Land Week 16th - 22nd Feb

Woody took a week off work to help Ian break the back of the land preparation ready for the 500m of fencing that needed to go in (plus hanging 3 gates!). Despite all our earlier clearing work there was still a huge amount to do.

So far we had concentrated our efforts along fence line A-B clearing the very low hanging branches, dead trees and general tangle of brambles, wire and old gates.  A first wave had been cut and sorted; logs piled up, brash burnt, but a second wave needed to be felled to ensure the fence would not be damaged later on by falling dead wood.  

The avenue of trees on the driveway stretch from B-C also suffered from low limbs, very twisted old growth, multiple wire strands embedded in trunks (lethal for chain saws!) and a wide strip of brambles and young birch.  Before the low branches could be taken down the floor needed flailing in order to make clearing the logs/branches safer.

Once all the clearing had been done, posts, strainers and the wire all had to be installed.  Of course this little plan does not account for weather conditions, kit malfunctions, emergency calls outs and log shifters bunking off for a days hunting!

Monday - The Baroness!
Monday a bright and bitterly cold morning.  Ian helped with the first stage clearing by mowing the brambles and birch saplings down along the driveway fence-line with "The Baroness", this would save much hassle later on when we cleared the felled and limbed oak, birch and holly.  Trying to clear logs and branches from thick brambles is not much fun so the Baroness' help was much appreciated.  

Crouchy & The Baroness flailing from C-B

www.baronessuk.com
Next came allot more felling of the low level branches.  As you can see from the above photos there was only 6ft of head height in places, not enough to get a tractor and post banger in under so there was more prep work to do than we first thought.

It looked like "fencing week" may turn into "prep week....with a bit of fencing at the weekend"!

Tuesday - Pole Saws Can't Swim

A freezing morning with a hard frost but very sunny...perfect day for hunting!  I am afraid to say I ducked out of log shifting and spent a fantastic days hunting with our lovely neighbor Kirsty and our two beloved horses Easter and Nester.  There was frost on the ground well after 11am, the sunshine was gloriously warm and we set off (at speed) across country to explore parts of our local area we never usually had access to.  Kirsty and I both felt very privileged to be able to take part in this rural tradition in a beautiful area where we are lucky enough to be "landowners".

Anyway, back to the boys who were still clearing low branches, still being thwarted by the years of neglect that the old oaks had been subjected to.  Ian was up and down ladders with chain saws and decided to use a pruning pole saw from the ground instead.  Effectively a metal pole with a chainsaw on the far end, using it must take some skill; a bit like writing your name with a pen on the end of a long stick! Focusing on your cuts, over 12ft above you it is easy to forget about the bottom of the pole saw where the engine is. Judging the height and angle to cut in from, getting the revs of the engine right is quite an art form... it was all going so well until Woody turned round and saw that Ian was engulfed in a cloud of steam and swear words. Too busy looking up he dunked the whole engine of the pole saw into a water trough.  It turns out that pole-saws don't swim very well and it was back to the ladder for Ian!

Tree line view C-B with the low limbs felled.

Wednesday 

In go the first posts!!

Thursday & Friday - R&R (Rain and a Reprieve!)
Too wet to get on the land with the heavy machinery so....Woody went window shopping!

Saturday
I left Woody and Ian to get on with the fencing while I mucked out stables only to find they'ed been on a bacon roll eating, fence post buying jolly, well it was a beautiful day!  We had a productive day and even Joanne, Ians better half turned up to help shift posts after she had spent the morning moving her sheep to spring grass.  We had an early-ish finish as they were off to a shoot dinner....Woody and I doubted that we would see Ian (in any sober state) on Sunday! :)

Tree line C-B, pruned with logs and brash neatly stacked ready for sorting.

Sunday
Quite proud of ourselves today, we worked on through pouring rain getting soaked clearing the brash piles cut down earlier in the week.  It was a hard slog, it was freezing and we wanted to give up and go home several times but we kept going.  If we cleared down to the far corner we could go home having accomplished another job.  The week had taken it's toll on Woody who had been project manager, apprentice, delivery driver and laborer.  I'm very proud of him for all his graft as I am not always sure he see's my vision.  I can see it though, it might not be perfect but there is so much we can do to make it what we want, exciting times!

2015 goals and dreams...whatever the weather...

"Little-big tree", the small but perfectly formed baby oak

With work looming and both Woody and I feeling well recovered after the new years "do" we set about our last couple of days grafting on the land before we went back to the office

Stone wall, log pile and the new fence posts

There were huge branches that had been felled by Ian several weeks earlier that we had been avoiding dealing with because they were just so huge and we did not have a working chain saw.  

There was no putting it off any longer we had to try and move them and create a workable space.  Rather than trying to tackle the branches as a whole we just chipped away with cutters at the smaller outer twigs, then the smaller branches until we could work with a hand saw on the bigger stuff.  Little by little, and it took two days, we finished clearing the boundary ready for Ian to come back once the weather and ground improved.

We work up on the land in most weather conditions, it is beautiful when the sun is shining with views of the forest and river.  There are often buzzards hunting or playing overhead waiting for you to disturb a mouse or vole for them to pick up for lunch.

Lovely frosty mornings

Fence posts waiting for the gate and wire

It is not always quite so idyllic and we have been stranded up there in pouring all-day rain, sudden and violent hail storms, wind too dangerous to work near the trees or so biting that we end up with terrible wind burn and look like we have spent the afternoon slapping each others faces.  

The pony paddock...i think

Being so high up sometimes all we get is a cloak of fog, so depressing and clinging that everything is wet with dew, logs slip out of your grasp and you loose all sense of scale of the field you are working in.  All you want to do is start a fire but that is almost impossible with everything dripping but what a huge relief when it does finally roar into life!

