Monday 31 December 2007

December 2007



This month saw more visits to the wood, all focussed on coppicing while the season and weather allowed. The felled trees have been piling up and aren’t all logged yet so the area looks a bit of a mess, but we are getting there. There is a lot more birch than originally thought and the plan is to control this when the coppice regrows and encourage more chestnut and/or maybe add some indigenous species. That’s a decision for next winter; for now the main aim is to get the area coppiced and the felled trees logged and stacked ready for sale for firewood. To counteract the cold, there have been some fires (also to get rid of the thin branches etc), and local chippies have seen our business too (not very Ray Mears, but very welcome on a frosty day). We are often joined by a Robin who hops and flits about the felled trees while we work. On one occasion while we were taking a well earned break, a Sparrowhawk flew through the wood and then locked talons with another. They spiralled around briefly (just like on TV!) before going their separate ways. With the trees now bare of leaves there is less colour in the wood, but this bareness moves your focus to the form of the trees such as the Alder pictured above.