November | 2023 | Diary of a man and his woodland

Time really flies for me these days – three weeks since I was last here. Most of the leaves are off now, just a few stragglers and the oaks, like the one in the middle here, which hang on to them for awhile. The main purpose of the visit was to cut up and stack some dead ones that had either come down or been felled for safety. There was a dead birch right next to where I park so this needed to come down.

The dead horse chestnut I felled last time has some nice spalting. It’s a discolouration caused by fungal growth and is much prized by wood carvers. So rather than leave it all as deadwood, I cut several pieces. The birch also has lots of spalting but it might be too far gone and “punky” for carving. After several trips back and forth with the wheelbarrow, I got it all stacked under a tarp to either chop up later for firewood or use some for carving. I am a member of a spoon carving club which meets up every month, so I will take some of it for others to use next time.

While working around the van, a very brave robin came close. I scuffed a patch of leaves away to help it find food. It took advantage right away. I’m hoping I can get this one feeding off my hand. Haven’t had a friendly one for a while now. I always feel privileged when a robin comes close as it shows trust in me.

Not much else to tell other than I have a very aching back this morning which is not a result of the heavy lifting but trying to start my chainsaw. It has an annoying habit of refusing to start when I have had it running but switch it of for ten minutes. I shall leave you with a few more photos

No I haven’t just forgotten to write my blog, it’s actually six weeks since I last went. The road works continue to mean that I only go weekends and it’s been a mixture of holidays away, bad weather and other commitments. As I drove up the ride, a buzzard flew across my bow, it’s huge dark wingspan took my breath away. Because it’s been so long since my last visit, the woods felt unfamiliar somehow but it was nice to go exploring and rediscover the joy of being there.

Storm Ciaran a few weeks ago had blown over my big dead sycamore. It had been slowly dying since I bought the woods. I thought it would stand as valuable deadwood for some years but as it was pretty rotten, had been debating whether to take it down to make it safe. It had a huge lean on it and combined with the unknown extent of rot, made it a very dangerous tree to fell. So I was delighted to learn from a neighbour that it had fallen. I suspected it would be blocking a path that I have created, down to the lower part of my woods. So armed with chainsaw equipment I anticipated some hard graft clearing up. Actually it had fallen just to the side and only a few broken branches were littering the path. The trunk of it is about 40 centimetres diameter at the base so a lot of work to cut up. Because it is pretty rotten, I decided to leave it there as deadwood to slowly decay. The tree had a big fork in it so I decided to make a bit of a feature for a wildlife cover by stacking the broken branches across it to form a sort of roof/shelter.

At the top of the woods stood a dead horse chestnut tree. The top had broken off awhile ago and as it stood on the corner next to the ride, I wanted to drop it to make safe. I needed it to fall into my woods so it could be left as deadwood. I made my cuts but it obviously wanted to fall in the opposite direction so it was a tricky one to do requiring numerous wedges to force it over but eventually went exactly where I wanted it. Before and after photos.