Martino Newcombe and friends

Word just in from Martino Newcombe and Tom Nixon of Trojan Horses that we can see them and their magnificent horses at work this coming Tuesday night at 8.30pm, RTE 1, on Ear to the Ground.  Do some home work by checking out their blog site in advance of the programme and you’ll begin to really understand why these two guys have such belief in writing horse logging back into the Irish forestry story. Fantastic work.  Enormous commitment. And I’ve no doubt it will be fantastic viewing on Tuesday night.  don’t miss it!

I was quite taken aback.  I’d always associated the term “desertification”  with virgin, old growth forests in tropical regions of the world.  I’ve seen it in Australia, where I grew up, and I’ve seen it in Malaysia and Thailand many years ago.  I never thought of that term ‘desertification’ applying to conifer plantations in damp old Ireland.  Yet I could see how, in this young lady’s mind, that’s how it appeared. She’s articulate, intelligent and bright.  She’s not an environmentalist or a ‘green’.  She’s not a scientific person. She wouldn’t know that much about forestry, apart form what she sees in her area. But there it was, - her word, her observation.

I thought about her on the way home. The trees were planted and left to grow away, slowly changing the landscape over forty years or so. To someone who grew up in such an area, - that’s what a forest is. And then whamo, just as the trees reach a relatively impressive size,  along come big machines and the rapid process of “desertification” occurs, very often on a large scale. Her landscape is dramatically changed very suddenly and she feels the impact of this “desertification”.  If she chooses to remain living in the area this young lady  will be an elderly lady before she ever sees big trees there again.  Kind of sad, I thought.  Big trees are just so inspiring to be around. The only big trees around Drumshanbo, and indeed most parts of Cavan/Leitrim, are occasional single trees and ones in the hedgerows.  No big trees in the forests.  European foresters reading this post will no doubt also think that a strange concept.

Anyone can see by looking at this image that, done this way, plantations will never become a forest. This is what my young friend meant when she used the term 'desertification'.

If Copenhagen was less than what was aimed for, one thing that stood out above all else was that we must preserve forests.  Not just virgin, tropical forests that are so under threat, - but all forests.  Sequestration of carbon seems to be one powerful way of stemming climate change and forests do that so well.

The main reaction from here, reflected in the media that I read following Copenhagen, was that there was a clammer for the Government to provide more forestry grants; about the re-aforestation grant coming to an end and how will we manage to keep forest land as forest land without it. (Umm, one way seems fairly obvious.)   But the message from Copenhagen wasn’t that ‘forestry’ as a land use must be preserved, - that is, the practice of establishing forests and then cutting them down. What they said was ‘forests’ must be preserved.  So if the only forests we have are even aged, single species plantations, - then that’s what we must preserve, surely, in order to be part of the solution to this world-effecting problem/crisis. Some readers might find the thought of preserving conifer plantations as a fairly depressing thought, but………

Luckily the plantations that we have are ideally suited to being transformed through skillful management and time, into something quite different. Permanent forests that contain big trees and that produce quality timbers, ad infinitum.  That’s our good fortune, should we opt to grasp it.

This was a single species plantation, in Austria. Now look at the beauty of it, and the timber it is still producing. No need to cut it all down. The worlds leading experts are telling us: |Forests must be preserved. Producing quality timber does not have to conflict with forest preservation. Done this way the plantation has been allowed to evolve into a forest, with its unique ability of carbon sequestration.

White wonderland. - Scene from the window.

For the last four weeks we have experienced amazing weather for Irish standards. Everything frozen and white.  The trees looked so beautiful.  It brought many hardships with it, and many of us had to change the way we usually did things. For us on the farm, filling water for the cattle (and for neighbour’s cattle) became the main occupation for many days.

One of our cows in her cozy shed, waiting for water to be fetched from the lake.

How quickly the lake edge froze over again after we had smashed through it to draw water.

Refrozen ice at the lake edge.

We took time out to walk on the lake when it was so solid.  We saw foxes and hares out running on the lake, but too quick for my camera.

