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| The endless joy of logs The endless joy of logs | |
| (about 11 hours later) | |
| The garden task that gives me greatest satisfaction is the cutting of our winter wood stack. I like to joke that our logburner consumes only hand-prepared organic “food”, and there is even a sense in which each piece is an individual. | The garden task that gives me greatest satisfaction is the cutting of our winter wood stack. I like to joke that our logburner consumes only hand-prepared organic “food”, and there is even a sense in which each piece is an individual. |
| Over the years I’ve learned that the secret to preparing logs is not some fancy axe or equipment. It is time. I have thus worked out a four-stage process that spans two years, beginning with the moment when the live trees are felled. | Over the years I’ve learned that the secret to preparing logs is not some fancy axe or equipment. It is time. I have thus worked out a four-stage process that spans two years, beginning with the moment when the live trees are felled. |
| They are mainly self-sown sallows that sprang up just after the war on the edge of my four boundary dykes at Blackwater Carr, when the fen was open grazing marsh. Decades of non-intervention allowed them to develop into linear thickets the length of the whole site. | They are mainly self-sown sallows that sprang up just after the war on the edge of my four boundary dykes at Blackwater Carr, when the fen was open grazing marsh. Decades of non-intervention allowed them to develop into linear thickets the length of the whole site. |
| Rather than permitting the mature trees to choke the dykes with leaf mulch I clear them off the banks while simultaneously restoring the original flower-rich pasture. | Rather than permitting the mature trees to choke the dykes with leaf mulch I clear them off the banks while simultaneously restoring the original flower-rich pasture. |
| The fresh timber is stacked at Blackwater, for 6-10 months of seasoning, completed under tarpaulin, when it can be used by breeding solitary wasps or by overwintering ruby tiger moth caterpillars. Then after its transfer to Claxton comes a second rest, when it creates another great invertebrate habitat, especially for woodlouse spiders and a lovely group of moths called flatbodies. | The fresh timber is stacked at Blackwater, for 6-10 months of seasoning, completed under tarpaulin, when it can be used by breeding solitary wasps or by overwintering ruby tiger moth caterpillars. Then after its transfer to Claxton comes a second rest, when it creates another great invertebrate habitat, especially for woodlouse spiders and a lovely group of moths called flatbodies. |
| Finally comes the log splitting for the woodsheds, when they are cut and restacked for anything up to six months in advance of use. | Finally comes the log splitting for the woodsheds, when they are cut and restacked for anything up to six months in advance of use. |
| In his book Wildwood, Roger Deakin suggested that he was warmed three times by his logs: when they were felled, while being split and then finally as they burned. I enjoy an imaginative corollary, savouring each piece as I try to recall the circumstances of the cut, how it was subsequently stored and then the moment it was sectioned to fit the fire. | In his book Wildwood, Roger Deakin suggested that he was warmed three times by his logs: when they were felled, while being split and then finally as they burned. I enjoy an imaginative corollary, savouring each piece as I try to recall the circumstances of the cut, how it was subsequently stored and then the moment it was sectioned to fit the fire. |
| By the time it goes through the glass door I have two years of connections. Something about many of the logs – the thickness of the trunk, details in the bark or patterns in the grain – permits me to recognise them in their slow journey to the flames. | By the time it goes through the glass door I have two years of connections. Something about many of the logs – the thickness of the trunk, details in the bark or patterns in the grain – permits me to recognise them in their slow journey to the flames. |
| Follow Country diary on Twitter: @gdncountrydiary | Follow Country diary on Twitter: @gdncountrydiary |