Wood from the trees blog

Unwanted Visitors October 2023

The easterly wind was still with us. We had done a quick walk round following Storm Babet and had, as expected, found trees down but none on the fences or vehicle tracks. There were, however, several over paths in the Carnage Woods and one in the Wallow Wood, making us concerned that it too might need renaming as Carnage Wood III.

The woodland faces south, making it wonderful from an amenity standpoint but less favoured for growing trees where moisture retention is more important than sunlight. On the west, it is bordered by an established pine wood and generally our trees stand up well to the prevailing south-westerly winds, even during storms. But it is much more vulnerable to easterly and south-easterly winds and of the course to the northerlies sweeping across the moor above us from across the Moray Firth. These often bringing snow which builds into high drifts against the northern fence, allowing the deer to walk in.

I wanted to do a more thorough fence check so I set off towards the north-west corner. There was not much to see – there had been flocks of bullfinches lower down – and I made my way across the peat hag to the area of wizened Scots pines – grannies in the making – at the edge of the wood. I decided to take a diagonal route through to the west fence which we hadn’t checked. I was surprised to notice a tree which didn’t look familiar: it had lost a group of branches on one side so it offered an inviting-looking space with the remaining branches enclosing a sheltered area.

As I approached, I quickly realised that the missing branches had been sawn off and on the ground were the charcoal-like remains of a campfire. I had to admire the choice of campsite but it was quite a shock. We get very few visitors to the wood, other than along the bottom track which is clearly marked on OS maps and where we have put stiles at each end. Good news, I suppose, was that there was no litter or other evidence of activity.

Of course, in Scotland access laws permit wild camping and that is not really our concern. But did we really need to put up No Fires notices? It is probably pointless as few reasonable people would light a fire in a pinewood on peatland, especially where there is no water nearby. The numerous signs in the Abernethy Forest did not stop some numpty lighting a fire in similar terrain which smouldered through the peat and cause a real panic and a lot of effort to extinguish it.

No serious damage done this time and let's hope this was a one off.

28 October 2023

Excavator Fuel lines replaced August 2023

When I had the counter weight off to replace a hydraulic hose I took the opportunity to replace all the fuel hoses (7 off) and the filters. The first job was to drain the fuel tank but when I opened the drain valve nothing came out. I wasn't really surprised as it probably had never been opened and there was a good chance it was blocked with debris from the bottom of the tank. So I used my Silverline oil sucker bottle and pulled out the diesel. All 30L of it. Getting to the tank bottom hose is a pain and I couldn't get it off so I decided to take the tank out. I took the filter above it off first ( 1 bolt) and then remove the 4 bolts holding the tank. The ones under the tank are a bit hard to get to but a ratchet spanner is a great help in the confined space. Once out I managed to blow clear the blockage in the drain line so that's working again.

Taking the tank out was definitly the way to go as the fuel lines run behind it and into the engine compartment. When I came to pulling these lines they didn't want to move. They seem to go into the engine compartment at a point behind the hydraulic tank and I wasn't about to take that out. They were also stuck in a lot of oily crud where they reappeared in the engine bay. So with a long thin blunt stick I scraped out as much of the gunge as I could whilst gentle pulling the hoses backward and forwards. Once they were free I wired and taped the new hoses to the old and pulling them through. The old hoses were all 8 mm but the new filter (and the old) had a 6mm inlet and 7mm outlet tail so I used 7mm hose to get a better fit. There are 2 small 5mm hoses feeding the return line from the injectors and the injector pump. The Tee connector was reused. It seemed to have one of its tails increased in size by a short length of clear hose over it to mate up with the original 8mm return line. I left it alone and reused it. Most of the hose clips were of the spring steel type and I replace these with mini screw clamps. Getting the fuel through to the injector pump was always going to be a problem as the filters are above the tank. So I connected my suction bottle to the injector fuel supply line and pulled fuel through the system and blead out the air. This worked a treat. All the lines/filters/pump blead and flushed to the bottle. The engine started on the second attempt and all seems fine.

Update: Since changing the fuel lines the machine seems to start easier. I had noticed before that sometimes the fuel filter had a bit of air in it, this has now stopped. Perhaps this was the problem.

Snow at the woodland. Dec 2022

The snow came and blanketed the woodland. The winds were unusually very light so the snow is mainly powder. Gales with heavy drifting is what we normally get so I don't think the woodland was damaged much . Getting around was quite difficult but snow shoes or skis were the order of the day.

