March – panning for gold

More processing of the coppiced wood, it feels like a slow process when you are only there once or twice a month. In addition to that, I also did a little work to let more light into the glade by felling a few small trees at the fenceline and ring-barking a mature birch at the south end of the glade. The intention is that as well as allowing more light it will also provide some standing deadwood for the wildlife. I’ve taken a similar approach with an oak at the edge of the glade, but in this case I am experimenting with partial ring-barking. I have left about 25% of the tree’s circumference not ringed with the intention that the tree will have mostly standing deadwood and present little shade, while avoiding completely killing the tree. It is an experiment and only time will tell how successful it is.

Silva Energy visited to survey what wood we could offer them for their new bioenergy business, so if all goes well there could be an income to offset some of the expense of woodland ownership. In an effort to generate enough cash to buy himself some dog biscuits, Che has learnt how to pan for gold; see photo below.