Getting started on next winter's firewood and clearing windblow

With the spell of good weather we're having at the moment, I took the opportunity to get into the woods and start preparing logs for next winter, and clear up some more windblown trees. For the first time I took the logs home in 2m lengths, as we now have the Truncator to cut them up at home:

Back in the area I coppiced last autumn, the birch I'd left to grow bigger didn't really work out due to the storms...

There was also a sweet chestnut stool knocked over there too:

They were dealt with pretty quickly, I decided to pollard the birch a few feet up, and coppice the sweet chestnut in the hope it will recover in some form:

There was still some space in one of the racks for the logs produced from the work:

The stools I coppiced back in the autumn are showing some new growth now:

The blubells are picking up too, as the wood anemone start to fade...

... much to the delight of the bees of course!

Once I got back home, we got the Truncator out and Tracy helped me process the logs - I chainsawed the logs in the Truncator, then Tracy took them for stacking while I loaded the next lot from the trailer to the Truncator.

We reckon for the volume of logs produced, it had saved about 60-90 minutes compared to our old method of processing and transporting logs, and was much easier on our backs, as there was not much need to pick stuff up form the floor and all the logs ended up in a wheelbarrow.

So we're now started on the road to next winter's firewood...

Of course, the side effect of using the Truncator at home is that the saw chips are all over the drive... Next time I'm going to try putting a tarp down to collect it, and see if anyone wants it for animal bedding.

Oh, and if you missed it, I also uploaded a video of how to make a simple log bench in five minutes!

Mike

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Clearing up after the storm - again!

Before we'd even done all the clearing up from the storm in October, the woodland got hit again on Christmas Eve. No oaks down this time, but plenty of big sweet chestnut stools over:

Quite often, one knocks another over. And in this case another, and then another!

We spent a couple of days between Christmas and New Year sorting some of them out, removing the stems and tipping the stools back into the ground where possible:

As there's so much, we're cutting it to 2 or 3m lengths (according to what it might be used for) and stacking it:

As some of the stems are pretty large, they'll be used to make benches or stools rather than just firewood.

I came up with a neat way of stopping the logs rolling off their bearers without having to build a rack:

But that's just one of the piles of logs, here's another (with plenty more still to come behind it):

And yet another, this one located near the base of this fallen stool simply so I don't have very far to move the heavy logs!

The wood also got very wet - this was how it looked on Christmas Eve, just after all the rain.

I unblocked this bit though, and the water subsided a little as the water flowed under the bridge instead of round it:

Of course, the wildlife carries on regardless - we've added a second bird feeder now, as we've not been in the woods as often with all the bad weather. Here's a Coal Tit feeding...

And a cheeky Pheasant admiring the view from the top of our firewood store...

The wild boar have been active too, with a new mud bath created:

And a muddy trail leading away from it into the trees...

We've also started to bring back logs to top up our firewood store at home. This is 2-3 weeks later than in last year, which is probably partly due to the mild weather and partly the improved draughtproofing at home.

Anyway, looks like it *might* be colder by the end of January, so maybe we'll get some snow pictures again soon...

Mike

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