An extra pair of hands

Today we were pleased to have Keith, a friend from SWOG, visit to help out at the wood. In return he got lunch and a chance to try out some of the tools we're using prior to buying them himself - he's doing his chainsaw training in December. Thankfully he wasn't put off by my woodland dress-sense - I don't pay much attention to the colour of what I'm wearing when working in the wood, and today managed to wear red, green, blue and orange:
Tracy headed off down the hill a bit and worked on some Chestnut and Hazel, producing a good pile of logs:
meanwhile Keith and I cleared some Hazel and Holly at the edge of the wood to clear a path for felling the Sycamore that are along the boundary and leaning over our neighbour's yard. They were pretty awkward to fell, as they're growing out of the side of a steep bank, and have forks in some of the stems:
We used both pulleys to set up a 3:1 system again, as we did earlier in the week. This time though I used the land rover as the final anchor point:
After all, it does weigh about 1700kg, and this anchor point was after the 3:1 ratio, so wouldn't get pulled too hard. The land rover's well out of range of the tree though - I've seen too many YouTube videos of trees landing on cars to make that mistake...

Keith helped a lot with the ropes - it made a big difference having an extra person, as Tracy could focus on her patch while we worked on the Sycamores.
Where the stems fork you have two choices - fell them together, or fell each separately above the fork. We did both during the day, dictated mainly by the (very annoying) ivy that sometimes binds the stems together. This was one where we felled above the fork:
Keith heaved on the rope at my signal:
And Tracy managed to get an action shot of a tree falling:
As the day progressed the view through to Francis' yard became more clear:
Here's a couple of before and after shots. You can see the Sycamore getting thinner to the right of centre, and where Tracy was working to the left of centre:
We've got friends visiting tomorrow, and will work in the wood again on Sunday we think...

Mike

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Felling some big trees

Seems like we've hardly had any time to sit down in the past week, with coppicing, work and stuff on in the evenings... Anyway, here's an update on the work over the past few days.

This week we had a few larger trees to fell, the tallest being this Sycamore:
First though, some Chestnut at the other end of the clearing we've created needed to come down to make room for it:
There were a few small stems to get out of the way first:
Then we set up a simple rope system:
using the big Sycamore as an anchor for a pulley:
so that we could be stood behind the trees as they came down:
They were dealt with pretty quickly, and we collected some chestnuts that came off them as they fell, to eat later on. Most were too small, but there's a few that were OK, better than last year!
Before we moved on to the Sycamore, I noticed that some butterflies are really making the most of the autumn sunlight we've let in to this part of the wood, including this Red Admiral:
and a Speckled Wood:
OK, on to the Sycamore. Here's the picture of the big one again:
Also, there's a smaller one next to it that we needed to fell too. You'll notice that behind it is someone's garden, and there's a phone line too, so we had to make sure this tree fell in the right direction! To do this we set up the ropes and pulleys to give us a 3:1 leverage. The red rope was fastened as high up the tree as possible, using an extendable pole with a hook on the end:
Then the end of that rope was anchored in a figure-of-eight, which in turn anchored the end of the white rope and a pulley:
The white rope carried on to another pulley anchored to the Chestnut stool we were felling earlier:
and from there back up to the pulley you saw earlier (here it is again):
From that pulley, the white rope then headed down to it's anchor point, well out of range of where the tree would fall, and where we pulled from:
This means that for the force applied at this anchor, double the force was being applied at the pulley attached to the Chestnut (as there are two lengths pulling on the pulley), and triple the force was applied where it all joins the red rope (two lengths on the pulley and the end of the white rope anchored there).

Then it was time to put the cuts in...
and after a bit of pulling it was all safely on the ground:
Sorry there's no video, but we were both pulling on the rope!

Of course, that was only half the work, as it was a big tree to cut up - you can just see Tracy in the midst of it here:
However, it wasn't long before we had a clean trunk - I hope to finally get to use the sawmill on the butt of this tree to see if I can make some planks...
One last thing. We found the branches had a lot of lichen on them. We didn't burn these (or quite a bit of the ivy), but left them in a pile for wildlife.
A friendly little Robin really liked this, and some pictures of him will come in the next post...

Finally, here's a picture of how the clearing is looking from the other end as it grows:

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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