Freehand chain sawing logs July 2022

I was wanting to cut some timber beams for a new project and was thinking about buying a chainsaw mill. However whilst on You Tube I came across people doing this freehand, so I though I'd give it a go. So you cut the ends square, mark up the section you want to cut on the small end first, working dimensions from the log center. Use a chalk line to mark the cuts and them do a very shallow cut (5mm or so) into the line to get a good cut line to work from, do the same on the ends. After that keep deepening the cuts. It seemed better to keep the chainsaw at a shallow angle and this is obviously easier with a long bar. I got a few bowed beams to start with but I'm definitely learning a lot and getting better.

Windblow 2022

Oh what a mess. This part of the woodland started to see the first windblown trees about 10 years ago. At that time there were 4 trees blown down which we cleared and sold as fire wood. It was obvious the wood was suffering from defoliage and some had died. We did have needle samples sent off to Forest Research but it was inconclusive regarding the cause, however we suspect there was an outbreak of Dothistroma (Red band needle blight) which caused the needle drop some years earlier.

We must have 400 trees which have blown down over the last 10 years. So each year we go in and clear out the fallen trees and sell them as firewood.

What is interesting is that the wood is regenerating with Rowan trees presumably the seed is from roosting thrushes: we get redwings and fieldfares visiting most years.

Our Argocat

This is our transport around the wood. It's a 1998 Argocat Conquest bought at Auction in Dingwell. We've had to fit new chains and install a new thermostat in the cooling system which someone had removed (The engine was always running cold). It's been a great machine and will go almost anywhere in the wood and it's a difficult place to get around as the land has been forestry ploughed. We also use it with a trailer to remove timber, usually in 1.5m lengths. However we have on occasion pulled out 12m lengths as the trailer has a winch which allows us to pull trees on to the back axle so they can be skidded out.

Moor Burning

This is a sight you don't want to see. The moor burning has got far too close to the woodland and scorched the edge line trees.

Plantation near Penrith

Norway Spruce browsing

I was walking round a plantation near Penrith when I noticed clear signs of heavy deer browsing on Norway Spruce trees. As you can see in the photo deer have browsed off all the lower foliage and in places stripped off bark or frayed the trunks.

Deer don't like Stika

Interestingly on the other side of the track it had been planted with Sitka Spruce and what a contrast. These trees had no signs whatsoever of browsing and they had all of their lower foliage. It is a well know that Sitka Spruce is the least palatable of tree species in the UK and these pictures clearly show that. Norway Spruce have a much softer foliage. Just try gently gripping a small branch of Sitka and compare that to those of Norway. You won't be able to grip the Sitka as they are far too prickly. I guess this is exactly what the deer feels on their noses and hence avoid the Sitka.

October 2020 ..... We have always had problems with deer damaging young regeneration and newly planted trees. Over the years we have used local contacts to shoot as many as possible, but we have never come near getting rid of them all. You need very low numbers if trees are going to keep their new growth and all too often you find that by the end of the season all the new growth has been browsed off. Deer find different trees species more palatable that others and in our case first on the list is Aspen followed by Rowan, these seem to get hammered early in the season followed by Birch, with Alder being last on the list of decidious trees often lasting right till leaf fall. With conifers anything which has soft foliage goes first, so Douglas Fir, Larch, Hemlock and Firs get heavily eaten. Scots and Lodgepole Pine, and Norway Spruce come next and last on the list is Sitka Spruce, which the deer have to be desperate to eat, but they will fray them .

Sitka Spruce gets a rough press but if you have deer around there is nothing worse that planting 500 Scots pine in the spring and finding there are only 20 left at the end of the year. Whereas if you plant 500 Sitka you will probaby have 480 left. I remember when we first had the wood, watching all the small Scots Pine "bushes" pushing up their new growth candles and then slowly over the summer watching them all vanishing, leaving nothing other that the Scots Pine "bush" that we started with at the beginning of the year. Too many deer just meant these bushes would remain like that for ever and never grow into trees.

This season we tried a new strategy and employed a commercial stalking company and they have shot 2 bucks, 3 does and 4 kids within the week. They saw one other but didn't manage to shoot it. So there is at least one left but we won't know for sure what's around till we put camera traps out for a few weeks.

Tree planting 2020

The plantation has lots of space for new trees so each year we aim to plant 2000. We asked the "Forestry Commission" about the gaps as we knew the planting grants had not been fully paid due to poor establishment in some areas and they said the Birch had suffered from canker. However, looking around there were lots of signs of deer browsing on what had been Rowan trees. These were about 4 foot high dead sticks with no foliage and the bark peeling off. Some had survived and were about the same height with bush-like foliage breaking away at the top but they looked as though they had been browsed every year. So, this indicated too much browsing and not enough deer control. The grant scheme had been closed out by a previous owner and no further grants were available for planting, so we decided just to plant new trees when we had time and the inclination to do so.

This year we have managed to plant our 2000 trees mainly Scots Pine and Sitka Spruce with a few Norway and Serbian Spruce. We like a bit of variety.

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