The Woodland

[oldypigeonpopper]

1 hour ago, mel b3 said:

something suitable will come up , its just a matter of waiting until the right one comes along. the first piece of woodland that i thought about buying would have been perfect . the problem is that i thought about it for too long , and it sold within a couple of days.

a small piece of woodland , with a nice little 1 acre trout pool came up for sale recently(at a very reasonable price) . the only problem was that it was just down the road from a large housing estate . youd need to be there 24/7 or the fish stocks would just get plundered.

we have a small fast flowing stream on our woodland , the problem is that the land is the side of a mountain , and would be way too steep to build a decent sized pool. i believe that most of the local streams hold very small trout.

some of my best shooting memories are due to me just sitting still and doing nothing 

Hello, is there no land, woods for sale that border your woodland that has the stream but flatter ground, you could build a weir and pond then run it back to the stream,

[mel b3]

30 minutes ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, is there no land, woods for sale that border your woodland that has the stream but flatter ground, you could build a weir and pond then run it back to the stream,

the piece of land next door was sold last year , is was slightly out of my price range though . it was rather a large chunk of woodland , and was up for sale for £27,500,000.

i eventually want to own three pieces of woodland (hopefully of roughly equal value) , so that when my days are up , i can leave the kids a piece of land each..

Edited May 2, 2021 by mel b3

[old'un]

Mel

I sometimes see pieces of land/woods up for sale when I am out and about or when I have been looking for property's on the net, if I see something I will give you a shout, what's your budget 1 or 2 million? Only joking.

Dave

[loriusgarrulus]

Got this that Andrew built January 2020. Larch planks soaked in cresote.  It needs filling up down at the wood to make a wider area at the back of the caravan. 

Had a daisy block wall at home that put in by a previous owner that was rocky and coming apart so got the lump hammer on it yesterday.

Bit more lump hammering and its ready for the rubble sacks to go down the wood. I will top it off with some soil and leafmould once its all in.

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by loriusgarrulus

[TIGHTCHOKE]

There's no stopping you!

[bruno22rf]

Slightly off topic but does anyone have any views on the Woodland Trust? In my humble opinion they are simply a lumber business masquerading under a charity name. One of our local woods was purchased by them in 1995 , since then they fell trees every 5 years, for no apparent reason, they sell Deer shooting and boast of their conservation work yet have not planted a single tree or created any habitat or nest boxes in all these years, they have destroyed the wood with their recent felling, TBH it nearly brings me to tears to see it now compared to just 5 years ago.

[mel b3]

I have to take my hat off to you Yvonne.  That's a good bit of graft by anyone's standards👍.

[loriusgarrulus]

2 hours ago, mel b3 said:

I have to take my hat off to you Yvonne.  That's a good bit of graft by anyone's standards👍.

Must confess my hands are swollen and zinging today. 😕

[Jim Neal]

8 hours ago, bruno22rf said:

Slightly off topic but does anyone have any views on the Woodland Trust? In my humble opinion they are simply a lumber business masquerading under a charity name. One of our local woods was purchased by them in 1995 , since then they fell trees every 5 years, for no apparent reason, they sell Deer shooting and boast of their conservation work yet have not planted a single tree or created any habitat or nest boxes in all these years, they have destroyed the wood with their recent felling, TBH it nearly brings me to tears to see it now compared to just 5 years ago.

Difficult to say without any photos or exact information on what's been felled or what the existing mixture of tree species are.  However, with forestry being such a long-term, slow burning process it is quite often that valuable work can leave the wood looking a bit destroyed in the shorter term.

The general focus to maintain a healthy wood is to take out trees which are diseased, dead, dying or a species not beneficial to the overall health of the woodland.  This reduces competition for nutrients, space and light and allows more light into the understory, to promote the growth of ground cover and new, young trees.  The lack of planting might be a decision based on how many younger trees are already starting to establish.

Deer management is absolutely essential:  too many deer will simply browse off and kill young emerging trees. 