Gabriel rambling back across the lake.

For me, apart from the hardship of extra tasks, it was a special time of pause for reflection  Not just about the year ahead, but also about the wonder of it all.  How just a few more degrees, one way or the other, can make such a huge difference to our world. 

I was fascinated to watch the way frost builds up tiny, glistening layers over the twigs.

Little circles of warmth beneath the evergreen Douglas fir trees dotted through the Cabin Woods create access to a leafy food source for birds in an otherwise frozen, white environment.

The bird feeder is a popular spot when all else is frozen solid.

But the ground feeding birds need hedges and trees to find their food.

A wagtail and a blackbird feeding and sheltering under the hedge during harsh, frozen weather.

……. And little patches of wildness…..

This is where the humble bramble really proves its worth. Just look at the shelter offered for small mammals and birds under this patch of bramble.

Our 'little' bullock setting off on an adventure down along the hedgerow to the frozen lake.

A frozen scene down at the lake edge.

HAPPY NEW YEAR :)

Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to this historical event, but Ireland was well represented by three people from the  PSI committee: Donal O’Hare, Cathy Fitzgerald and Liam Byrne.

The main part of the event that I really regretted not being there for was to see these two friends receiving well deserved recognition for their part in starting Pro Silva:

Pro Silva Europe founding member Hermann Wobst from Lower Saxony, Germany (left) ,receiving his award from European President Prof. Jean-Philippe Schutz from Switzerland at the Slovenian 20th Year Conference

These men have worked in forestry all their lives. In the mid-eighties they and some colleagues took a trip across the border into Slovenia to see for themselves these wonderful, commercial, biologically diverse forests that they had heard about, - and to meet the professor who taught close-to-nature forestry to his students. Out of that memorable visit was born Pro Silva.  To create change in European forestry.  Quite a challenge.

Pro Silva founding member Bela Varga from Hungary, receiving his award from Prof. Jean-Philippe Schutz.

The main emphasis for the organization then was to find ways to work with natural systems in forest management, as they had seen in Slovenia. (Hermann Wobst’s father had been a pioneer of close-to-nature forestry in Lower Saxony)  Their message was heard and Pro Silva has attracted foresters from 27 European countries to date.

But now there is climate change.  A potential crisis of enormous scale for us all. The main message to come out of the conference and workshops in Slovenia was that in terms of forest management, you just can’t get better than what Pro Silva members are doing. It ticks all the boxes more than any other approach.  They got it right. But that now their message urgently needs to go out beyond foresters and into a much wider audience, including politicians, policy makers, the media, etc.

I think until these recent floods in Ireland, the worst on record, most of us were content to imagine that climate change was just an interesting theory.  There are still many people here who say this kind of thing happens all the time. But the predictions are that Ireland will get wetter and warmer.

The Cabin Woods on my farm under water during the floods.

I went canoeing out over the lake during the high waters.  Luckily the Cabin just managed to escape damage.  Our house is up on a hill, as are the cattle sheds and we were very lucky not to be effected by the flooding.

From out in the canoe, the Cabin came this close to being flooded.

But the most heart warming site I saw was in the following photo.  I was out in the canoe, paddling around in my woodlands and noticing as much as I could take in of the astonishing scene with SO MUCH WATER.  And here I saw signs of nature trying to help the situation and showing us the way:

Thousands of alder seeds float on the flood waters, trying to reach higher ground and give support to the new levels of the waters edge.

The Pro Silva group in discussion in the forest at Baronscourt, County Tyrone

The long awaited visit of Pro Silva Ireland (PSI) to Baronscourt Estate near Newtownstewart, County Tyrone was well worth the wait. In keeping with PSI tradition, two foreign experts were invited over to Ireland to join us on the day.  Brice De Turckheim, a forest owner and forester with many years of experience in close-to-nature management and one of the founding members of Pro Silva Europe , came from Alsace on France’s eastern border adjacent to Germany and Switzerland. Phil Morgan is an independent forest manager from Wales and works with Selectfor. He is an active member of Pro Silva Europe through the CCFG in the UK and he is forestry consultant at Baronscourt. Phil is a fluent French speaker and translated for Brice on the day. Between them Brice and Phil fielded our many questions with such clarity and the ease that comes with years of time spent in forests.

