Wednesday 20 April 2011

Wood pile

I was galvanised into (supervising) action by reading littlegreenblog.

Him Next Door has been raring to go and worried about our log reserves since before we started using last winter's store.  We are lucky and have an abundant supply of logs to hand as we have common land trees next to our garden, which we help manage.  I was quite shocked to find that even wet softwood logs can cost from £70 per 1m3.  The price only goes up with quality and dryness, about £130 for kiln dried.  1m3 wouldn't last long at all. 

Our main problem is that the logs are still attached to the growing trees.  The job of lobbing off and then pulling up branches from the rather steep valley is very firmly in the domain of the men of this clan.  Thank goodness for the ride on mower, which doubles as a miniature haulage vehicle.  Once the branches have been brought to the top of the valley the mower is used again, complete with a trailer made from an old plastic container fortified with a wood frame.  The cut logs are carried using the trailer to their penultimate resting place, the wood store.

Our wood resource - free, bar the labour.
Him Next Door recently built a second wood store, which is much nearer the house than the old one.  The old one now stores wood that we have acquired or can reuse and that is perfectly good for DIY projects in the future.

Our new wood store.
We (that's the royal we) need to continue filling our new store, which goes three logs deep, to see us out this winter.  At least now we're half way there.

4 comments:

the veg artist said...

In the late 1800's my great grandmother lived near your house. I can imagine her, and my grandmother as a young girl, collecting wood for their cottage fire from the same valley.
Life was hard then, but perhaps things haven't changed as much as we think!

Lins' lleisio said...

Thanks very much for your comment.
You might find your great grandmother in the Parish Records here http://www.llysyfranchurch.co.uk/archive.html

We have been working on the website, but if you can add or correct anything let us know.

the veg artist said...

Thank you so much. We found my great grandfather and his first wife via the baptism record. My grandmother is not on there, so we now think he and his second wife moved, possibly to Ambleston, and then 2nd wife (great-gran) moved back to Llysyfran, a widow by then, with her daughter, before my grandmother married.

My husband will now spend happy hours researching yet another branch on my extensive family tree!

Bluestocking Mum said...

Thanks for finding my blog Lins'. It's good to meet you. My hubby would be very envious of that log store. He's not very handy. He did make one but it leaked and none of the logs would burn. We call him Frank Spencer.

Look forward to following your posts.

warm wishes
Debbie

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