Unforgettable eve

I was grateful to learn that that they start work at a remarkably civilized hour these days - I was up by 8 and spent a bit breakfasting with Ben's friend Bea before I headed out to meet Nick and Kris in the cant by 9. Ben spent the day finishing up the woodland management course at the Sustainability Centre about 15 miles away in Hampshire.

The weather was cool but it was not bad at all for a day working outdoors. This season Ben and his apprentices cut a massive cant - what the Forestry Commission determined to be 4.6 acres. By comparison's sake, I'd estimate that we cut 2 acres during my stay. Much of it is derelict, not having been managed for nearly 60 years. What's also different about this cant is that it is a mix of species - a good bit of it contains a fair amount of alder and birch, while it was once much more uniformly hazel and ash. The southern portion of the cant is primarily chestnut. The cant is also littered with 'standard' trees (large single stemmed trees left to grow to their full size so as to add a long term yield/product and diversity the woodland structure).

Because this cant had not seen any management activity for over five decades, it requires significantly more work to restore to a working woodland. And at the same time, the size of the material (and the species) leaves it of little use for much other than cordwood (firewood) or charcoal material. I learned from Ben that he receives 42 pounds per green cord of unsplit 6' lengths of birch firewood. I'm not sure how much total volume this

cant will yield, but typically coppice yield figures project one cord per acre per year. Conservatively speaking, fifty years of growth over four acres should yield at least 200 cords - a fairly sizable amount of fuelwood. That said, cordwood is about the lowest possible value for this material - if he were able to turn it into a higher value product, he could see quite a bit more economic return. It's not the size (volume) that matters - it's what you do with it!

Now that the stage is set, my task for the day was to basically clean up the massive friggin mess these guys had made. With spring fast approaching an

d a schedule that had been delayed by a very abnormal winter snowfall that set back felling and clearing operations, they still had quite a bit of work to do before they were 'finished'. The priority was clearing up the edge of the cant - piling up the cordwood and burning the 'brash' (side branches and tree tops) so that things would be accessible the next time they come through to cut. So I spent the day manning a fire, collecting and burning brash and heaving heavy wet logs onto the nearest possible pile.

It's an interesting task, burning greenwood. Especially when it's wet which is just about all the time in the UK. I got some help from my friends getting this nightmare of a fire going (they'd been doing it all winter so they were pretty good). Once it had built up sufficient heat, it was fairly easy going, but it took a while. As a relevant side note, the season I was there, we actually chipped all the brash and used it to improve access in some of the muddier areas and Ben was also able to sell it as garden mulch to some of the locals. Thus, I was not the most skilled green/wet wood fire tender on the block.

But probably one of the biggest highlights of the brash fire (which I had come to know during the 2 or so weeks of hedgelaying that we did that season) was the lunchtime potato and fire-warmed cup of tea. In my mind, few things compare to a wet, cold day of work in the woods, with a colder, wetter, exposed lunch break spent enjoying the best baked potato you've ever tasted and a cup of tea warmed by the fire you've been tending all day - even if your enamel mug has some strange floaties at the bottom of it. This time we didn't have any butter around so we settled for olive oil, soy sauce, and hot sauce.

This time through I also missed out on the hunted squirrel roast - a prized outcome of the necessary coppice pest control (squirrel do a lot of damage to young regrowth, eating the cambium from below the bark of young stems). Ben's dog Oily is actually trained to hunt squirrels, either running them down herself or treeing them so that Ben or one of his apprentices can take them out with an air rifle. It's a pretty elegant little system that they've got going.

After a good conversation and lunch around the coals, we set back to work. I was feeling a bit slow seeing as how it has been weeks since my last bout of repeated lifting along with the fact that much of the brash I needed to burn lay downwind of the fire I was tending (asphyxiation really sucks!). The other guys continued felling and cross cutting logs, nearly finishing the cant off. Around 5:30 or 6 or so, we knocked off and headed back to the homestead (for lack of a better term).

Nick was headed to visit his girlfriend for the weekend and Kris and I had already made up our minds that happy hour at the pub had our names all over it. When we returned, we found Ben back home and invited him to join

us. He replied something to the effect of - 'I couldn't possibly turn that down', so we set off on foot for the pub (about a 20 minute walk from the woods). We realized that we were cutting it pretty close for happy hour and fortunately Nick swung by and picked us up as he headed out of town.

We arrived at The Hollist and immediately took our posts along the long, age-old wooden bar.

Conversation flowed like Niagara Falls (about as coherently sometimes) and we had a grand old time. Taking turns with each round, enjoying a big plate of chips (french fries) with ketchup, chili and mayo, making friends or at least acquaintances with some of the neighboring, rich as hell, patrons and then waking up on Ben's couch... Waking up on Ben's couch? Seems a few things must've been missed. Namely the large bump on my forehead and the gnarly gravel wounds that remained (and my glasses that seemed to be missing). Well, I'll leave you to wonder because your guess is as good as mine - and don't you go worrying about me one little bit. I can take care of myself - well, actually, tw

o kind passers by helped apparently, picking the gravel out of my forehead after what must've been a pretty tremendous spill. At this point (nearly 10 days later) the scabs are almost all gone, the bump(s) still there though relived and my neck is still pretty sore. Chalk it up to my first British MDI (mysterious drinking injury

of 2010) - and yes, it is kinda disturbing to know that there's an acronym for it.