the village idiot

Also worth considering a letterbox (small bore through the gob from the front). I have found that it greatly reduces the frequency of barber chairs on leaners.

If you were milling up Ash for future sale to persons unknown what dimensions would you cut to? We are in a position to slab up a lot of Ash but I don't know what thickness would leave our options most open.

Thanks Alec, The barn is 5mtrs to the eaves, 6.5mtrs to the apex, 11mtrs deep and 40 mtrs long. I understand your technique but am far too lazy to put it into practice. I am planning to have access to a lucas or a norwood bandsaw for producing the cladding. I like the idea of using poplar so will have a look around the wood to see what is available. Thanks again for the idea.

Hi Alec, That's an interesting thought! We do have a lot of aspen/poplar. Not much of any great size but I can have a snout around. Milling small diameter wood for cladding would be a bit tedious I imagine. Nice to see you back by the way!

King Kong doesn't cook over wood, he's a griller.

We have been felling Ash all winter in the East of England (in accordance with our FC approved management plan). I would say that less than 1% of the trees we encountered were looking healthy. All brittle and shattering on impact. It is difficult to assess the health of an Ash tree in winter, but this year we have started to notice that a handful of mature trees in the wood look to have maintained a 'springy' looking canopy of branches. The top twigs have a feathery look to them rather than an angular one. We have been leaving these trees to see what they look like in leaf. It may be nothing or it may be a winter indicator of health. Time will tell.

It's an interesting idea. I wonder if anyone would be up for the trade?

We plan to mill the timber for cladding our new barn ourselves. Would it be total lunacy to use Ash? We will have a substantial roof overhang and I have a lot of Ash available.

Have a look at the TCF engineering website. TCF ENGINEERING - UK Manufacturer of Forestry and Tree Surgery Equipment WWW.TCFENGINEERING.CO.UK TCF Engineering design, test and manufacture products for sawmilling, forestry, arboriculture and small holders

12 old sycamore stools is nothing to be sniffed at. Good work! Some guys and galls can keep up forestry cutting all year round. This would be totally beyond me. I don't know how they do it.

Yes indeed, we are going to have A LOT of firewood this year. Looking forward to the splitting and getting stuck into some audiobooks and copious amounts of slow, heavy doom on spotify.😈

Ha! I think I preferred your post before you edited it! 😄 Yes, lot's of dieback and exploding crowns on impact. We have noticed that a few of the crowns still look 'springy' from the ground so we are leaving these Ash to see how they look in leaf.

Typically 1-2 feet but TVI 2 has been doing some 3 foot diameter maidens today. (stop sniggering in the back)! Most of them are leaners so we have to be careful. The trees have quite a big canopy on them so they take a while to clear up.

Thanks Mr. Ed. Only just made it through! We are just finishing off our third hectare this winter of big overstood Ash coppice and I'm pretty pooped.

As I suspected all along, he was using a Sony A7Riii with a 200-600mm lens.

A couple more snowy ones. Once again courtesy of David Townrow: Roe deer on the woodland edge. A stoat checking out one of our brash piles.

I'm not fully up to speed on the very latest developments in camera technology but it looked like a black box with a long thingy sticking out of the front. I'll ask David for a bit more detail and get back to you.

A few more from the wood: Nuthatch. Great spotted Woodpecker. Fox.

Shooting the wildlife. The woodland is managed for biodiversity so it's nice to be able to get some pictures of the organisms that have made their home here. Up until very recently we have had to rely on dodgy point and click camera phone shots taken by me and TVI 2. We were recently contacted by a more capable photographer who asked if he could come to the wood to take wildlife shots. We were very pleased, and in surprisingly short order he has produced some really nice shots. All photos in the next few posts courtesy of David Townrow. Here is the Barn Owl that we call Edna. She has taken to hunting deep inside the wood every evening. This is quite unusual behavior as Barn owls typically prefer open fields. She seems to particularly like our newly created coppice compartments as they come back quite grassy in their first year post felling. The Oak standards provide her with lots of perching options from which to look for tasty small mammal treats! Barn owls very rarely nest within woodlands. They may occupy a tree with a suitable hole and cavity on the woodland edge but we think Edna may have made her home in a disused station house on the periphery of the woodland.

Thanks for all the very useful input folks. You have definitely helped me formulate a plan of action. Once we start the construction I'll try to remember to post some picture updates. All the best, TVI

Lovely job! How was your airflow with those 1" gaps in the cladding?

Hi Paul, Yes, I'm fairly sure we will be reducing the eaves height to 5mtrs. We were planning on getting quotes for wooden and steel frame construction. Is this something that you do?

Mostly in vented bags on pallets.

Thanks Gimlet, that's a good suggestion. The roadways were put in by the British army in the 1940's. They are pretty substantial but I don't think they bothered with a camber as it was a wartime effort and probably didn't expect the roads to still be in use 80 years later.

Nice one! Fowler and Gilbert are a little far from Suffolk but I'll certainly keep them in mind based on your recommendation.