Busy day cutting firewood and felling trees for The Pelham

Today was a busy day! I arrived at the woods at 07:45, and after sorting some odds and ends out (like a culvert blocked with leaves...), I used the Truncator, mounted on the side of the trailer, to cut some logs to take over to The Pelham:

As I videoed it for the time-lapse using my GoPro camera, I know it took 28 minutes to cut about one cubic metre of loose logs, which I think is pretty good!

Once these had been unloaded over at The Pelham, my friend Dan and I got on with felling the trees in the car park - here's a timelapse video of the first two stems coming down:

The trees weren't huge, but we put the Tirfor winch on them anyway as insurance, as having them fall the other way, into the gardens of the adjoining houses, was not an option! We got a decent pile of logs out of it, which will be split up at some point in the next few months, and hopefully will be dry enough to burn next winter:

I also made a stool out of the bottom of one of the trees, which could be used in The Pelham once it's dried out. Here's Ollie, who works at The Pelham, testing it out:

Don't forget, if you're local to Bexhill, that The Pelham coffee bar opens in a couple of weeks:

Post by The Pelham.

Mike

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Coppicing update

There's been a few days with nice weather during December so far, and it's been great to spend them cutting trees in the woods:

I've had several pheasants coming to watch me work - they aren't sufficiently afraid of humans for their own good! Fortunately for them I wasn't out to shoot them.

The trees I've been felling have been yielding a decent quantity of wood, so I've had to build several more racks to store it in, but the tricky bit is always find a place for them where they won't be in the way of trees I'm yet to fell. In this case, I felled several trees first and cut them up:

Then built a rack where they'd fallen, using some of the logs from them as bearers:

Then the remainder of the logs made a good start towards filling the rack!

Of course, plans and the wind direction sometimes change as you go along, and this tree didn't have a clear space to fall into. But it was very satisfying to get it to fall just where I wanted it, missing this log rack on the right and some regrowing trees on the left:

As well as the racks of firewood, there's also a nice pile of logs which will make good benches at some point in future:

And also lots of blanks for making one-piece stools:

It looks like there'll be a few more sunny days over the holidays, so I'm looking forward to spending some more time up there - I shouldn't need many more days to complete the work I've planned for this winter.

Mike

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Moving towards winter in the woods

I was up at the woods this weekend after a few weeks' gap, and was struck by the shift from autumn towards winter... It's looking quite different there now:

I was there to do a job though, and got on with loading my Truncator:

Sawing the logs:

Tipping them into the trailer:

And repeating until there was a trailer full of logs to take over to The Pelham...

It's a great benefit having the Truncator for jobs like this, and as you can see in the above photo, when the job is done you can simply cover the trailer and drive away without detaching it. I made a video last year detailing how it is set up and operated.

Mike

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Windblown coppice into firewood logs

I did a day's work in the wood this week, converting all the logs I'd winched and chainsawed earlier into firewood, ready to burn in a couple of years' time.

It was an ideal time to use my Stein Arbor Trolley! I certainly wasn't filling it to the top though, as this was heavy, green wood I was moving - but it still reduced the number of trips back and forth significantly, and it's also easier pulling logs on wheels than dragging them, providing you have a fairly clear path to take.

I prefer to season the wood in long lengths, so it's easier to handle and also so that the decision about what length to cut the firewood can be postponed until I know if it's for us or for a customer. So the next step is to use a maul and then wedges to split the wood:

I've made a video about this too, if you've not already watched it:

After that, it's just a few steps to the log pile:

That's about half our firewood for a year sorted already, and there's still more windblow to cut up!

I see the weather is likely to turn properly to autumn soon, but hopefully I'll still find some drier days to carry on with the woodland work...

Mike

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Winter firewood all prepared

The winter's firewood is now ready! It only took us 5-6 hours to fill the remaining half of our store at the woods, using the new equipment we now have. Step one was to load the seasoned wood into the arbor trolley:

Next, wheel the trolley round to a suitable location and then the wood and be quickly transferred to the Truncator a few pieces at a time:

Position a wheelbarrow and cut off any long bits poking off the end of the Truncator:

Then move along and use the chainsaw to cut through the gaps in the Truncator:

Push the wheelbarrow along and tip the logs in (in practice Tracy was pushing the barrow while I tipped them):

Then take the wheelbarrow to the nearby log store and stack the logs - Tracy was doing this while I was loading the next batch of wood into the Truncator and sawing it - we had two wheelbarrows so we could both keep busy.

We got most of it done in an afternoon, then popped up the next morning for a couple of hours to finish the job:

There was still a bit of space in the log store at home, so after stowing the bench in the trailer, we mounted the Truncator on the side of it and loaded some more logs:

Then followed exactly the same process as before, but with the logs ending up in the trailer:

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As the Truncator was securely strapped down, we were able to just drive off when we were done, and sort everything out when we got home. Nice to have that job finished! :-)

Mike

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Time-lapse video: chainsawing logs with the Truncator

Earlier this week I took the opportunity to make a time-lapse video of chainsawing logs with the Truncator. I collected a load of 18-month old Hornbeam, Holly and Hazel from the woods:

Plus some ready cut pieces of Holly thrown into the back of the car:

Here's the setup back at home for processing the logs using the Truncator logging bench:

And here's the video, taken using my GoPro. Note some delays in the video while I use an axe to split logs that were too big...

I did initially experiment using an electric chainsaw a friend had passed on to me, running from our off-grid solar panels:

But it turned out to be a bit under-powered for the job, so I switched back to my petrol-guzzling Husqvarna 346xp. Still, worth trying the electric one - I might see if I can try out a more powerful one somewhere.

Mike

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More clearing up windblown trees

I carried on clearing the windblow today. Here's how part of it looked at the end of yesterday:

and here's how it looked at lunchtime today:

As before, some of it is firewood, but some is useful for other purposes, such as these sections which will make nice waist-high chopping blocks (glove for scale):

and these which will be turned into stools:

Finally, here's a stem I left on the upturned coppice stool, to see what kind of shape tree it grows into:

Mike

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