Matt has many jobs here at LT. He is in charge of land management, fencing, electrics, plumbing, anything to do with technology, accounts, general maintenance, project management and last but not least, forestry. We fell the wood in the winter, when the trees have lost their leaves and the wood contains the least water. This is so the wood is lighter to drag out and takes the shortest time possible to dry.
When Nige needs wood for the saw, it's Matts job to winch the trees out of the forest.
It's not the easiest of jobs because the forest is very overgrown and it is all on very steep slopes!
Winching logs out with Adam
Getting ready for the next one
Our tractor has a winch and cable which, after some clearing, manages to pull trees up to the tractor. Once he has a good stack of them out, he drags them up to the saw yard, where Nige receives them.
Matt's forestry plan at this point is to thin it and just manage it, as it has not been managed for at least 15 years, which is why we don't have a lot of big trees here. We need to cut some of the trees down in order to allow others to grow big. At this point, we are using everything we cut for our own building projects and the off cuts for our fire wood; nothing goes to waste.
Once we have all the wood we need for building and the forest is penetrable, Matt wants to get planting trees. He has spoken about pine for Christmas trees and an orchard. We have an old orchard here which is difficult to access at the moment. We have had some pears from the old pear trees, but they're not doing brilliantly well so we need some young trees.
Go to 'Nige & his saw yard' page to see what happens once Nige gets the trees!