14 m3 / 490 ft3 of wood for the burners. That kept me busy this week!

Late 2020, early 2021, I did a big clean-up in the forest. Time to repeat this. We had a major storm in Feb 2022 that caused a lot of damage, but that was cleared. And paid for by the insurance company. Back then, they were willing to cough up the money because I was able to show (bills, pics) that we’d done a lot of maintenance. Obviously, this is crucial for the insurance company. Another reason to do a clean-up. Last week, a few professional tree fellers came round and cut all the trees that were ‘iffy’ or needed trimming. A lot of birches suffered from the summer draughts since 2017. And spruce trees suffer from the typesetter beetle. Tree felling is an ‘art’ that I do not master. Once on the ground, I’m like a Minion… cutting all up into easier to handle pieces.

My grounds share a border with a long distance walking path and I do no want to risk branches falling off the trees onto people. We paid extra attention to every single tree along that border (a stretch of nearly 400m).

On Tuesday morning…

In total, 14 m3 of wood was felled and was ready to be cut into logs for the wood burners. The branches and twigs were cut off separately and laid out to form nesting places for birds, for insects and perhaps foxed and badgers in the remote corners of the forest.

My neighbor from the other side of the hamlet came this morning with his sons and their friends and cut up 7m3 spruce trees into logs, loaded all onto trailers and took it home. I don’t want spruce trees in my burners (resin…), so I am glad that I could ‘convince’ someone else to take them off my hands.

The other 7 m3 will be divided: partly my own supply and all what’s left (all oak and birch) will be sold.

One part of the grounds is a tree nursery: I know that all those spruces will ‘go’ within a few years. So I decided that I need domestic trees to fill up the open spots. Next week, we’ll be digging out and replanting a few oak trees (30 and lime trees (2).

Sometimes it feels like Clarkson’s farm here. On a much smaller scale and without the animals…

Earlier this week. Every branch is 3.9m long; I’ll cut it into 30cm logs. That way they fit in all my burners.

My trusty workhorse (24 y/o!):

And my best helper with the last log. Although I had to convince my dog that he should stay away from the howling chainsaw. He was in the kennel during the cutting process.