Coppicing

Hazel stool

Thanks to the water logging we haven't got very far with this years pruning. I tend to prune plants very heavily and then leave them a couple of years to recover. If the garden were smaller I would probably rethink this but it works well for here.

Too wet for wood

Odd bits of wood waiting to be chopped

I've recently taken a short break from blogging and in the mean time this post has been sitting in my drafts waiting to be shared. Thankfully it is no longer so wet and I've been able to make a start at some of the work in our garden again.

Wood is very important to us. But one of the issues with this past winter's rain is that we've not been able to process any. Dry cold winter days are excellent for chopping wood and in past years the majority of ours has been completed by February. But when it's wet it becomes dangerous to use heavy tools or machinery and it seems as if we have had nothing but wet for the last few months.

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.

Getting ready for winter

House wood store

We've been working hard, getting our wood ready for the winter cold. The wood store by the house has been filled with all of the 'odd' pieces you inevitably get when working with wood. This particularly includes the knotty pieces that we now choose to cut short as they are such a pain to split when in longer lengths.

Oak not so good

Oak tree with split down trunk

A few weeks ago we had some pretty windy weather, in fact the whole area lost electricity thanks to a lightning strike on a local substation at the time. We only noticed the damage to this tree a few days later.

 

It wasn't hit by lightning, just split. It's a really nice shaped oak tree. We've considered removing it before as it is in an awkward place but it is so lovely that so far we've allowed it to stay. It looks as if mother nature disagrees. With a split going straight through it's centre it is unsafe and will have to get the chop. I hate getting rid of nice specimens of mature trees but at least it will help fuel our heating next winter. Temporarily it has a brace around it, if we can put off felling until autumn we will! A tree without leaves is a lot easier to deal with.

Burning wood

Wood is an important part of our life here. Our central heating and hot water is supplied by a wood burning boiler. The cheapest way to buy wood in is by the timber lorry load! This should last us several years. The downside of this is that we have to process it ourselves which is quite labour intensive but has many side benefits. It has helped that we have made our heating more efficient so can get away with burning less.

 

The photo above shows the big stack on the left hand side, a horse in the middle to help chop and shorter lengths on the right hand side. These will be split and stacked outside to dry before getting moved into our woodshed, you can see some stacked wood drying in the back right of the photo. 

It's hard work but incredibly satisfying. Working with wood is a bit like gardening, it helps me to feel grounded. The tasks are repetitive allowing the mind to wander - but not too far! I can never get away from the fact that the timber I am handling is probably older than I am and deserves respect. What I most enjoy about this process is working in partnership with J. We know what we're doing and it takes surprisingly little time to create a good stack of logs.