Starting 2021 in the woods

2021 has been fairly wet so far around here, but we did get some sunny days and made the most of them in the woods.

Although Spring is some way off, especially with a snowy week about to hit our part of the UK, the plants in the woods know that change is coming. Dog's Mercury is getting going:

Lords and Ladies plants are pushing up leaves that are gradually unfurling:

And the Bluebells are poking out of the ground again:

While we've been coppicing we've saved quite a few chunks of wood like this to pass on to Dengate's Farm Shop, where David is drying them and then turning them into beautiful wooden bowls.

Here's David with a bowl made from some Ash we passed on to him a few months ago:

We have of course been coppicing too - we went back to the top of the hill to fell a few small trees we'd left earlier, which needed a rope to stop them falling into the yard next door:

And yes, I ended up working in a water-filled ditch again...

Further down the hill, here's a few views of how things look now, we're not far from the end of this winter's work:

Just beyond the point where we'll be stopping this year's cutting are a couple of trees that we didn't fell last time round, and they've grown on nicely. First is an Ash:

And then a Sweet Chestnut:

Both are taller than the surrounding coppice now, and I hope to leave them to grow into large trees. Here's the Chestnut just over 10 years ago, when it was looking much more slender:

And finally, a friend was asking how to make stakes using a chainsaw, so I made this short video to show how it's done:

That's all for now!

Mike

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Coppicing, stools and benches

We had a productive day in the woods yesterday, coppicing a few stools and adding to the pile of split and stacked firewood, ready to burn in a couple of years:

I also picked out a number of straight sections as I went along and made stakes from them, which will come in useful at some point:

I also turned some of the logs from windblown trees into benches for the community garden in Rye. There's a video of how to make the benches here.

I also made a couple of stools (again, video here), one for use at the wood, the other to sell:

Finally, when I got home I found this bizarre sight  a mushroom had been growing under my car! Presumably it's feeding on the wood chips lying on the drive, left from cutting logs up with the Truncator (video here):

It looks like the weather is turning colder soon - it'd be nice to have a frosty day to work in the woods, it's a bit warm at the moment when wearing chainsaw trousers!

Mike

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Time-lapse video: chainsawing logs with the Truncator

Earlier this week I took the opportunity to make a time-lapse video of chainsawing logs with the Truncator. I collected a load of 18-month old Hornbeam, Holly and Hazel from the woods:

Plus some ready cut pieces of Holly thrown into the back of the car:

Here's the setup back at home for processing the logs using the Truncator logging bench:

And here's the video, taken using my GoPro. Note some delays in the video while I use an axe to split logs that were too big...

I did initially experiment using an electric chainsaw a friend had passed on to me, running from our off-grid solar panels:

But it turned out to be a bit under-powered for the job, so I switched back to my petrol-guzzling Husqvarna 346xp. Still, worth trying the electric one - I might see if I can try out a more powerful one somewhere.

Mike

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A quick bit of chainsawing in the woods

With the glorious sunshine yesterday afternoon, a quick trip to the woods was in order. The priority was to use the chainsaw to quickly produce some small logs to split up at home for kindling, which was done in pretty short order:

I also took up a treat for the wild birds, which I'm sure they'll appreciate now the weather is colder...

As there was still a bit of daylight left, I popped over to the area I've been coppicing, which is looking pretty barren now the leaves are mostly gone:

I didn't stop long, but managed to make a small start on the empty log rack I'd left there. These logs should be surplus to requirements, so we're able to sell some in future winters (this year we've only got enough to heat our own place...).

It was pleasing to see that the logs in the rack I filled back at the start of September have already started showing signs of seasoning, with a few of them developing splits in the ends:

Looking forward to burning them in a couple of years!

Mike

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Clearing up after the storm, October 2013

As you might expect, we had a bit of storm damage in the woods after the 'St Jude's Day Storm', which hit the UK in the early hours of Monday 28 October. Nothing too major fortunately, some coppice stools and one oak that kind of broke in half...

Quite a few coppice stools are leaning, and will be dealt with in the next few days:

Some have come right down:

while others had a 'domino' effect:

Note - this is why you have to be TWO tree-lengths away from a person felling a tree...

Some of the stools I cleared up yesterday, after the wind had died down:

There was also a branch in the path by Sweep Wood:

it had come from this oak tree:

Here's a quick video of me using a chainsaw to clear the fallen branch and also a coppice stem that was leaning over a path, taken using a chest-mounted GoPro camera:

The oak tree that split up the middle was up the top of the hill in Chestnut Coppice:

It's made a bit of a mess and I need to go back up there to sort it out with a winch...

Still, could have been much worse, we're thankful this is all that fell!

Mike

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Spider webs, a broken chain and a coppicing milestone

Last week I reached a milestone! I've now cut enough wood for winter 2015/16! I'll still cut some more, so there's a bit spare in case of hard winters or friends wanting to buy an occasional load in a couple of years' time, but it's good to know the minimum is now done.

But perhaps more interesting is how the spider webs look now that there's dew in the mornings!

These trees were full of them! Now I see why there are so many running around after I've felled a tree - I guess they are all suddenly looking for a new home...

I had a little mishap as well - a chainsaw chain snapped, the first time I've seen this happen. It wasn't dangerous - there's a couple of bits on the saw to deal with this happening and I use a short bar when coppicing so there's not much chain anyway. It just made a metallic noise and ended up on the floor in front of me...

Anyway, here's a couple of views of the area I've been coppicing:

And here's our 2015/16 home heating:

Mike

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