Eldest and i went up to our private woods today to check the damage caused by the recent storms, we were expecting the worst as there are a couple of suspect Oaks here and really did expect to see one or more on their sides, but when we got there we found no damage whatsoever, well not in the part we use for our 'base camp', there was one old Sweet Chestnut down a bit further up the woods, and that really was about it, apart form half a dozen or so sub 2" diameter and less than a foot in length rotten bits that had come down, so once we had the fire going, we decided to do some house work around our camp.
First job was to replace the hazel rods on our table, these have been here for 18 months or so in all weathers and where very much past their best, so we grabbed some lengths of hazel from our hazel pile and cut them to length for a nice new table top, the old rotten ones can be seen underneath along with some off cuts and these ended up on the fire a short while later, we left one rod longer than the rest as a place to hang the bow saws up.
after redoing the table top we decided it was about time we sorted out our wood piles, so eldest set about tidying up the hazel pile and getting it all re stacked in a neat(ish) fashion
while he was doing this i moved one of our kindling piles from it's store site to the use site what we do is every time we cut some hazel, whether this be fresh cut for a project or clearing up storm damage, we stack all of the small top branches into piles, today we exhausted one pile that had been there for about a year/18 months and therefore it was time to move onto the next one, i managed to move the pile over in three huge armfuls and it's now in situ ready for use and standing about 4ft high & wide, plenty of kindling, we also took the time to take out some of the larger kindling/small fuel wood and cut/snapped them to a suitable length before storing them in our lean-to for later use, this lean-to is about 2 years old now and despite needing a bit of re thatching sometime soon, has served us well, it's survived storm force winds, torrential rain and snow and ice and is still standing,
We also cut up a few larger logs for overnighters here, this one has been annoying us for a long time, well since this old Oak fell, so eldest took it off and put it the big log pile
I cut up a couple of other big old Oak branches that we took down last year in the name of safety and until today have done nothing with, these are now also stored on the big log pile for future use
Apart from that we generally pratted around had a laugh, did a bit of Deer tracking, watched a lone Dog fox as it trotted through the woods not more than 30 yards away from us, totally unfussed about us being there and watched the Buzzards soar over head, oh yes, a made a replacement tripod for use over the fire, the small side branch has been left on as a place to hang our mugs, but can also used for supporting a green stick for cooking bacon on.
The day was a great laugh, we didn't have the work we expected up here, so a working day turned into a fun day, always nice when that happens.
First job was to replace the hazel rods on our table, these have been here for 18 months or so in all weathers and where very much past their best, so we grabbed some lengths of hazel from our hazel pile and cut them to length for a nice new table top, the old rotten ones can be seen underneath along with some off cuts and these ended up on the fire a short while later, we left one rod longer than the rest as a place to hang the bow saws up.
after redoing the table top we decided it was about time we sorted out our wood piles, so eldest set about tidying up the hazel pile and getting it all re stacked in a neat(ish) fashion
while he was doing this i moved one of our kindling piles from it's store site to the use site what we do is every time we cut some hazel, whether this be fresh cut for a project or clearing up storm damage, we stack all of the small top branches into piles, today we exhausted one pile that had been there for about a year/18 months and therefore it was time to move onto the next one, i managed to move the pile over in three huge armfuls and it's now in situ ready for use and standing about 4ft high & wide, plenty of kindling, we also took the time to take out some of the larger kindling/small fuel wood and cut/snapped them to a suitable length before storing them in our lean-to for later use, this lean-to is about 2 years old now and despite needing a bit of re thatching sometime soon, has served us well, it's survived storm force winds, torrential rain and snow and ice and is still standing,
We also cut up a few larger logs for overnighters here, this one has been annoying us for a long time, well since this old Oak fell, so eldest took it off and put it the big log pile
I cut up a couple of other big old Oak branches that we took down last year in the name of safety and until today have done nothing with, these are now also stored on the big log pile for future use
Apart from that we generally pratted around had a laugh, did a bit of Deer tracking, watched a lone Dog fox as it trotted through the woods not more than 30 yards away from us, totally unfussed about us being there and watched the Buzzards soar over head, oh yes, a made a replacement tripod for use over the fire, the small side branch has been left on as a place to hang our mugs, but can also used for supporting a green stick for cooking bacon on.
The day was a great laugh, we didn't have the work we expected up here, so a working day turned into a fun day, always nice when that happens.
