Sunday 28 March 2021

Coppicing, snow and mushrooms

February brought a week of cold weather, giving us the first proper snow in the woods for a few years:


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With temperatures staying below zero for several days, the ground was rock hard and we took advantage of this to get a few loads of logs processed for customers and ourselves:

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Here's how cold it was - an icicle formed on the corner of the trailer, from road spray!

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It's nice to see the log store at home beginning to fill up again, ready for next winter.

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Alongside the snow we had some murky days in the woods, but the coppicing is now completed!

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We were saved some work at the end because our neighbour wanted us not to coppice some border trees in order to retain a screen for privacy, so they paid a tree surgeon to pollard them instead:

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We were left with a pile of logs for firewood, and that was all we had to deal with! 

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On the final day coppicing I had a small stem do a 'barber chair' - this is why you don't lean round the back of a tree while felling it, even a small tree like this can give you a bit of smack, and a larger one can kill.

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By mid-March, Snowdrops were emerging at the top of the hill:

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And the Bluebells were steadily growing, we're looking forward to them flowering!

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The Wood Anemones were also starting to come out at this point, here's one of the first ones I spotted. There's more now, photos to follow in my next post...

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We did have a bit of time to relax with a hot drink too, but a fire was certainly necessary as it's been quite chilly most days!

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A different project I was working on was mushroom production. Here's some sections of oak branches soaking for 24 hours - interesting to note that green oak doesn't float!

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The logs were them drilled and mushroom spores inserted, with a plug of wax melted in on top of them. The logs are now down at the Community Garden in Rye, and we might start getting a harvest towards the end of the year...

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The mushroom logs came off an oak tree our friend Rich had felled. Here's a short video of him using his Land Rover to haul the butt of the tree into place for later sawmilling:


And finally, back at home our cockatiel Pete is keeping a careful eye on the outside world. Probably a good idea, the way things are at the moment!

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Mike

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