SWOG meeting near Ashford

As Tracy mentioned, we went to a Small Woodland Owners Group (SWOG) meeting at a wood near Ashford last Saturday. Tracy had of course done all the organising, though fortunately she had a team of helpers on the day. The wood itself was 176 acres, and very diverse.
The morning was a little damp, but that wasn't too bad as we were indoors (yes, this wood has an "indoors"!) having a talk from Peter Buckley on different woodland soil types and the species of tree that grow well in them.
After this we split up into groups and dispersed into the wood, each group with one or two forestry experts to answer questions.
By lunchtime the weather had brightened up considerably, and the afternoon was actually quite sunny.
There were various things to see during lunch, include the boar's skull we'd brought, and a display of different dormouse and other nests.
This is a dormouse nesting box - if you see one, DON'T look in it, as that's illegal unless you're a registered dormouse handler.
WoodlandsTV were there filming too, and David Rossney (who Tracy and I trained with) deliberately hung up a tree and demonstrated how to bring it down safely. (Here's my own post with similar info, which I learned from David)
All in all it was a good day, and everyone seemed to have fun and learn a lot. The next SWOG event is a butterfly ID day in May, being held in our own wood. Keep an eye on the SWOG Forum for news on it.

Mike

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Back to the coppicing...

My busy period at work has drawn to a close for now, so we were up at the wood today. Also, I'm only working two days a week for the next four weeks, so we'll have lots more opportunities to get up there.

We got straight back into coppicing along the footpath, and with the clearing of small stuff completed a few weeks ago we made good progress. Here's a before and after shot of the area I was working:
and here's Tracy's area:
I realise those photos don't really do it justice, so here's some from the stile and the furthest point we've cut to on that stretch:
As you can see, there's quite a corridor building up now. I can't wait to see how it will look next summer when everything starts growing. I have visions of it being filled with birds and butterflies, but we'll wait and see if the sunlight entices them in...

One important point to mention is dormice. After a visit from a local dormouse officer (yes, they really exist - these creatures are protected by law!), we've taken their advice and left "pinch points" across the path, where trees touch over the top of it. You can see two of them in the above pictures, one is the holly tree, the other is the oak that's been struck by lightning. If these points aren't left, then the dormice can get stuck in one part of the wood, as they generally only travel in the trees, not along the ground. We've never actually seen a dormouse in the wood, but we've been told to assume they are there, because they probably are.

We been able to put some of what we learned on the coppice harvesting course into practice today, using our shiny new 3-tonne (overkill perhaps? Or just planning ahead...) slings to hold up benches:
although sometimes the banks of the path plus a coppice stool or log pile get the bench high enough on their own, as below, where I've just snedded a tree felled onto the bench.
The whole point of this is to keep the tree at a comfortable height for working without having to bend over, and also avoids the risk of the chainsaw touching the ground, which can blunt it pretty quickly.

Anyway, that's all for now. We're at a wedding tomorrow, so won't be up at the wood. Sunday looks like the weather may be "interesting", in which case we might go to the wood to take some pictures, but probably not to work. Monday we'll be back to coppicing again :-)

Mike

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