Capel Manor College

Yesterday about 15 students from Capel Manor College in North London came with a mini bus and trailer and loaded 3 tons of large tree trunks for the college to use in its courses.  I was a little nervous about the process but it all went without a hitch (except that I forgot to take any pictures of the process).  Its worth noting that the group was a mixed one but that a female student was the most active in moving the heavy (300lb to 400 lb) logs - to the shame of the watching boys!  The log callipers were very useful in picking up the logs.

Start of the timber harvest.

It was an important day in the life of our wood yesterday.   We took a half ton (green) oak log to a friend with a large saw and he cut it into 75mm planks.   Sounds easy when you say it like that doesn't it!  The reality was two hours of experimenting using an engine hoist to get the log into our (newly bought) trailer, pulling the trailer onto the road using our old tractor and a nervous trip in the van to the boatyard where the saw was.

Anyway, now we have all this lovely wood!!! Steve helped by cutting the planks into rails to go onto the workshop roof to take the solar PV panels we are planning to install there and the rest of the wood should re-appear out of Steve's workshop as beautiful furniture sometime in the future.
This should be the start of many more trips to the saw as we convert our oak and chestnut buts into saleable posts and planks.  Yippee!!!

Planting Sweet Chestnut Trees with Jim and Zero (the dog!)

 Digging out the bracken (bad for the tree roots) and planting bargain (£1 each) chestnut trees from Beechwood Nurseries in N. Ireland

Busy day at the coppice

Just back from a few hours working in our woodland with my friend Steve. What a great day; sunny and clear - almost warm!! We are making good progress felling and logging the old (40 year old) chestnut coppice. Felling a few oak standards too mostly dead or damaged ones. Yesterday 100 chestnut trees arrived so I heeled them in ready to plant when we have logged this years trees. The chestnuts only cost me 81p each from Beechwood nurseries in Ireland - bargain! We are also planting ash trees (mostly sown ourselves or given to us) and a smattering of more interesting trees such as quince, field maple, black mulberry etc. Pictures are of the work in progress and last years coppice now planted up.