Big J

There is a lot of replanting here, with quite a regimented and strict process for restocking. As best I can tell (and I haven't looked into it in depth, as it doesn't come into my work) the clearfell is completed, a few months pass and the brash is fully extracted. Then the ground is prepped (ripped, mounded, that sort of thing), sometimes enriched and then replanted. 95% of planting here is pine or spruce. They inevitably have issues with invasive birch growth, which is repeatedly cleared using clearing saws. Usually at least twice before the first thinning, and then again just ahead of the first thinning. Sometimes a birch crop is preferred, but not often. There are probably (by area) more mixed deciduous hardwood blocks here than in the UK, but as a percentage of the overall forest makeup, it's only very small.

That as the case may be, such tight planting was also done when labour and materials were cheap. At £3.50 a tree, supplied, planted and tubed, tight spacing is economically unviable. It's good news that the greys are being managed with you. I still wouldn't risk planting oak! It only takes one game keeper to retire and you're back to square one!

So sorry Doug. That's awful to hear. 16 is a bloody good innings, especially after his rough start.

Yeah, fair point. I've seen so many young oak stands over the years and I honestly can't remember a single one that wasn't destroyed by grey squirrels. It's all fine and well being for biodiversity, but most people that plant oak don't seem to realise that what they plant will never make the beautiful oak woodlands they're expecting. Or at least not without 30 odd years of consistent squirrel murdering.

Yep. Just can't see the point of planting oak myself.

It's not 3ft. 2.5m x 2.5m is normal. Or 2.0m x 2.5m. Sometimes it's 3x3m but it tends not to produce very good quality trees.

0c, snowing lightly outside. Heavy snow forecast for the next three days.

We've had all our snow melt and it was even up to 8c yesterday. There is still a couple of inches of ice on the lake though. It's starting to turn colder again now, with today's drizzle turning into sleety snow. Minus 11 forecast before the end of the week. If it's of interest to anyone, here is a temperature comparison for 2022 (with December's figure coming from 2021, as the 2022 data isn't available yet) between our old home in Cullompton, Devon and our new home in SE Sweden. It's a fair bit warmer here in summer (about 2.5-3c, but with cooler nights) and a lot colder in winter. Edit: I put the figures for record low and high the wrong way around for Målilla for Dec 21.

We've been looking after a friends Jack Russell for the last couple of months whilst they're in India. Yogi (the name of the dog) is actually originally from Goa, and he's 6 years old. We've got him until March. He's generally OK. Understands a fair few commands, but whether he actually obeys them is another matter. Monumentally stubborn. He can be a right laugh sometimes (like playing ball with him on the frozen lake) but it makes my blood boil when he doesn't come back immediately when called. He has no problem with hearing. Being originally from India, he has to wear a coat when out in colder weather, and his ground clearance is somewhat limited. A bit of an issue in the forest! Whilst he can't help his stature, or his (lack of) training, it's just serving to reinforce how much I miss our dog, Katie. It's also demonstrated that I'm not ready for another dog yet either. I won't be sad to give him back in March.

Haha! Not quite. Our village lake is 24m deep in the middle. The corner we're skating on the moment is only a metre deep though, which I'm happy to take the kids on. It's been cold here, but not sustained for so long. I'm given more confidence though as I saw a few groups out ice fishing this morning on my bike ride.

Minus 8 overnight here. Just under 0 now with a thaw in prospect. We went ice skating on the lake yesterday and will do the same again this afternoon. I've only been skating 10 days, but am really enjoying it.

If it's any consolation, our forecast is pretty mild after this weekend. Long range is for proper winter is to come back mid January. I quite like that winter comes and goes here. I think if we were further north and it was 5-6 months of snow, I'd get bored of it.

We had 4 days of plus degrees (up to about 5c) but it wasn't enough to thaw the ground. I'm standing on the lake as I type, with 10cm ice thickness, so will be cracking out the ice skates this afternoon too 😎

A dusting of snow and minus 12c here this morning. Ski slope fully prepped now ahead of Boxing Day opening

Shared venture 😎

We very much do. It's done 700 trouble free km for us up to now, but the full load seemed to be a little too much.

Collecting our forwarder in Gothenburg didn't go so well today. No issues on the drive over, but shortly after loading and pulling out of the port, rolled over a rough bump and snapped a leaf spring on the front right. 26 year old, fatigued metal I guess combined with its first full load in a while (I presume). We definitely weren't overweight as everything was weighed. We had to limp to the customs inspection centre before midday, offloaded the forwarder, found a garage to repair the truck and now getting the train across central southern Sweden. Not a day to be repeated, especially not when you've been up since 01:00.

Hmmmmm. Is society f*cked? Yes, probably. Is this something new? Probably not. Cheap credit is something that I think is underpinning so much of what has gone wrong recently, and what continues to deteriorate. Not only does it allow people to extend themselves way beyond their personal means, but I feel it also undermines the very notion of value, and what something is worth. Many things in life are much cheaper than they once were, but most of the big ticket items aren't. Houses and cars for instance. As an example, the start price for a Ford Focus in 1998 when first launched was just under £9900. RRP for the base model now is over £26k, whereas £9900 adjusted for inflation is only £20500. This debasing of the value of things has been allowed to happen slowly over a period of time, and has been largely hidden by rock bottom interest rates. Now that rates are rising, it's become rapidly apparent that no one can afford it. It feels like a large adjustment is coming. As someone very rightly pointed out earlier in the thread, it should not take two people working full time just to pay rent on a home. Our crappy mini-farmhouse in Devon was relisted after a fairly superficial decoration (excepting a bathroom replacement that was long overdue) at £1750/PCM by our greedy, multi millionaire former landlord. For 103 square metres and 3 bedrooms. He's already had to drop it to £1500, but who the hell can afford that for a 3 bed house that's largely unheatable? I digress. We need as a society to go back to a time where credit isn't the first choice but the last resort. If we live life on credit, we're beholden to banks and are in effect in indentured servitude. All this wonderful modern technology that's available to us should be used to improve our quality of life, not used to find new ways to repress us.

I think our slope is small enough not to require winching! At least I hope it is!

It was an interesting evening, looking at the mechanics of it! There are two types of snow maker on the hill. The tall poles are driven by compressed air and the turbine type ones use what looks like a jet engine to propel a fine mist out. Both require the air temperature to be 4 or 5c below freezing, and due to the warming temperatures last night (minus 11 at 18:00 and minus 4 at 22:00), we shut down the snow production for the time being. The water is drawn from the lake and is driven up the hill by the largest water pump I've personally ever seen (110kw). Whilst the snow is being made, someone is always on site to supervise (24hrs a day). I don't think anyone is paid to do it. It's all volunteers. This was my first shift, and I'll certainly be back. I've never been skiing, but intend to learn. They are also eying me up to drive the piste grooming machine with my machine driving experience. That'll be something for the CV! This isn't the exact machine they have, but it's almost identical.

Warming fairly quickly now. Up to minus 6c. We had a great afternoon skating on the lake (only my second time on skates) and then I've been helping at the ski slope with that snow production. First time driving a snow mobile too!

Winter perfection. The misty cloud on the hill is snow production at the ski slope.

Minus 21.2c. 1.5m above the ground, away from the house.

Nice! That's the difference 400km makes! It always seems funny when people down here say that they don't get proper winter. Nearly minus 20c feels like proper winter to me! 😁

It's very close to minus 20 here. 18.8 below to be exact. It'd be nice to see it actually make that. I see that one weather station a few km outside the village is already at -20.3c.