Autumn Fires – Robert Louis Stevenson
In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
Yesterday at the woods it was dull, grey and windy. Although most things are still very green, the days are shortening as we pass the equinox and Autumn is officially here. It’s a time that usually depresses me when I realise those warm, light evenings and early mornings are gone and nature starts shutting up shop for the winter. Having the woods has made a difference though, I find I enjoy my time there just as much in winter as I do in summer. No insects or stinging nettles to irritate me and more reason to light a fire. I haven’t lit a proper one since June and there’s nothing much more satisfying than sitting in front of a woodland fire with a brew.
I took the chainsaw and I know I ought to continue with processing the logpile but I’m getting a bit bored with that. I want to see some progress with my plans so I decided to take down a few small sycamore trees in the middle section. I have some nice alder saplings I grew from seed and want to plant them there. Although they love lots of water (and my woods aren’t really suitable) there is a patch that tends to get a bit muddy so I’ll try them there but they need more light letting in. I felled three small ones, two fell cleanly and one got hung up. This one, bizzarely was growing from the base of a large birch tree.
There was a large dead tree, hung up right next to where I park my car. It’s been there since I bought the woods and although it seemed secure, it needed to be made safe. It’s actually the top of the tree next to it that I ring barked and must have snapped off in a gale and embedded itself into the ground. Removing it posed a problem. The best bet would have been to winch the bottom of it to pull it out of the other tree but I didn’t have a winch and decided to try the risky method of undercutting. Basically the upper side is under compression because it’s leaning, so cutting from that side will trap the saw as it snaps. By making a small top cut first (a few feet from the ground) then cutting through to meet it from underneath, the tree will drop and hopefully pull itself out of the tree it’s snagged on. It’s a risky method as it’s unpredictable how it’s going to fall. You have to watch carefully and get out of the way quick when it does. I got a surprise this time, the tree didn’t fall and ended up literally hung up and swinging in the air. You can see below, the stump left and the dead tree suspended. Hmm now what?
I threw a rope over the branch and tugged. Eventually it dropped a few feet ….. and embedded itself back into the ground and still snagged. Another even riskier undercut was all I could do. Same again! This baby didn’t want to go. I couldn’t chance another undercut so threw the rope higher and got into a rhythmic pull back and forth until finally it fell. Well I needn’t have worried about it coming down unexpectedly onto my car!
Most of the rest of the day was spent pulling bramble and repairing my shelter. The shelter has been under attack from something that likes string. The thick fibrous type that is holding it together. Although most of the elevated poles are also supported by forked ones to take the weight, I decided to replace the chewed-through string with a stronger nylon type. Hopefully the little critters won’t take a fancy to that.
When working among the bramble, I often find odd discarded items. This time I found a glass pan lid, a feather and a plastic ring – no idea what the ring was from. I’m amassing quite an eclectic woodland museum these days.
Diary of a man and his woodland 