woodwork woodwonk

Did I mention there was a lot of wind-throw this Winter? I did! In broad terms, Storm Darragh laid trees flat from West to East, while Éowyn knocked them South to North:

Key: Crateagus monogyna sceagh, hawthorn Fraxinus excelsior fuinseog, ash; Sorbus aucuparia caorthann, rowan.

Last week, on the gorgeous dry sometimes sunny days, I finished chopping and came to a natural state-of-stop on the processing of all the tree down. All the stumps have been cut back to where they get too thick and gnarly to split for firewood. And all the twiggy brash has been stripped of ivy [yum!] by the sheep and tucked back against the ditch. With the embarras de woody richesse , I don't have room to store all this kindling in the dry so it is designated habitat. 

I've learned quite a bit on the job about the physics [compression? do not cut! tension? cut!] of fallen timber. So I've only pinched my saw blade a handful of times. The biggest and gnarliest of the rown trees fell across the fence line with my neighbour above flattening the sheep-wire and snapping some fence posts. I looked at this, blenched, and have arranged for another neighbour to turn up with a [saw and a] backhoe to lift the several trunks [rowan / mountain ash tends to bush out, rather than have a single stem like real trees] out of it. I'll then re-fence the boundary.

Fence-posts? I have lots of them from Jim Davis and his Graigcullen sawmill. Jim supplied the cedar cladding for Young Bolivar's mighty  2016 woodshed. These are excellent 50mm x 50mm x 1.5m from oak Quercus robur which therefore have a lot of natural tannins against the microbes that will attack dead timber in contact with earth.  It's all very well to paint the sharp ends with creosote and I've done that already. But I decided the the remaining dozen stakes would be left to end-soak in creosote for an hour each to really suck it up. These posts have been sitting in the dry for a couple of years, so should be thirsty. It seemed best to do this serially, as it's hard to find a tall container that will take 5lt of gloop. You can see them [L] drying out after their ordeal.