I got wood

[hidetheelephants]

Is that not rather an expensive way of doing it? What's stopping it just being felled and allowed to fall onto the road?

[robinh73]

hidetheelephants said:

Is that not rather an expensive way of doing it? What's stopping it just being felled and allowed to fall onto the road?

There were two retaining walls which would have got smashed to bits sadly and also the damage to other surrounding trees would have been substantial, so the only way to do it effectively is with a crane. It could have been climbed and dismantled but that would have taken significantly longer and cost more in the long run. As it is the crane and operator was £600 for the day which is pretty reasonable, especially on a job of this scale.

[Blackpuddin]

andy43 said:

akirk said:

Blackpuddin said:

NDA said:

Blackpuddin said:

Anybody know what tree this is from? It has a smooth reddish bark, the logs are lovely and light and burn beautifully straight away.

I used to own a few acres of hazel that had not been coppiced for decades... the branches were substantial and produced very even logs - looking almost identical to yours. The logs also used to burn beautifully.

Could be hazel - but I am not an expert!

Interestingly (well to me anyway) my ancient woodland had a limekiln within it - which is why the hazel was there. Limekilns were quite the thing a few centuries ago.

Interesting thanks, I wouldn't be surprised, limekilns in woods seem to be a thing here in Wales. Only thing is the wood doesn't seem to have the horizontal lines of 'breathing' pores that hazel is supposed to have. I'll take a pic of the tree I'm harvesting at some point and put it up here. The logs burn very gradually.
ETA here's a closer shot. The wood itself is almost white.

No identification, but perhaps worth visiting the wood database to help identify?
https://www.wood-database.com/

I reckon mountain ash - grows like a weed.

Aha! You may be right there, my neighbour has talked about that being round here. There's a lot of it here.

[Speed addicted]

We have an ancient cooking apple tree, in the continuous storms that have hit NE Scotland over the last few months it’s leaning more than it used to, probably through a combination of huge amounts of rain and 70mph winds.

We have another 3 day storm starting up now. Im thinking that I have three options.
Leave it and see what happens, cut the lower branch of the main trunk to relieve weight, prop it somehow.
Either way I think my smoker and pizza oven will have plenty of fuel for the foreseeable.

[Blackpuddin]

Speed addicted said:

We have an ancient cooking apple tree, in the continuous storms that have hit NE Scotland over the last few months it’s leaning more than it used to, probably through a combination of huge amounts of rain and 70mph winds.

We have another 3 day storm starting up now. Im thinking that I have three options.
Leave it and see what happens, cut the lower branch of the main trunk to relieve weight, prop it somehow.
Either way I think my smoker and pizza oven will have plenty of fuel for the foreseeable.

Apple trees will take all sorts of clumsy abuse by humans and just come back for more. I set one on fire once (accidentally), half of it pretty much disappeared and it looked like Two-Face out of Batman but it churned out just as much fruit afterwards.
If you're trimming them from the top you're supposed to not go mad in year one. The brash does make decent kindling after a few months drying but it's a bugger getting handfuls out of the pile. Even though you made the pile in the normal way by simply putting one lot on top of another it somehow tangles itself up in a quite annoying way.

Edited by Blackpuddin on Sunday 21st January 10:27

[Blackpuddin]

Blackpuddin said:

Just had another explore and found this in the forest. Doesn't look like a lime kiln, not sure what it is.





Here's a shot of the two mystery trees I'm working on at the mo.



Couple of hours work left before I finish.

Edited by Blackpuddin on Tuesday 9th January 10:25

Just as a followup if anyone's interested, research suggests that the mystery building ruins were (was?) a water mill from the very early 1600s.

[Speed addicted]

Blackpuddin said:

Speed addicted said:

We have an ancient cooking apple tree, in the continuous storms that have hit NE Scotland over the last few months it’s leaning more than it used to, probably through a combination of huge amounts of rain and 70mph winds.

We have another 3 day storm starting up now. Im thinking that I have three options.
Leave it and see what happens, cut the lower branch of the main trunk to relieve weight, prop it somehow.
Either way I think my smoker and pizza oven will have plenty of fuel for the foreseeable.

