First snow in the woods this winter

Yesterday saw the first snow of this winter fall in the woods!

OK, not much yet, but another inch fell today, and from the forecast it looks like there could be quite a bit more by next weekend.

Our friends Carl, Wendy, Holly and Tom came to the woods with us, though Tom got cold, so he headed home with Wendy after they'd collected some of last year's Hazel for kindling. It's a good job they did, as then the weather did this:

but that left it looking quite scenic:

I'm not sure these pheasants were too impressed though:

We actually got quite a bit of work done, despite the snow. We took the ropes this time, and Carl gave a lot of help with them, and also splitting logs. The biggest job of the day was a Hornbeam stool which had several tangled stems on it. I climbed into it to get the rope as high as possible on each stem:

Then after I'd put in the felling cuts, Carl pulled the rope to finish the job:

It was a pretty awkward stool to work, as most of the cuts were around shoulder height, which is not an ideal position to be using a chainsaw:

In between pulling trees over, there was a fire to keep going (or not)...

Holly took over as guest photographer, and got lots of interesting photos, such as Carl trying to figure out why the fire wasn't working...

and a nice snow picture:

Being Hornbeam, there was a lot of brash to clear up, and it's a tough wood to saw through and even tougher to split.

Thinner parts were striped to aid seasoning:

while the thicker bits were notched to make splitting easier:

Last of all were three intertwined stems, which had to be roped together and then felled in a group:

They were the most awkward of all, but we got them down and cleared up before the end of the day. There'll now be a lot more afternoon sunlight coming in - I'll get a photo when we're next there...

Mike

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A change in the weather

This week the wet and windy weather finally stopped, giving way to sunshine and the risk of frost - much better for working in the wood!
This also meant mist some mornings, but that clears away soon enough.
The birds seem to prefer the sunny days - we see the Robin a lot more, and the local Blackbird is getting braver, visiting us where we have lunch.
I spent the early part of the week working in a ditch
Actually, a muddy ditch, and I put a layer of branches in the bottom to stop me sinking:
Anyway, it's all cleared out now, apart from a few small trees which we'll have to get our neighbour to fell from his side of the fence.

I finally got to use my new double pulley this week:
With this, and the two single pulleys, we can now set up a rope that goes round a corner and then onto a 4:1 pulley system, making it very easy to pull over the leaning trees at the edge of the wood. These are the first two we used it on:
The ones remaining at the right are more problematic, as three stems have twisted together - we're going to take some advice from more experienced foresters to find out what to do to get them down safely. You can see the twisted stems in the photo below, along with the logs from one of the two trees we felled:
Meanwhile, Tracy was busy working on one of the larger chestnut stools:
Yes - I did manage to photograph the tree half way to the ground!

It's hard to believe that these trees have grown to this size in just 16 years, but they have - we counted the rings.
We do feel like we're making some progress now, with a space opening up down the hill where Tracy's working, and quite a difference in some of the dense areas alongside the neighbouring barn:
Let's hope the weather holds for the coming week, when we'll be up in the wood for three of the five days...

Mike

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Three ropes, three anchor straps, three figure-of eights, five carabiners, a pulley and a winch

That's what it took to fell an awkward tree without damaging a telephone line and a garage...

But more on that in a short while. Before we started coppicing we went to fill the trailer with firewood. This time we tried driving in forwards, unhitching the trailer and then turning round in the junction near the pond. It worked nicely, and was much quicker than reversing in...
I had a quick look at the re-dug pond, and the recent rain has started to fill it already:
With the trailer loaded we went back over to Sweep Wood to get on with the coppicing. We were pleased to find that there were plenty of hot embers left from yesterday's fire, under an insulating blanket of ash. We added a few sticks...
then some more...
and before long...
Keeping the fire lit overnight saves at least half an hour every morning...

It was pretty wet again today, which slowed us down somewhat, but Tracy felled a whole Hazel stool and processed a good pile of poles from it, which we're going to sort into different diameters tomorrow:
We also felled a couple of Ash stems that needed roping to bring them into the clear area. The roping takes time, but not as long as trying to deal with a hung up tree and move lots of wood around after felling.

I also worked on a Hazel stool, but a very awkward one as several stems were overhanging a neighbouring property. Here's the final stem, which was the most awkward. Not only was it leaning over a garage, but the top was also through a telephone line, and the tree to the right is a part-dead Cherry that we want to leave standing as a dead-wood habitat...
So, out came the ropes and various other bits of second-hand climbing gear I bought over the summer - not for climbing, but for roping trees. An important thing with ropes is not getting them tangled. A trick we learned on the coppice harvesting course last year was to keep the ropes in bags - you just feed the rope in and out, and it doesn't tangle!The red rope was fastened to the tree, and the other end connected to the pulley, which the white rope went through:
The red rope is locked off in the figure-of-eight, which is fastened to the pulley using a carabiner. The two ends of the white rope were securely anchored to trees, again using figure-of-eights and carabiners. Figure-of-eights allow you to easily take in slack in the rope, and then lock the rope off securely.
Next, I took out the slack in the red rope, then the white ropes:
leaving the tree already being pulled in the desired direction:
Using the pulley increased the force you can exert, although not quite double in this case as there's a substantial angle between the two sections of the white rope. Tracy kept an eye on the rope (and took pictures!) while I put the felling cuts in:
We then both heaved on the rope and the tree came over, but hung up (as expected) in the Cheery we want to leave there.I put in a second set of felling cuts higher up the stem to allow the tree to now move sideways:
and we fastened another rope on:
We tried pulling it by hand...
but this wasn't enough, so we used the winch..
and after a bit of faffing around the tree was finally down safely:
just leaving the stump for me to clean up...
It was a lot of trouble to go to, but we did get it down safely, and left the Cherry tree intact, which were the main goals. It was also a good chance to practice with with all the rope kit I'd bought.

One interesting bit of wildlife to report, which the guys at Wild About Britain tell me is the caterpillar of the Pale Tussock moth:
And last of all, a picture of Tracy all muddy after a wet day in the woods!
Mike

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