Yesterday was planned for felling a load of small sycamore with the aid of two good mates, Simon and Phil. They have been offering their help for a while so the intention was to drop as many as we could, clear the brash, cut the stems into logs and wheelbarrow them away from site to a place where I can eventually split and stack them for seasoning. That’s exactly what we achieved in a day that would have taken me several weeks on my own. Approximately fourteen trees came down. This part of my woods is a plantation from the mid 1960s and appears to have never had any thinning done. For the health of the bigger ones and as part of my long term plan to allow more light in and encourage more under-story and ground cover, I need to thin the plantation by approximately one third. Taking out the smaller and sickly ones is the first step. I said they were small specimens and they are compared to their bigger and healthier cousins but their size and ease of felling is deceptive. This photo was taken last week and I include it to show how this part of the wood is almost entirely mono-culture sycamore with virtually no smaller under-story present. There are a few self-sown hazel plants here and there which I hope will develop into bigger specimens.

Deciding which way they would naturally fall is not easy and it was a gusty day. Being tall and relatively thin, they whip around in the wind, sometimes causing them to jam on the chainsaw when cutting and sometimes getting hung up in nearby trees. About half of them got hung up and this is where a couple of willing mates comes in really handy. If they get caught in a fork, they can be very difficult to release. With much pulling and levering and lifting and swinging, we got them all down safely.  Working as a well oiled machine and teamwork, I processed the trees with the chainsaw while my mates cleared the brash, stacked long poles for later projects. Simon made many trips wheel-barrowing the logs away. We worked on one specific area (still much more to do in other areas) and by the end of the day it was looking a lot healthier.

Breaking for lunch and a cowboy coffee provided some fun. I attempted to use my vintage paraffin stove to boil the pot but for some reason it wouldn’t behave and simply provided a plume of yellow, stinky flames. I may have overfilled it, preventing it from vapourising. Will have to experiment. Settling the coffee grounds was achieved by Phil banging a stick on the side of the pot, inspiring an impromptu First Nation American chant and war dance. I retrieved my trail camera and took it home to see if it hard been working. Last week the display was malfunctioning but seems to be ok now. Here’s a compilation of the latest animal activity.