Peat

Looks good. Got any more pics Big Beech? Good to see someone else using a vintage saw. I use an 051, got it off Jon infact!

I was told the other day that in a woodland managed using Continuous Cover Forestry practices, you should aim for 10% (I think) deadwood in relation to standing timber, as this is around the natural proportion. Now obviously no one is ever going to bother measuring this, but... It is a lot. So I think you are unlikely to have too much. I'm in a similar position to you having today taken a walk through the coppice area I will be cutting next year. I say walk, but infact I was clambering around over mountains of brash, where no attempt had been made to tidy it up. There was even rotting cord lying about everywhere. That'll be fun. I generally stack my brash in windrows (long narrow piles) as its easier as you can stack long stuff in there and it means I generally don't have to move far from a pile. Its also apparently good for wildlife as it means beasties can move around under cover. I don't tend to do this in coppice though as they can get in the way of extraction. Lots of smaller piles works for me as I don't wanna be dragging brash from all over.

I was wondering about this. Planning on milling up some dimensioned timber with my alaskan - 4x2"s, that sort of thing out of Ash. But my experience of Ash is that its very liable to move, often with boards tearing themselves in half. I can easily see an Ash 4x2" banana-ing beyond being usable. Do you think it'd be a safer bet milling through and through and then ripping it after a couple of years drying?

No break-ins with the 1.2m fence? Seems very low.

Didn't realise you could get wire fencing so cheap. Not massively more than plastic and will certainly last much longer. Found this place Farm Forestry selling the lightest gauge for £168.70 plus VAT. Cheaper if you get a pallet load.

Went for a big walk on the most beautiful day of the winter yet and found a stand of about 50 healthy elms (look like clones) some 3ft diameter at the base, then saw 2 foxes and stumbled on a herd of fallow deer in the woods (didn't even know there were any wild ones in the area. Don't want them in the woods I manage about 5 miles away but theres a river, canal and railway cutting between me and them...). A great day!

Touché. Yeah good shout. We need more nut trees

I suppose life expectancies are rising... you might be able to sell that walnut and buy firewood on your 200th birthday!

I've seen loads of old ash coppice stools around here that seem to have been cut at that sort of height.

That is probably the best option. I'm not very good at this spend money to make money malarky...

I appreciate the thought Richard. Yeah its a single cab pickup

Got some very steep slopes to climb, not struggled with the back of the truck full of cord though, seems it might be a bit more of an issue if i'm dragging. Also most of the journey is through fields and would of thought it would chew it up a lot? Maybe not as i'll be waiting for dry days anyway to be able to negotiate the track

I've got around 90 ton of cord to move this year, out of the woods to a processing area, using only my truck. Only a few hundred meters to move it, but its not the driving thats the issue. Theres three handling processes - stacking rideside, loading into truck and unloading at the other end. Thats lifting 270 tons! and my back's not great as it is. Its been felled along the sides of a ride so not much moving to the stack. So my question is does anyone have any clever budget tricks for helping save the lifting? Not got the money for hiabs, grabs, tractor or any of that fanciness. Been concidering hand opperated cranes like this. Also thinking of some combination of a handwinch mounted by the cab in the bed for winching on and a loadhandler for unloading, but i'm not sure any of these options are up to much. Has anyone got any other ideas? Cheers Peat

Dividing into zones and coppicing annually sounds good, but 7 years would not be nearly long enough for a firewood coppice. More like 15-20 I'd say, which would mean dividing it up into more areas. However its important not to make them to small, to ensure the stools get enough light for healthy regrowth. Don't eave too many standard trees amongst the coppice for the same reason. 6 per acre seems to be a good guide. The lack of a browse line doesn't mean you won't have deer problems. The parklands where this occurs have far heavier deer stocking than even the most heavily deer ravaged unfenced woodland. You will still need to protect from deer if you cut coppice as they will severely set back the regrowth. Movable fencing is probably your best option if you're willing to spend a bit. Dead hedging is also an option but takes a lot of labour and stakes (potential product). I have heard of people having success with piling brash ontop of the newly cut stools but the regrowth I have seem from this has been pretty wonky, although this isn't such an issue if you're just after firewood. Good luck and enjoy!

