What fantastic weather for a trip to the woods with my daughter yesterday after the gales we had the day before. Cold but sunny and very still and peaceful. There was plenty of small dead fall but that’s all. My shelter had filled up with dead leaves but everything was intact. A testimony to the building skills of my mate and I. We filled the bird feeders, had a walk around then coffee and cake. then it was time to get busy with some work.
My eldest daughter had asked if she could spend a day at the woods – it must be about three years since the last. Covid has sort of erased two years of our lives for much socialising and mixing so it was especially nice to pick her up, show her around the woods again and have some quality time together. I wanted to get some more sycamore thinning done before the bluebells and anemones come through and also thought it would be an interesting experience for her to witness some trees being felled. I picked a thinnish “easy” looking one and it fell perfectly as planned. The look of awe on her face signalled to me that she felt the exciting yet scary moment when the tree keels over and hits the ground with a thump – and that was just a small one. We felled two more – not so perfect, they got hung up but a sideways swing with a rope soon dislodged them. We cut them up ready for moving with my daughter operating the log roller which lifts one end off the ground to make chainsawing easier. I jokingly offered her the chainsaw saying “Now you know how to do it, go pick a tree”.
We broke for lunch, a lovely veggie and pasta soup and cheese sandwich she had made the day before. This is the only photo I took all day. She didn’t really want me to publish it because she said it didn’t look very appetising but believe me it was fantastic.
We had a walk over to a neighbour’s plot where he was felling some huge larch trees and we had a bit of a catch up, then back to mine to collect some firewood logs to take home. The day had gone in a flash. we paid our dues to the beauty and healing properties of the woods and headed home again. What a lovely day.