The local estate who our syndicate rents land from has really been getting stuck in to a few of the woods.  Ash dieback is tightening its grip now so they're literally going through taking ALL of the ash out of the woods! 😲  It's no good leaving it to rot.  It'll be useless once it's gone too far so they may as well take it out for decent firewood now, replant and use the new space.

I've been on there long enough now to have witnessed some major felling work and the mess it makes, but now some years later there's a really good mixture of healthy, mature trees with plenty of younger stuff making its way upwards in the gaps.

Forestry management is easily misunderstood 👍

[bruno22rf]

Will try and get some pics. As for Deer management I call their excuse a load of bullocks, in 2 years I have only seen 2 Deer and have not seen any signs of bark stripping, at one time, apparently, you could hand feed the Deer in the Car Park. It would take a couple of hundred head of Deer a good few years to replicate the carnage carried out by the (miss) Trust.

[Jim Neal]

Deer browse off the foliage of young trees, which kills them. They don't strip bark (that'll be the squirrels).

How tame the deer used to be isn't any relation to the damage they may be doing in the wood.  It doesn't take many deer all that long to start making an impact.  And even if there isn't currently a major problem with deer, the whole point of "management" is to stop them becoming a problem.

Would you consider "pigeon management" for a farmer to be a process which lets the pigeons run riot eating all the crops and then go and shoot them maybe once or twice a year?  No, you'd soon lose your permission.  They have to be deterred and a few shot regularly to keep the numbers low and the farmer happy.  It's the same in forestry.

I'd suggest, if it really is bothering you, to contact the Woodland Trust and make known your concerns.  They may well enlighten you as to the longer term plan for that wood?  Forestry management isn't about next year or the next 5 years, it's the next 50 or more.

[NoBodyImportant]

Fun fact!  I believe made your shed.  I’m a machinist in the tool and die department at Keter NOrth America.  The box is made in the UK or Israel If remember correctly.  Wonderful  reading you story.  I’m doing something similar.  This is the old cabin home sight I tore down.  Looking at getting a carport shed to park a camper under.  I got a a long way to go but I got a 1.5in aquaduct bringing down 5gal a minute for a mountain spring ice cold straight from the rocks.  

My current live arrangement 

The “Hickok” range as everyone calls it 

Edited May 14, 2021 by NoBodyImportant

[NoBodyImportant]

I got random steel target along the road to shoot at for the SxS

The future outside I am building to move to the property 

[NoBodyImportant]

[loriusgarrulus]

2 hours ago, NoBodyImportant said:

That looks really good. 👍👍

[loriusgarrulus]

Got back down the wood yesterday. The dogs were so excited when we got on the farm track I got serenaded all the way into the wood. 

Got the shed cresoted today. Its just pleasantly warm without being too hot.

[mel b3]

Top job Yvonne 👍. 

It looks like the wolf pack are enjoying it😊

[Mice!]

I can hear it now 🙂🙂

[loriusgarrulus]

I always find these three trees amazing. Its a rowan, oak and silver birch all intertwined with moss and ferns at the base and honeysuckle growing through it.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Each competing for the best spot.

[loriusgarrulus]

Filled the front of the barrier with the rubble brought from home. All topped over thanks to my trusty Rootslayer spade in helping dig the soil up to do it. That really is the name of the make of spade. Wish I had had one years ago. It makes digging among the trees so much easier.

 

[ditchman]

yvonne.......you are one sound girl 

[mel b3]

2 hours ago, ditchman said:

yvonne.......you are one sound girl 

I can only echo Simon. 

Well done Yvonne,  that's a fair bit of graft by anyone's standards👍.

[loriusgarrulus]

10 hours ago, ditchman said:

yvonne.......you are one sound girl 

 

8 hours ago, mel b3 said:

I can only echo Simon. 

Well done Yvonne,  that's a fair bit of graft by anyone's standards👍.

Thankyou. We won't get much done today as its scheduled for rain most of the day. Chill day today. 

[loriusgarrulus]

Managed to get a bit of path trimming back done as the brambles were trying to take over and de-cobwebbed and cleaned the toilet shed too before the rain started at 10:00. 🙂

Edited July 28, 2021 by loriusgarrulus