Over the past week I've been working in my friend Alex's wood, cutting trees to make a new ride - he originally had no rides at all through the 7.5 acres of land. We actually made a bit of a start a year ago, going from this:
to this:
Moving inside the wood, Alex and I spent a few hours last weekend and made this progress on the other side of the (currently dry) stream:
By the end of the week it look like this from that viewpoint:
and a bit further in:
and further in still:
What's left is the section bounded by the trees marked with yellow paint, the other side of which is a small clearing we created a couple of years ago:
Coming back from that end, this is the view:
At the end of the week I flattened off some of the stumps - this really blunts the chain on the saw (due to inevitably hitting dirt), so is best done just before you go home to sharpen it!
I had to clear up some windblown chestnut as part of this work, but it was still actually alive and so I got some good logs to use next year for building a bridge over the stream, and the tree itself may well recover to some extent.
There were also a couple of more problematic trees, like this chestnut:
which had been growing through this gap:
and was only brought down by using the tirfor winch and ploughing a long furrow in the ground!
Anyway, it was all OK in the end. I'll be back there soon to finish the job... Once it's done, there'll be a nice ride to walk/drive into the wood, and it should also help improve the biodiversity by letting in patches of sunlight - I've already seen increased insect life in some parts of it.
Mike
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