Dropping Wood

Before we moved to Normandy, I probably would've found it difficult to listen to anyone tell me about appropriate wood felling, coppicing without wincing at the thought of a tree being simply chopped down. Regardless of the intentions of the person. But to manage your primary energy source, you must become a woodsman. By learning how to properly coppice, wood can become a fully sustainable energy source.

This small area in our woodland is about 20 metres across and 60 metres from top to bottom.  In order for the previously fell trees to properly coppice we need to remove as many of the big "blocking" trees otherwise the coppicing won't really take place and it would have all been a waste of time.  Our target trees today were these two above dead centre of the picture.

What we are trying to do is remove all the canopy so that light can get to the forest floor.  This time of year there is little to no foliage and plenty of light gets down, but nothing is growing.  Once spring comes it's a rush to suck up that beautiful life-giving yellow warm stuff from the sun.  In the picture above, pretty much all the trees will need to be removed in order to put this area into coppice rotation.

So two old fellas start by making a wedge in our target tree.  We want to encourage to fall to the right, down the hill and between some trees at the bottom... fingers crossed.

Then we get out the cross-cut saw, this one is 4-feet across and make a cut slightly above the centre point of your wedge.  You continue to cut until the tree starts to make cracking noises, then remove yourself pretty quickly and watch your tree fall exactly where you thought...

On this occasion you can see the tree did in fact fall down slope and between the trees, ding, ding, ding!

The second tree offered us a rare opportunity to retreat from the tree, it was teetering and ready to fall, grab the phone and film it fall... EXACTLY where you hoped it would...

 

Then have a well-earned cup of tea.

And enjoy the silence... turn up the sound and you may just hear the stream at the bottom of the valley.  Oh and by the way volunteers are always welcome.

Autumn/Winter 2015 Update

A quick update for all you permies out there. The last couple of months have been challenging as I have been unable to get rid of an elbow injury, meaning I have been about as useful as a chocolate teapot! Doesn't mean nothing happens. Winter sculpting is well in progress with Andy and our long-term WWOOFer, Remi, picking up the slack from my disabled arse!

We need more hedgerows to break up the wind... So we have scythed a load of grass... laid out wood from a recently coppiced hazel (see pictures below) and covered with aforementioned grass.

This baby hedgerow will be planted with a variety of trees and shrubs over the winter.

Water is of upmost importance as we want to encourage predators to our land in the shape of frogs and toads.  Also we'd like some ducks to compliment our growing menagerie of animal helpers.  Freya offers us some context here so you can see how deep it is.

We get down to the woodland as often as we can.  This is dictated by the weather as felling trees is difficult in windy conditions.

This was last week, early morning fog was rolling up the valley from the stream.  It was peaceful and pretty.

The Kelly kettle is an essential piece of kit to help keep hydrated. 

At the Yurt-end of the main field, Andy needs additional protection so has sculpted some rough beds and transplanted a number of small trees from our nursery.  Over time this should form a formidable barrier.

Remi has been continuing to work on some interesting Hügelkultur beds.  Updates over the coming years will illustrate their importance and utility.

We are focusing our felling on a previous site that we did not clear completely.

Proper coppicing will only work effectively if you clear enough of the canopy to allow new growth from your coppiced stools.

This was one of our small fields we had let our voisine (neighbour) use.  They have sadly moved  to Ferte Mace, with work, so Remi has been utilising the cultivated space for a "hidden" garden... his words not mine.  The key thing is to heavily mulch to prevent weed regrowth.  This year we will be mulching like mad men.

It's incredible how much wood can be cultivated from properly managed stools.  This hazel stool had not been cut in a number of years, but with this new haircut should regrow beautifully.

This basically sets the pattern for the next 3-months.  A lot more felling, wood is our primary source of energy and a lot more landscaping.  The additional help of a WWOOFer has certainly allowed us to push ourselves, next calendar year we will hopefully have the accommodation to have more than one!