One of the log piles

The more time we spend up there the more we will learn about the conditions and best places to grow and replant new trees and hedges.  We were given a beautiful big Quince tree by my dad but are waiting to figure out the best location to plant it, we must do that this year.  Our main goals for the next few months are;

• Secure the top boundary fence, paint and re-hang all the gates - by end February
• Re-connect the water and re site the trough - by end February
• Fence off the pony paddock and top triangle - by April
• Re-lay the bottom hedge and part of the middle hedge - before growing season.
• Finish any major tree pruning - before growing season

There are other goals like planning where to plant, what repairs are needed on the cow shed or can we get planning for a dry store/stables etc. but we can start daydreaming about the fun stuff once the priority goals are achieved.

We have booked a weeks work with Ian in February, keep your fingers crossed for some good weather!

Hardcore progress

The first step forward from a messy situation was to move Easter away from the torment at the yard to the land, however the fencing was not yet done because of the trees/ground conditions so we moved her to a little farm not far from the land.  She was pretty pleased about this!

The move opened up a whole new network of contacts, neighbours, friends and a very importantly a good pub!  Woody and the local farmer organised a date for putting in a driveway into the top triangle and a local tree surgeon and fencing company were all booked to come in as soon as it was laid.

Before the digger arrived we had a visit from Woodys dad, David and uncle Eric both experienced in building and construction to give the land the once over.  They checked the depth that needed to be dug down to give solid footings to the drive and capped off the water supply.

The day day the digger and hardcore arrived couldn't have been much wetter, but over the next couple of days it dried off enough for them to dig down and lay the 60+ tonnes of road scalpings.

July

October

When I arrived later that day it was a bit of a shock to see that the top triangle had been sort of ploughed in and leveled by the digger, I guess that's one way off getting rid of the brambles.  

It made Woody and I rethink how we approached the work required.  We fully understand that things usually look a little worse before they get better but we wanted some sensitivity and thought into the work in future.  At least it was progress and we had somewhere to park and unload kit. 

The next step was the fencing.  Woody had spoken to various people but by far the best recomendations came from people who had used Ian at www.countreecare.co.uk Ian is a quallified tree surgon plus he does fencing, pest control, hedge laying you name it, he sounded like the man we needed.

The weekend Ian started work was the same weekend we had our two nephews Morgan and Jack over visiting, we were very glad of the extra helpers!  Woody cooked a stew the night before and we all headed off.  Before Ian could attempt to start fencing he had to tackle all the low branches and silver and paper birch trees that had self seeded all over the place.  

Before, July 2014

November:  Work begins....it looks pretty dramatic.

Ian started with the boundary between lot 3 and ours taking out anything dead or too low.  There was a lot that needed taking out and it was quite a shock but it needed doing as there were several unsafe trees.  It will be good to see it all back in leaf again in the spring!  There were some huge logs to deal with, so Morgan and I set about clearing and stacking while Ian and Woody worked ahead of us.  We continued to stack logs and brash and Jack tried to get the fire going while Woody and Ian started knocking the fence posts in.

That's one hell of a post basher!

Looking a bit bare, but we can now access the boundary, sort the fencing and attempt to restore the stone wall (a long term project!)

Jack having a driving lesson

Happy Days!

We didn't manage to finish the fencing due to a turn in the weather but overall a productive couple of months in the run up to December and a well earned holiday!

We have alot!

"Are we mad?  We ARE mad!"  was the general consensus as we sat in the dining room of the hotel where the auction had just taken place, surrounded by a wedding reception!  Neither of us felt safe to drive, dizzy with adrenalin, so we decided to get something to eat before we made our way home.

We had somehow bought Lot 2, sadly missing out on the more wooded, but smaller, Lot 3. Where to start?  On purchasing the land we had the legal obligation of repairing some of the boundary fencing, easier said than done, it had been left for years and was a jungle with low overhanging branches and thistles 8ft high!  Our first job was to start to clear a path in to the center of the meadow and start the slow process of clearing; dead trees, wood, brambles, gorse, old metal gates and other junk.  Sounds simple...

Field names always have a way of naming themselves; top or bottom field, road field, big oak, cherry tree, hill field etc.  The same logical naming started to happen with our land too.  So far it's Top triangle; the half acre triangle where the main entrance is, full of brambles, and Pony paddock; two acres of flat pasture with a pretty little oak halfway down.  It gets a bit "wooly" after that, the further you walk in the more you realise the old hedges have blurred into a mass of gorse.  There are other landmarks dotted about; a wet bottom corner, a pond, snake rockery, blue box, brick shed....etc... I am sure these will evolve as we clear, excavate and replant.

We started work on the Friday we completed and signed the last contract.  Woody hired the biggest brush cutter we could get in the car wedged in with saws, cutters and a kettle we left work early setting off for the land on a muggy afternoon in August.  Arriving at the land and unlocking the main gates we drove down the long driveway and finally bumped over the the grassy threshold (feeling a bit like trespassers!) into the first field where we negotiated a few rocks and anthills and made our way through the sea of meadow grasses.

We unpacked the car and woody got straight on with clearing an area where we could set out tools, have a fire and put the kettle on to start our obsession with making a good "cupatea" on the land.

I spied Woody after a few hours taking it all in, I think his face says it all....what have we done!?

 

The first few weeks were spent figuring out what we had.  We spend a lot of time walking round and round, finding something new each time.  The top fence was knackered and the driveway fence was pretty much rust and sticks so that needed sorting but to even get to them we had low hanging Oak branches and Birch saplings everywhere that needed to be cut back....we had a lot of sawing ahead of us...

Heavenly, but we've somehow got to get a tractor and post basher down there.....