The Wildlife Camera

We have a motion activated Wildlife Camera which we set up in different parts of the woods to photograph different animals.

The Rocket Stove

Lovely day today for some jobs in the woods.  I did some log moving and splitting and had a couple of bonfires to burn up some of the old larch rubbish.

At lunchtime I used my rocket stove to do the cooking.

I made this stove a couple of years ago as a project.  I understand that rocket stoves were originally designed to help people in the third world who had little fuel to cook with.  Instead of lighting a fire with valuable wood and losing most of the heat, the rocket stove just uses a few twigs to do the cooking with. Also, with the third world in mind, they are cheap to make.  The design of the stove concentrates the heat where it is required.

The Buckingham Woodstation

This is a frame to hold logs while you cut them to size.  It also hinges at the back so that the cut logs can be tipped straight into a trailer.

Alaskan Mill

I have a project at home to build a new compost bin so it was out with the Alaskan Mill.  This is attached to my Makita 7901 chainsaw.

Clearing Up after the Harvesting

After the larch had been thinned, there was lots of clearing up to do.  There is a lot of usable timber that has been cut down but I can't get to it for all the brash and branches left behind by  the harvesting machine. So, slowly we are clearing away the larger pieces of material that are blocking our way.  Lots of bonfires as well. It will probably take another year to completely clear up the mess and be able to access all the timber.  In the summer, when the tracks have dried out more, we will start moving the timber under cover to season for selling in a couple of year's time.  The wood I sell is chestnut, hornbeam and birch.  Most of the larch has been taken away by the contractors and what's left I will use for fencing etc.

A Bit about the Woods

About half is chestnut coppice with oak standards and the other half is larch which was planted about 40 years ago over the coppice!  The entire woodland is classified as Ancient Woodland and prior to the chestnut coppice would have been predominantly hornbeam.  There is still a fair amount of hornbeam around.  Both the chestnut and the larch, in common with other woodlands locally, have been unmanaged for many years.

We have started coppicing the chestnut and have also had about 30% of the larch thinned.  A lot of the larch went for fencing and the rest, which was bent or odd sized, went for chip.  The larch was felled and forwarded by machine which was fun to watch but made a bit of a mess of the tracks!

We use a lot of the wood for our woodburner at home which also provides hot water and central heating so its quite hungry.  I also sell loads to friends and acquaintances.

Welcome to my New Blog

Welcome to my new blog all about life in Den's Wood.  Well I don't actually live there but I do spend a fair amount of time cutting down trees, coppicing, cutting logs, having cups of tea and checking out the wildlife camera for photos of the resident animals.

As I get time, I will add more details of what's happening down in Den's Wood.