Apple trees will take all sorts of clumsy abuse by humans and just come back for more. I set one on fire once (accidentally), half of it pretty much disappeared and it looked like Two-Face out of Batman but it churned out just as much fruit afterwards.
If you're trimming them from the top you're supposed to not go mad in year one. The brash does make decent kindling after a few months drying but it's a bugger getting handfuls out of the pile. Even though you made the pile in the normal way by simply putting one lot on top of another it somehow tangles itself up in a quite annoying way.

Edited by Blackpuddin on Sunday 21st January 10:27

The things enormous and produces loads more fruit than we could possibly use.
The whole garden was totally overgrown with nearly 20 years of neglect. A lot of the trees are/were at weird angles as they’d fallen then just kept growing from the new position.


This was it in summer.

[Blackpuddin]

Speed addicted said:

Blackpuddin said:

Speed addicted said:

We have an ancient cooking apple tree, in the continuous storms that have hit NE Scotland over the last few months it’s leaning more than it used to, probably through a combination of huge amounts of rain and 70mph winds.

We have another 3 day storm starting up now. Im thinking that I have three options.
Leave it and see what happens, cut the lower branch of the main trunk to relieve weight, prop it somehow.
Either way I think my smoker and pizza oven will have plenty of fuel for the foreseeable.

Apple trees will take all sorts of clumsy abuse by humans and just come back for more. I set one on fire once (accidentally), half of it pretty much disappeared and it looked like Two-Face out of Batman but it churned out just as much fruit afterwards.
If you're trimming them from the top you're supposed to not go mad in year one. The brash does make decent kindling after a few months drying but it's a bugger getting handfuls out of the pile. Even though you made the pile in the normal way by simply putting one lot on top of another it somehow tangles itself up in a quite annoying way.

Edited by Blackpuddin on Sunday 21st January 10:27

The things enormous and produces loads more fruit than we could possibly use.
The whole garden was totally overgrown with nearly 20 years of neglect. A lot of the trees are/were at weird angles as they’d fallen then just kept growing from the new position.


This was it in summer.

Yeah, our current (unburnt) one keeps me busy collecting and throwing away literally hundreds of big apples, feels so wrong but it's got to be done to try and keep the wasps away. Had it topped this time last year but you can hardly tell now, it's back big style. Might get the arborist in again for another attack.

[Accelebrate]

One of the school Dads is a tree surgeon. He wants a hand to fit some discs and pads and dropped these over as an advance payment on Friday. This feels like a fair trade!

[geeks]

Accelebrate said:

One of the school Dads is a tree surgeon. He wants a hand to fit some discs and pads and dropped these over as an advance payment on Friday. This feels like a fair trade!

Yeah thats a good deal that, I like barter systems like this.

[Harry Flashman]

Had another tree come down. Deciduous, dark heartwood, thin and smooth brown bark.

Is it beech?

Trusty little electric chainsaw did the business, but I used a maul to split as couldn't find my axe. Overkill...but only had to drop the maul on the logs from chest height to split.

Tree also had some sort if woody, evergreen vine parasite growing on it, which may have been part of the problem. Rotten at the base.

Edited by Harry Flashman on Saturday 27th January 12:28

[Semmelweiss]

Looks like laurel

[Harry Flashman]

Dont think so - laurel is evergreen, I think? Those green leaves are from whatever creeper was twining round the tree.

[robinh73]

It could be a Cherry Laurel, but not 100% sure.

[paulw123]

Laburnum? If it had yellow flowers in the summer? It's not beech.

[jagnet]

It could be an Acer of some kind. We had some in the woodshed this year with rounds that looked very similar and was also easy to split. Burned nicely.

[akirk]

Definitely not laburnum I have some in the workshop and it has a very distinctive set of yellow green rings…

[Semmelweiss]

If you burn some (not inside) and the smoke has a sour smell, it's most likely to be laurel family. Don't burn it inside, and best to get rid of it. It very much like like a mature laurel.

[LotusMartin]

Chatting to my neighbour, had some hedging done, doesn’t know what to do with all the ash!!!

Straight over with the chainsaw and pickup - 2 loads worth!!

[hidetheelephants]

Free wood is the best wood.