Well it's taken two months but we've finally cleared the woodland of brashy, dead and 'interfering' pine trees (those blocking young oaks).
And the woodland now feels it can breath, it's got space, you can see through it, you can walk through it, and it feels much safer from a fire perspective.
We've got some nice log piles around the woodland, waiting for either fire wood or furniture construction, and some of it is large enough to plank if I'm that way inclined, and a few early phase 'hugel beds' of smaller brashy material (the ends of pine trees and larger branches and dead Broom for example) sensitively located where there's a dearth of trees.
And I've got rid of a lot of other brash through a few burns that I've done over the last month (this was a reluctant decision, but there was just so much of it!)
If the GNR come round to do a fire safety check at least it looks managed, it looks like we've made an effort.
The main 'problem' from a fire safety perspective is the 2-3000 largish brashy logs piled up ready to be chipped. These are any where from between 1 CM to 5 CM in diameter and typically 2-3 meteres long, most with a lot of side branches, and that is a lot of wood!
I say 'waiting to be chipped' but since the guy with the self-described 'semi-industrial' chipper came round this morning to assess the work ahead told me I'd have to remove most of the side branches before chipping I'm now thinking of just not bothering.
I mean, if I've got to take of all the side shoots anyway, which are the real fire risk, and which the chipper can't help me with, i can't really see the point of chipping the remaining small logs, which really aren't a fire risk, rather they're (obviously) more log like!
Here's a pile I started stripping today - it's a pretty laborious process, turning the 'brashy logs' into 'small logs' and brash, but doable by the end of June, even just on my own I think.
Looking at the log pile resulting, the mass isn't that huge, so I think I might just leave them as small logs, for that 'second stage' of fires after kindling and twigs, or just let them rot down on their own, they'll pretty much become 'wood chip' after a couple of years any way.
The point of chipping was primarily fire safety, and yes, chip is good compost, but I'm not exactly short of compost material anyway, I think I'm better off just saving myself a few hundred EU by not renting the chipper and waiting another couple of years for my small-log wood compost, and use some of the rest for just keeping warm!
It's just a matter of cracking on with it!
