smallguy

I think I read another post of a fellow here driving 4 or 5 hours for theirs from south/mid england up to scotland? Just wondering what the different distance people have chosen are and are willing to travel.

All depends what it is like when I am over there. If no rodent issues interfering with me I will be very happy to leave it do its thing. Btw will that stuff be good to put around newly planted trees, which I have planted over most of the field already? Is that advantageous? Maybe leave it til it breaks down more to be more manageable?

I never said you were not right. I said in the OP I wanted to see if it was better to leave it, which the majority opinion is. I wouldn't have made the post if I didn't care at all, I would have just gone and done it. From that picture that is far far more manageable than mine! It is more like a 'blob' for me of all manner of detritus compacted together, much of it soil too. I imagine they just used a digger/loader whatever it is called to scrape everything up. So would more accurately be called a heap of soil and scrub mixed together in a soup. The soil has compacted down over a year so that it is like trying to pull branches which are submerged in the ground. Perhaps that gives a better idea of what I am dealing with.

Read it on a woodlands.co.uk article. What then do you suggest as the common tasks involved at the nascent stage? Not sure what else there is to do when they are just whips except watch them grow?

Yea but the whole two acres of brash is an extreme case and not something that will be repeated again. Would be a much smaller scale of management thereafter I would have thought? What else is there to do after replanting, which I have already done? Don't they just look after themselves mostly until they get to a certain size? Nature seems to have done alright without our intervention for a long enough time? I understand they would want more tending if there was some commercial interest but that is not what I have it for, just want it to enjoy.

Seems like my fate is sealed around here now that I am a lazy guy who likes to murder helpless creatures rather than do a hard day's work.

Is it just set and forget now until they get to a big enough size to want coppicing? I am more interested in them becoming trees than cutting backfor any other purpose. I may do a bit of that but I want to enjoy it as a woodland first and foremost.

Space is not the issue it is the rodents. I have not spent enough time over there to see if they would actually be a problem yet, just planning for that if it is. Leaving would certainly be my first choice actually. Also I have replanted willow on most of the 2 acres, is it good to put it under them instead of burning to 'feed' them as it is otherwise low quality clayey soil?

As above like to use hand tools. Well there is no big food source except wildlife as this is an empty field and no other human sources for a good way. I don't leave food out that is for sure. Only before I knew about them and that would have been once or twice. Maybe it is just voles since they can naturally live in fields? Haven't been over there enough to know the extent of the situation for sure just the gnaw marks and droppings is the evidence. I don't know what constitutes many. I have seen a few droppings and a lot of gnawing. Maybe it is only a few doing a lot of damage?

In these cases how do you break up the pile? I am guessing power tools again?

I don't want to use power tools. Just have a range of hand tools and don't intend to get any due to the increased risk. Maybe that is the difference of why people are assuming it is easy work and I am being lazy as power tools are just the norm. I enjoy using hand tools anyway, in general, as getting exercise is part of the enjoyment of being outside. Of course this is just an exception with this pile which makes it hard to make any progress with the hand stuff but that was put there before I came with a digger so it is not an occasion I would have dealt with otherwise.

Same with the rodents! Making several smaller fires in bits is probably better than making a massive wickerman style raging inferno anyway. Will have another reccy and see.

It is not the size it is that it is awfully tangled together as I mentioned. It is like a ball of computer wires with every branch grabbing another and rooted to the floor/larger pile. No it is not dry by a long shot, where you living that you would expect it to be dry with all these storms we have had? Getting the fire going would be least of my issues though, freeing from the pile is the major task.

Problem is it is very entangled and compacted. If it was easier to move I would have done it by hand but it a massive. 2 acres worth of small trees all intertwined with mud and other detritus oh and also metal wire woven in there to make it all the more trouble to free parts from the pile. It is probably about 4x6m wide and a couple high. If I sink the 3 pronged fork like thing in it - don't know what it is called for removing topsoil - when I pull it mostly just gets jammed. I tried moving a few loads to add some bulk to muddy paths and was extremely slow work I gave up after 2 or 3 loads. So is it like the piles on my bum that I am now just stuck with them?

I recently bought the plot some months ago. Not been over the side in question much but now would like to develop it. The site was cleared before purchase and the brash piles must have been there almost a year now, having noticed them even when I came to look at the land last year. There are lots of droppings around that area where I had just been mucking around using as a makeshift basecamp to cook here and there. I would be fine for live and let live however since I now want to go over there to work the area and use storage and even sleep sometimes then our paths become at odds. Most importantly I want to park my van there so don't want them getting in it to chew it up. I have read that one should not do it now as hedgehogs might be in there. Should I wait or just crack on? There is long grass too and seen field voles several times so it could be them and/or mice or a mix. Rats have bigger dropping I have read so guessing might not be them or I might not be an expert dropping identifier I don't know. I don't have heavy machinery to clear that brash and even if I did I have seen the ratting videos where they all scamper as soon as their nests are disturbed. Burn in place seems the most logical option. I want to clear the piles so they don't have any obvious hiding places. I am certainly also concerned if it would harbour other nice creatures but how can one know? We have to sometimes break some eggs no? Even none vegetable crops small animals die in the harverster and other heavy machines don't they? Just being alive and moving in the world is going to kill something eh? When digging we guillotine many worms with the shovel thrusts. I figure with a fire that gives them fair warning to get out and smoke is even used alone to flush them out as a tactic and then if they stay it seems as human as other killing methods since a roaring fire will probably be quick? I am all for peaceful solutions but since I want to park my van there want things cleared so there are minimum hiding places and don't want rodents to chew the van wires cos then I would be stranded. Just trying to look for the general modus operandi in such situations as it is all new to me being a land owner and having such moral quandaries of rubbing up against other creatures.