Sitka spruce regeneration moving in after severe wind throw 8 years ago.

Baronscourt has been the home of the Duke of Abercorn’s family since 1612. The Estate woodlands extend to approximately 1,450 hectares of which approximately 300 hectares are leased to the NI Forest Service and the remainder are managed in-hand by the Estate’s Head Forester, Jim Simpson. In 2001, following a trip with Pro Silva Ireland to Lower Saxony, it was decided to discontinue clear-felling the in-hand woodlands and instead transform to continuous-cover/close-to-nature. A quarter of these woodlands are now thinned each year and the stops included visits to woodlands that have been thinned twice with the intention of retaining tree cover in perpetuity. The presence of Japanese sika deer and Rhododendron ponticum provide significant management issues and lengthy discussions ensued on the day.

Brice De Turckheim arrived in the dark the night before.  He needed only a few minutes to observe his surroundings at the first stop before answering questions. His first observation was that ‘this is a wind-managed forest’. One of the main deciding factors of the Estate to change their management to ccf/close-to-nature was the incidence of windthrow in their even-aged conifer plantations.

Notice the size variation of the regeneration. You can imagine how much more stable this forest is becoming as its structure is allowed to develop.

While Baronscourt is predominantly made up of ’sensible sitka’ at present, the owners are not attached to trying to keep the estate as pure sitka.  As broadleaves seed into the forest, they are favoured because they are so in the minority. But that will change over time. Ultimately it is quality of timber and forest health that will guide the forest management here.

This area, originally planted with Scots pine, was hit by Hurricane Debbie in 1964. Southern beech, birch, oak have seeded in.

The presence of deer is a big issue at Baronscourt, especially of course for the broadleaved species.  Some areas have been fenced to exclude the deer and here we see again the reality of what the presence of high deer numbers in a forest effects:

Lush regeneration of many species happily growing inside the deer exclusion fence while outside the fence is bare.

As at many of the forest trips organized by Pro Silva in Ireland, the subject of log sizes came up.  In ccf/close-to-nature management the aim is to only fell large trees, as they are worth more and of course the overall increment of the forest is higher. The Irish sawmills have adapted to suit what is offered for sale, so in Ireland what is offered is small dimension (by European standards) logs.  Estate Manager Robert Scott told us that they are lucky to have a mill nearby that operates a ban saw and can take large logs.

Brice gave a wonderful response to this subject.  He said that man has no control over nature but has control over technology.  (You simply can’t argue with that statement.) Therefore adapt the technology to both serve the forest and to harvest timber wisely.  Growers must create big trees and then the mills will sort out the technology needed to mill them. Foresters need to have vision for the future to grow big trees, he said.  If you harvest small trees you must harvest in larger groups and the larger the group the less diversity comes to the forest. So there is less disturbance to the forest if you just select the large trees and then the forest becomes more stable and less at risk of wind. There were many wonderful such offerings from Brice and Phil during the day as they shared their knowledge and experience with us.

From left: Estate Manager (and former Chairman of PSI) Robert Scott, Phil Morgan, Brice De Turckheim and Baronscourt Forest Manager Jim Simpson

I love that Pro Silva brings to Ireland foresters from countries where there is an unbroken forestry culture for hundreds of years. We are just beginning to grow a forest culture here and need to somehow develop this long term view.  We cannot do that on our own. We need the help of others who have the culture, the tradition and the knowledge.

