Many endeavors busy Pat of all trades
- By Jeff Zeringue / Forests & People
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Pat Deshotels managed the family tree farm of Bryant Kountz for many years. When Kountz retired, and soon passed away, Deshotels’s role changed a bit with the succession of the property.
His answer was diversify.
Deshotels still manages the property and continues to replant longleaf pine that was damaged by Hurricane Laura five years ago. Kountz had a love for longleaf and wanted to restore the forest like it was in the 19th century.
“It was depressing ... it was shocking,” Kountz said in the December 2020 issue of Forests & People, “but you know what? I realize that every adversity presents some opportunity.”
Although the 15-year effort was wiped out in the four hours it took the storm to pass through the area, Deshotels continues to help restore longleaf to the forest for Kountz’s surviving family.
But that isn’t the only legacy from Hurricane Laura. Salvaging as much of the toppled longleaf as he could, Deshotels still has some he mills at the Bonne Terre Sawmill in southwest Allen Parish.
“After Bryant retired, I went on my own,” Deshotels said.
Several longleaf salvaged from the hurricane are now submerged in holding ponds awaiting use. He uses them for special projects.
Deshotels also purchases other logs from local landowners, not like mills that mass produce lumber. And he does keep several different species on hand for sale, such as oak. When visited in March, he said he has had several orders for live-edge boards.
Some of the board he mills are used to build products.
The entrepreneur reached out to a nearby funeral home asking if he thought locally made caskets might be something in which clients would be interested.
It was, and it wasn’t just another product.
“One of the joys in life with a small sawmill,” Deshotels said, “is helping the people of the community.”
Deshotels gets help from James Change, Seth Eaves and Matthew Gray who help build the casket and make engraved pieces of wood to make it more ornate.
“It’s a rustic look that apparently people like a lot,” he said.
Another venture is the making of a small house. Deshotels is constructing it on site, large enough to live in, yet small enough to transport to a lot.
His heart, however, remains in the caring of the land. The mill helps there, too.
“The sawmill became the cash flow to manage the land,” he said.
Deshotels is leasing part of the Kountz family property to restore the native grasses and to incorporate grazing.
Blue stem is a dominant native grass that is good for grazing. He’s used prescribed burns to help restore the grass to the 400-acre site with 20- to 25-year-old longleaf.
In addition to the grazing — introducing cattle allows for soil disturbance and nutrient enhancements — the wildlife biologist said the grasses should also help develop good habitat for quail.
It will all work together, he said, with the range of longleaf growing in that area of Louisiana, the longleaf ecosystem can be reconnected, like what Kountz envisioned. It’s way to manage the land in an economical and practical way that keeps conservation at the forefront, while still making a profit that helps keep the native ecosystem thriving. It’s not an either/or situation.
“I want to prove that conservation value can provide economic value on private lands,” Deshotels said.
There are other endeavors for Deshotels. Cabins on part of the Kountz family land that once was the Crader Lake Wellness Center used by Kountz to promote healthy eating and lifestyles, still has its organic garden and greenhouse, including a fruit orchard near the 15-acre lake.
The cabins no longer are used for retreats, for now, but one of them houses Deshotels’s fertilizer business. With the help of a friend and his wife, a recipe was developed and La Bonne Terre organic fertilizer is still mixed and packaged at the site.
If that didn’t keep him busy enough, Deshotels also owns some forested land on which he thinks he can grow hemp to make textiles. This textile hemp is grown only for its fiber and has a negligible amount of THC, the psychoactive compound found in cannabis plants.
“I really think we can grow hemp for textiles in the forest,” he said.