Primroses in December, Scarlet Elf Caps, and now snowdrops and bluebells shooting. Found a single new leaf on a Wych elm at the beginning of the month.

It'll be a nice 2.5m lump of burr left. Might be worth sticking the mill through the poplar too. Theres so much burr, theres bound to be some nice bits... if any of it's sound enough. I'm sure someone local would like a nice coffee table to remember it by!

Yeah, they do turn.

Saw these guys at the Scythe Fair. Their website says they travel to the whole of Somerset Land Logic I heard that the beautiful Black Poplar by the river in Cannington is going to be removed. Its a shame to lose such a giant but sounds like its getting a bit dangerous to leave it.

Keep us updated on your retort Timbernut. I'd be keen to see some pictures. I have been wondering about getting some quotes on getting one fabricated but having read some stuff about the issues with the Exeter retort i'm holding off. Stuff I read wasn't hard on the exeter retort in particular, just demonstrated how difficult it is to construct a lightweight towable, insulate kiln that can still stand up to the temperatures and burn lengths without seriously warping before you've got your money back on the kiln. Good luck!

Anyone use one of these? I'm vaguely thinking about one of these for my L200. £164 on ebay, lifts 900kg. Wondering if it'd be handy for loading cord in the woods, or is it going to more hassle than its worth? Can't see the truck bed taking that sort of weight without some reinforcement. Presumably its gonna need some sort of leg under it to lift anything substantial. Any thoughts?

Yeah its good to have some outside perspective on it. The landowner is most definatly able to lean on me, they're my landlord! He clearly had a gung ho attitude to risk in his youth and expects other to be the same (and they often bow to the pressure) but I've said no to him so many times he must think i'm a bit of a pussy! But yeah I'm reckoning the bottom line is either he gets his maintenance man to deal with the fences so my tree surgery mate can scamper up, lop the tops off and I can do a straight fell, or they pay the other crew the grand and I walk away. Thanks for your support!

I don't have a tractor btw, but I do have a tirfor...

Thanks for the advice guys. There is a fair bit of millable stuff in there but as its all leaning and its Ash, dunno if it'll be worth bothering with. I've had quite a few ash planks tear themselves apart while milling through tension in leaning trees. Here's a picture, not great but gives some idea what i'm dealing with. Behind me in the photo the power line gets closer to the trees and then through them. There is a fence on the left hand side of the track too but you can't quite make it out.

Good thinking will, but unfortunatly its not gonna work here. The situation is a bit more complex than I said. I manage the woodlands on the site - the customers are my landlords. Most of the trees are already going to be dismantled coz theres a power line within striking distance of the majority of the trees. The landowners got a quote from a tree surgery firm for a grand for three days work to do the lot, which seems pretty great to me and quick considering wots there. The landowners didn't want to pay it and asked me to do it, so i'm getting my climber mate in to dismantle but only for three days which I don't reckon will be enough to dismantle them all enough to avoid destroying the fence... having said all that i've realised that I haven't actually asked the landowners if they'll pay for a new fence, just assumed they wouldn't coz they're tight as anything. Just wondered if there was a nice easy trick I was missing. Cheers

I've got a load of ash trees 40-70cm diameter to take down along a track. They are all heavily leaning over the track which has a barbed wire fence on both sides. How do folks deal with wire fencing? Whats the best way of getting a strong join and good tension if you have to clip the wire? Should a take out the staples at one end, pull up the posts and roll it up? Problem is its quite a long run, so I would probly need to cut it at some point. One of the fences is pretty old and I should be able to pull the posts up but the other is much newer. Cheers