shrug off the herbivores.
Assuming climate change doesn't alter the weather too much, or cause too many super-storms, these trees will be ready for harvesting somewhere around the next turn of the century. They will maybe get thinned out once or twice in that time but otherwise they are pretty much left to their own devices from now on.
This coffee spot doesn't function for us any more but fortunately 50 meters to my left is a raised area, from which we will be able to see the view while drinking our coffee for another 10 years or so!
If you have read Power's "The Overstory" you'll probably enjoy Simard's book. If you haven't read "The Overstory" and you are a reader then I'd absolutely recommend that book.