I've had some time off work this week to do the CS32 Felling Medium Trees (380-760mm) chainsaw course. Our instructor is David Rossney of Esus Forestry Training - Tracy and I did the coppice harvesting efficiency course with him a few years ago too. Basically, after this course, and exam, I'll be qualified to fell trees up to 30" diameter.
There's some felling videos to come in a moment, but first a few pictures. We've been learning about properly removing the buttresses of the trees:
How to make an accurate gob cut when the tree is wider than the chainsaw bar:
and also about high-lift felling wedges:
and how to use them:
OK, here's a quick video showing just the highlights (i.e. trees falling) from day 1:
If you'd like to see the whole process, and what happens on the CS32 course, here's me felling a tree:
This is an update on an earlier post that Tracy made a few weeks ago, where she promised I'd post some more pictures. Well, a month later, I've finally caught up...
At the top of my parents' wood was a tree opposite a house: the problem with it was down at the base, where it split into two stems near the ground, and the one leaning towards the house was rotten, with a fungus growing in it: Although the tree was stable, it was only a matter of time before a storm came in the right direction at the right time of year... so it needed to come down. You'll have noticed the proximity of the road and power lines, which made it a job we couldn't tackle ourselves. Fortunately Tim had a cherry picker on hire in early March, so we took advantage of that and booked him to come and deal with the tree before birds started nesting in it. It was still a fairly tight space, and Tim used the entrance to Francis' yard to park the cherry picker in. Some of the work was done with a chainsaw and some with a pole saw Once all the limbs were off there the stem was felledThanks to Tracy and Penny for doing traffic control throughout the operation!
OK, I know that's not quite the title of the Pink Floyd song, but it's near enough.
Here's Number 3: Number 3 was the last oak remaining to be felled, though first I coppiced a small area for Tim to fell it into: and here's what happened to it after that:
It's funny - we felt really bad about felling our first few trees last summer, but once we got into the coppicing we kind of forgot about that. Seeing all the oaks down was another leap up though, and looked quite shocking, but I must have adjusted, because my main thought seeing this one come down was "Yes, the job's done!". With all the oak now extracted, the site's beginning to look like it should: Tim burned up about half the oak brash, which is a lot easier to do when you have a tractor there! We're keeping the rest to leave for wildlife to hide in, though we haven't decided where to put it yet. There's quite a bit, so we're hoping Colin will want some for Dome Wood too! The tractor seems to be good at other jobs too: It's carrying out some birch there - we're selling a good chunk of it to Tim for firewood. Now we can start the process of tidying up - we need to sort out the poles for use at the allotment, and also those we're selling to the guy making garden furniture. And after that we can start to think about building a new shelter to keep our stuff dry up there...
Last but not least, I heard a rustling on the other side of the wayleave when I arrived, and was lucky to catch a shot of this female pheasant: Mike
Well, we didn't just take a walk in Sweep Wood of course, we went to Chestnut Coppice too. And we were pleased to see the tractor's been in, and there's only four oaks left to do now. The tractor doesn't do too much damage where it only drives once: but where it has to repeatedly it can get a bit worse: and the soft patch we had at the entrance has taken a hit: We knew that was likely to be a troublespot, and were planning to do something about it. At least half the ditch is dug for us already now! We'll need to dig it out a bit more I think, and possibly fill it with something that will improve drainage and also be a bit stronger.
One good thing though - the track in the wayleave is compeltely undamaged by the tractor: Here's the tractor and woodpile: Out in the wayleave things are really coming to life now. This willow is covered in catkins: Lots of birds around too. I got a couple of shots of this blue tit: And this video, so you can hear the noise the birds are making. Turn the volume up, and watch for the bird making its escape!
We also saw this, which I think is one of those things that an insect makes for the larvae to grow in? And back in the wood the bracken is making a comeback: We don't mind a certain amount of bracken, but it does tend to take over and shade out the other plants, especially in the wayleave, so I expect we'll clear some patches of it.
Tracy popped up to the wood today, to see how Tim was getting on thinning the oaks. He's made a lot of progress, and a lot of mess too! (p.s. Don't worry, only half the oaks are coming down in the patch - the rest will be there for decades) Here's Tim at work. His procedure was to use a winch to slowly pull the tree over, having made cuts such that it was ready to fell, but pretty stable. This was required because they needed to fall against their direction of lean. We'll be up in the wood again tomorrow, as the Rother Butterfly Conservation Project are coming to do a bit of coppicing along the footpath. It's getting a bit late for coppicing, so we'll have to check carefully that they're not disturbing any wildlife. There's still a bit to finish off in our own wood too, if we can make our way round the oaks on the ground!
Tracy also insisted I put these pictures which she found on he phone from a while ago. Look closely at the second one to see what I was using for a knife, and especially a fork! Oh, and the other bit of news is that after more than two months in the house, our birds have finally decided that it's safe to come down to the table: Perhaps the change to the new cage (which they only go in at night) has persuaded them that they can be more adventurous?
