Clearing up the brash after felling the Sycamore

Now we're both back at our 'desk jobs', we're making slow progress finishing up this last job in the woods... Fortunately, we had help last Sunday - Lee, a carpenter, came to see where his raw material comes from, and was a big help clearing up the brash and logs from the Sycamore.

It's a slow job...

But we're getting there... Here's Lee having a go at splitting logs using a maul and then wedges:

We're not far off done now, there's three big butts on the ground now:

This weekend should finish the job for now, weather permitting...

Mike

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Tidying up, and the last tree felled

We popped up to the wood Saturday morning for a few hours, to enjoy the sunshine and get a few jobs done. There's still quite a bit of tidying up to do, and it really needs to be done before the re-growth starts, which I guess will be in a few weeks.

We've ended up with far more oak brash than we need, so we cut some of it up today, separating it into piles of nice branches to keep and leave to rot down for wildlife:
and the twiggy bits, which are being burned:
We're keeping piles of twiggy bits in some places too, but if we kept them all we wouldn't be able to move!

On Tim's last day felling here, he took down the large hung-up birch for us (in return for keeping it for firewood), which you can see here:
What's nice is that the root plate has remained stood up, with the pool under it:

So, we were left with the big twisty chestnut. We'd wondered whether to leave it, but it didn't actually look that healthy, so we figured it would be best to coppice it and let it make a fresh start.

Now you see it:
Now you don't:
And that's the last tree down!

Mike

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