At the very start of the snowy weather I met with Derek Richardson at the roadside at Inishconnell. Derek runs his own trucking business and on this job he is driving for Balcas, carting the timber from the roadside at Inishconnell to their sawmill and timber yard near Enniskillen.
Derek Richardson arriving at the forest.
Derek is the last link in this first thinning process. From the owner arranging for the trees to be planted; through nearly twenty years of growing; to Paddy Purser, Donal O’Hare and myself looking at the forest early last year and Paddy marking out the extraction rows; then Ken Thompson arriving with his digger to put in the log stacking bay; to me doing all that marking and arranging for the work to be carried out; then Wesley harvesting the trees and Padraig collecting the logs in the forwarder and stacking them at the roadside. And now Derek arrives to draw the logs away to Balcas.
Derek up on the high seat loading the first of the logs
The watchful eye of Derek making sure not to damage the young trees.
The powerful head of the grabber picking up the logs while some young beech trees look on
On board computer showing the weight of the load
Securing the load and getting ready for off
The truck pulling out of the forest with a full load
Just as Derek was leaving the snow began to fall. There are still a good few loads of timber yet to collect.
Snow falling as Derek Richardson pulls away from Inishconnell with his load of logs
And guess what? After all that activity in the forest, here are the same little ash seedlings we noticed last summer waiting patiently for the spring so they can move in to the forest and begin to take up residence. Now that the light has been let in the natural forest can begin to happen.
Can you see all the little pale coloured twigs standing up on the forest floor? These are thousands of ash seedlings scattered around the edges of the forest.
The conifers have served a most valuable role in the process of turning a field into a forest. They quickly grabbed the ground and shaded out competitive undergrowth. Their logs have provided essential income to the forest owner to help pay for the work involved in setting up a system that will allow commercial logs to be harvested in the future. And the remaining conifers will provide essential protection to the young trees that nature sends in from the surrounding native woodland. Thinning a conifer plantation such as this one at Inishconnell really bump starts the evolution of the forest. In order to evolve as a forest, a plantation must be thinned.
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Tags: ash seedlings, Inishconnell forest
