Yesterday’s forecast was for a sunny day, so what more could I ask for a day at the woods? As I approached the area, the sun was just about to rise. I had a wide vista of the surrounding flat countryside. There was a thin bank of cloud near the horizon, underlit by the approaching sunrise. The colours reminded me of contents of a watercolour paintbox. The sky, cadmium yellow fading to lemon then cerulean blue, the clouds wet into wet washed with burnt sienna and alizarin crimson. Wow what a start to the day. As I stepped out of the car into my woods, the sun was just visible though the dense wall of trees.
I started the day with an extra vigilant walk around, checking for windthrow after the gales earlier in the week. Nothing much at all other than the top of a tall sycamore having snapped off and now balancing precariously, ready to kill anything that stands too long under it and a rotten birch tree snapped off five feet from the ground. It wasn’t cold enough to need a fire but I lit one anyway just for the pleasure of it. I made a filter coffee and sat listening to the gentle crackle of some larch twigs on the fire and thinking how lucky I am to be here in this beautiful place. The horrors of the wider world are a million miles from my mind. As Van Morrison said at the end of Coney Island “Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time?”
The agenda for the day was simple, bring more logs home and start coppicing the hazel where I started two years ago. I’ve been really keen to get some done to expand the area of restoration before spring arrives. There are small catkins forming on them and we are half way through January already. I identified a few hazel clumps and started with the smallest. I like to cut them using hand rather than chainsaws. I enjoy the feeling of closeness to nature you get working this way. Cutting a tree down can feel brutal but by taking each hazel stem individually and carefully, working the Silky between the stems, you can savour the process and feel a great deal of satisfaction of a job well done and exonerated from any apparent brutality, paid for with your own physical energy. My method now, is to try to complete the whole process of cutting and clearing any brash away in one session, rather than leaving it for another day. I am still clearing up brash from two years ago when I first started and was keen to get as many stumps cut back before Spring.
The two photos are before and after of two small hazels. They are quite weak and may not come back with great vigour but they had a few small whippy rods which I have left and will try to layer by pegging down to get them to root and eventually make new plants. One of the larger hazel stools had an exceptionally tall and thick stem that didn’t look right for hazel. On cutting it down I realised it was a young oak. It’s growing out of the earth at the same place as the hazel. Oak will also coppice so I will be interested to see what happens this summer.
Another filter coffee and a jam doughnut kindly provided by my neighbour, rounded the morning off nicely. The afternoon was spent in the coppice and I managed to deal with five stumps in all. Dragging the brash and piling it into the deadhedge I built, aroused the interest of a robin. Throughout the day, it followed me here and there like a tiny avian supervisor. The opportunity of an easy worm-meal might have been the real reason. It was a welcome companion that just added a little more pleasure to the whole day. Can’t wait to get back for another session. This one next.
