Tuesday 29 October 2013

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...

IMG_4463 St Jude storm damage 2013

Quite a few coppice stools are leaning, and will be dealt with in the next few days:
IMG_4451 St Jude storm damage 2013

Some have come right down:
IMG_4452 St Jude storm damage 2013

while others had a 'domino' effect:
IMG_4454 St Jude storm damage 2013

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:
IMG_4458 St Jude storm damage 2013

IMG_4460 St Jude storm damage 2013

There was also a branch in the path by Sweep Wood:
IMG_4456 St Jude storm damage 2013

it had come from this oak tree:
IMG_4457 St Jude storm damage 2013

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:
IMG_4464 St Jude storm damage 2013

It's made a bit of a mess and I need to go back up there to sort it out with a winch...
IMG_4465 St Jude storm damage 2013

IMG_4466 St Jude storm damage 2013

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

Mike

2 comments:

Giles said...

Will you push the fallen coppice stools upright and try and re-root them? Or cut them off short at the base, and hope they re-sprout?

Mike Pepler said...

Both - cut them off as we would if we were coppicing them, and then tip the stools back into the ground. They may get to re-root and grow next spring then. They'll be in the shade, so won't grow fast, but they'll stay alive until we next coppice that area.