Coppicing this week

We had Monday and Thursday working in the wood this week, again focusing on the footpath. Here's an example of the progress we've made, with a picture from the start of the week: and at the end of today:
Here's the view from inside, before:
and after, with much more light coming in.
With the birch already felled and logged, it's been pretty easy where I've been working to get some chestnut down. I cleared a section near the stile:and was then able to set up some racks to store the chestnut logs:
After today these are now filling up, with large non-straight logs for fuel, and small straighter logs for other uses, such as stakes and garden furniture:
There's a third pile too, of all the smaller twisty bits and offcuts, probably just for us to use in the wood for cooking on, or anything else that comes to mind. If they don't get use they can just rot (slowly, being chestnut) and provide food for fungi and beetles.
Tracy's also been busy, working further along the path. You can see a pool of light in the distance, looking from where I've been working:
She's been felling birch so far at that end, and has a few nice piles of logs building up, and more light coming down to the ground.
Once we get along to this point with the chestnut we should be able to make fast progress, as with the birch out of the way they won't get hung up very often.

One highlight of the day was a cooked lunch, consisting of chilli con carne reheated in our adapted fondue burner:
and rice cooked on a wood fire in the cast iron BBQ:
Tracy took a quick trip to the pond at the end of the day. The plant growing in it is continuing to spread:
but a new one (which we will try and ID) has joined it:
Our next trip to the wood is on Saturday, as we have a journalist and photographer from BBC Countryfile magazine coming to visit us. Apparently they're doing an article on why people are buying woodland.... we'll be sure to give them some interesting answers ;-)

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Cooking in the wood

On Saturday we were up in the wood to finish logging and splitting some birch, and took the opportunity to try out our new cooking device. Ever since seeing a "Mongolian hotpot" cooker at the Wood Fair last year (see a picture half way down this page), we've been looking for one. Well, we didn't find one, but what we did find was a fondue cooker at a boot fair for £2, and after a bit of persuasion with a hammer I managed to knock the heat spreader plate out of the middle of it to give a clear chimney up the centre. Here it is in use:
It works a bit like the Kelly Kettle we have, with the fire going up a central conical chimney, around which the food sits in a toroidal section for cooking:
We just used it to reheat chilli this time, but I think it would work for frying stuff too, as long as you stirred it frequently. We cooked the rice on the cast iron BBQ with a wood fire inside it:
After lunch Tracy sharpened her chainsaw (which she blames me for blunting!)
and I measured and cut up some four and five foot logs for a customer to use for making several raised beds to grow their veg in:
Tracy also took a wander round the cant we cut last winter to photograph the greenness that is spreading over the woodland floor:
Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

A productive day

We started out promptly yesterday morning, and called to see Jenny, who lives near our wood, on the way, just to catch up about the various goings on in the wood and the village. We also helped her cut down a pollarded sycamore that was growing into the road.

The first job when we got to the wood was to cut down a small fallen tree between Chestnut Coppice and Sweep Wood. On the way we spotted yet another mushroom. I've tried to ID it, but do to so I'd need to pick it and break it up I think, so I'd rather leave it there:
Tracy dealt with the tree - she wants to get more practice in with the chainsaw, having passed her course using it. Here's her working:

It wasn't long before it was time for lunch. For cooking, we use the BBQ, but the pan sits where the charcoal would normally go, and you make a wood fire in the belly of the BBQ.
Tracy made us a yummy potato and veg stew, and it tasted all the better for not being cooked using fossil fuels! :-)

After lunch I got on with logging and splitting more birch, while Tracy dealt with a pile of chestnut trees that we'd left full length, producing a pile of poles for garden furniture:
and another pile for burning in stoves:
We were pleased with what we got done, so took the morning off today to catch up on jobs. We're about to go up now with the trailer to get our first load of birch to sell...

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.