Good bye young oak tree

Damaged tree

This weekend we have had to say farewell to one of the prettiest trees on our property. It was a lovely oak that was damaged a few months ago in storms, we found that it had split down the middle. Since then it has been braced with ropes but that hadn't prevented the split from continuing down to the base.

Split going through the middle

 We decided to wait until the leaves fell before doing anything about this. They didn't all fall until almost Christmas after which we have had rain, rain and more rain. Finally, on Saturday we had an almost free weekend without too much rainfall and decided to tackle this mini-monster.

Lots of firewood

J left the bracing on and felled it in one piece. That was the easy part. Clean up takes much longer. After a bit of pondering we decided that rather than add to our already enormous but very wet bonfire pile the brushwood could be used to top up our dead wood hedge. This hedge offers us privacy but is also great for the wild life. I can also harvest kindling from it when it gets a bit older. 

Dead Hedge

I admit that the tree defeated us in the end. It is almost finished, all of the brushwood is tucked away. But there is still a bit of work to do with a few branches and the trunk. By the time this is finished there should be enough firewood for half of next winter, there was much more timber in this tree than we had expected.

There are still a couple more trees on our property that we want to fell but this wasn't one of them. It was a lovely shape, healthy and in a good location. But sometimes Mother Nature gives a nudge and we just have to go with it. Good bye, young oak.