Wednesday 27th Dec. It was a day planned to take my youngest daughter for a fun day at the woods. Having only been for a few fleeting visits, she was keen to get hands-on and spend some quality time there. I had a couple of small jobs I wanted to do but mainly I wanted to let her experience the woods in more depth and create some good memories for her. First job was to collect firewood and light a fire. I showed her how to use the ferro rod firesteel and birch shavings to get an initial flame, then coax it along gently until it was established. Kettle on for a coffee.

Remember last visit when I had to leave a felled hung up tree? I needed some help to get a rope over it and pull it sideways. I used a small log tied to some cord to throw it over the stem high up, then pull a rope through and back to ourselves. We both held one end and rhythmically pulled on the rope until it loosened and crashed to the ground – exciting and a little scary, great! One job done.

It was soon time for lunch so out came my trusty cast iron skillets. Bacon and egg sarnie for my daughter, veggie burger and egg for me. More coffee. Simple stuff but so satisfying to light a fire, cook over it and scoff it in a woodland.

We headed off to the hazel coppice area with the Silky saw for her to have a go at cutting. She seems to love sawing things so we cut back a couple of small stools and snedded some branches. Earlier we had spotted a hare and there it was again. It’s a rare sight these days so a thrill to see one in my woods.

Back to base and time to let her loose with the big splitting axe. After a little H&S talk, she split a few logs for me. We had a walk over to see if any neighbours were in but didn’t meet any. Time was pushing on so I packed up while she had a bit of quiet time sitting on mum’s bench and watching birds on the feeders. I think it was a successful day out and hopefully left her with some nice memories.

Out on the road by 7am and on my way to the woods yesterday. It was very cold and frosty but I was rewarded with an amazing sky view just before the sun rose. A thin sliver of new moon was on the horizon, the sky turning from deep azure blue to fiery red. I was in the woods by the time it was light. It was good to walk about the crispy, frosty woodland floor and see it as day dawned.

I took the chainsaw and finished off cutting the large hazel that we coppiced last visit, then cut the large stuff into logs. Time for a nice fire and a brew and there was never a better day to enjoy the heat and spiritual comfort of a fire. I decided to cut a few small sycamore trees. The area I have started to open out for re-planting needs more thinning so while I had the chainsaw it made sense to take a few of the smaller ones down.

My woodland friend called around and we chatted about our plans and had a walkabout and he watched as I cut a couple of trees down. I did pretty well with my aiming and took about five down, dropping them just where I wanted. The last and biggest one got hung up though. It was too big to try to push sideways so I tried a technique of undercutting it a few feet off the ground. It’s dangerous as the top part will drop suddenly as you cut through and you have to judge it and get out of the way quick. The idea is that it will pull itself out as it drops. But often it doesn’t and just embeds itself back in the ground. I had a second attempt, same again. At this point, tired and getting near the end of the day, it was a good time to call it a day and I just left it. More fun for next time.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of some company and help from my good friend Phil who also owns a small woodland in another part of the country. He is a real woodlander and lover of nature and also an expert bushcrafter. We can talk all day about the subjects and not get tired and the wonderful thing about knowing someone like that is that they understand how you feel about it all without having to explain it and with no danger of boring them to death. They “get it”.

There’s something really special when you can properly connect with nature and I’m sad to say that most people have not experienced that. Probably because we live in such a “developed” environment and have become too comfortable with our cosy homes, cars etc. I think that given the chance, most people could find that connection. It’s not too long ago that all our ancestors had it and there’s probably some sort of genetic memory in us all that is still lurking and can be triggered when given the chance. Some people have a natural leaning towards it and actively seek it out in their lives in different ways, not necessarily on a conscious level. Look at how popular hobbies such as angling, walking, landscape photography, climbing, mountain biking etc are. They all allow you to connect with the natural world and make you feel good.

We started the day with a short guided tour, then decided a fire was the order of the day. We foraged for some dry tinder and twigs and soon had a fire crackling away and the kettle on. That shared activity of working together to create the life sustaining warmth of a fire also resonates deeply in my ancestral, archived memory bank.

There were two, large overstood hazel trees that I wanted to coppice this year. They are on the edge of the area I have already done and have plenty of light now, so should respond well to regrowth. Although hazel trees look small in comparison to the larger standards, they are often trickier to cut down when neglected like this. The multi-stemmed nature means that they usually get stuck in nearby trees and also have a tendency to twist as you cut them, often trapping your saw. It’s definitely easier with a helper. This is one of the trees before we attacked it. The photo doesn’t convey just how much timber is in it but each of those branches probably reached a good 25-30 feet high.

I wanted to have a go at layering a couple of branches to create new plants. It involves partially cutting through the stem low down, then letting it fall to the ground and pegging it down twards the end. As it’s still partially attached, the parent tree will continue to feed it but the stress of it will cause the pegged stem to throw down new roots. In a couple of years you have a new tree and the old stem attaching it will rot away. You can see the newly coppiced stump and two layered stems in this photo.

We spent an hour or so cutting up the felled branches and stacking them. There’s still some brash to clear and some tidying to do but we got the hardest part done. I am very thankful for the help and we both enjoyed working together, doing what we truly love – working with nature. The process of coppicing looks brutal but it is beneficial to the tree. Left alone it would die off in a couple of decades or so. By cutting it back, it resets it’s biological clock and stimulates new growth, lengthening it’s lifespan. Here’s Phil hard at work. Happy days!