A bonus and yet another casualty of the heavy storm we had last year, was a huge oak tree, which blew down in the night in the bottom meadow. Thankfully the tree fell in the opposite direction of the bothy rather than onto it!
The tree has been lying where it fell ever since and this January, on a wet and cold day, Jim, Mel and me decided to start processing it for the wood store whilst Marcus preferred to continue with renovations to the cabin.
Nothing quite prepares you for the sheer size of an oak tree until you are stood alongside it on the ground working out how your 30 year-old chainsaw will cope with the branches, let alone the trunk! As a result we kept things simple with a bow saw and some good old fashioned hard work.
We really did make some good progress that day but with the wood store getting emptier by the day and the need to get logs prepped, dryed and seasoned for next winter it’s times like this that you realise what a luxury gas central heating is!
Very soon we’ll have four very large wood burners to keep stocked so good, dry wood is an absolute necessity. Luckily for us we have our own pocket of oak woodland with various trees felled in different states of seasoning – we now just need to work on getting a working chainsaw or four!