We stopped at another forest area where the wind had felled a huge gap in 1998, leaving only a few large trees still standing.   I remembered fondly when PSI had it’s first forest trip to Baronscourt in 2001 when our guests had been Prof. Hans Jurgen Otto from Lower Saxony and Talis Kalnars, now deceased, from Wales.  At that time this site was bare of trees and the question from Robert Scott and Jim Simpson was ‘Do we plant?’  A resounding ‘No!’ had been the reply from our two foreign experts. ‘Just wait and see what comes in.’  I remember us all looking doubtfully at this huge area of bare, grassy ground.

The same area, 8 years later, is now thick with wind-firm self sown trees.

But here it is eight years later, teeming with bright young self-sown trees.

Brice and Phil spoke about the importance of keeping the remaining tall trees. They are the strong ones that withstood the storm winds.  Their presence will help with the stability of the entire forest into the future. You must manage for diversity and continue to be directed by the forest itself, he said.

On our way back to our cars, we stopped on a high place to recap on the day.  Looking out over the increasingly diverse and lush forest landscapes that is Baronscourt Estate we could see in the distance forests managed by the Forest Service. They had a sad, almost agricultural appearance with their tall crop of sitka offering up such enormous potential, and the tell tale bare ground of the clearfelling practice that will soon sweep them all away.

Meanwhile in the background, the 'same old same old' of even aged conifers carve up the landscapes with their hard lines as they wait to be felled completely.

We received a warm welcome and wonderful hospitality from the Duke and Duchess of Abercorn. I couldn’t really find the words to express to them the significance of the step they and their son Lord Hamilton, have made in this leap of faith eight years ago to try something that had not been tried here. They didn’t do it in a nervous, small way.  They saw the sense of it through the trips with Pro Silva and they took up the recommendations and applied them to the whole forest estate. It is wonderful to see, and we’re told we’re welcome back, so look out for future PSI visits there over the years.

I can’t finish this post without mention of the Pushkin Trust project that the Duchess has been working on since its launch in 1987. Trust endeavours to unite children, their parents and educators, north and south, in the common bond of creativity. Take a look on the link, - it is so inspiring.

The Pushkim House built entirely from timbers grown on the Estate

One of the hares here on the farm in winter helping itself to some nice protein rich beech buds.

Well, - that’s a slight exaggeration, - but we do have a permanent family of hares living here.  The hawk usually helps keep the numbers down in the early summer. Probably many people would shoot them. End of problem.  End of food for the hawk also. I like to see the hares and enjoy observing their antics throughout the seasons. The presence of wildlife in a forest can be challenging, but to me it enriches our lives in so many ways and I am always learning something new from them.

Hare damage to the soft bark of the fast growing lime tree happened after the tree sleeve had been removed.

This summer I set myself the target of removing all the tree sleeves from the Cabin Woods. The trees are now ten years old. I bought the tree sleeves second hand from Joe Gowran of Ashling Woodland Development, who had used them for five years before I got them.  They’re made of tough material.  One of the selling points of the tree sleeves was that they would disintegrate after ten years and I had thought they would have long given up by now, but only about 50% were being torn apart at the seam as the tree outgrew the sleeve. The other 50% were still gripping onto the tree and during this very wet summer many of them had filled up with water.

Ten year old ash tree bursting open the seam of the tough tree sleeve.

So I learned that I’d have been better to remove the tree sleeves at an earlier stage. Usually the narrower part of the young tree trunk growing out at the top of the sleeve is much thinner than at the base of the tree.  So it looks like there’s plenty of time to remove the sleeve.  But I found that as the base of the tree filled the sleeve, water filled up the sleeve and the trunk was consequently standing in water. Time to cut the sleeve off and free the tree. They were full of slugs and slime and all manner of wetland insects.  But no damage was done and after a couple of weeks of dry weather I can hardly notice the marks from tree sleeve.

This tree is a good size to remove the tree sleeve

And the other thing I would have done differently had I known, would have been to pull out the steel rods that support the sleeve after a couple of  years.  By then the tree itself could have supported the sleeve and the rod would no longer have been needed.  In most cases if I wasn’t strong enough to pull out the rod, some strong man could.  But after ten years some of the tree roots have knitted over the rod and even Hercules himself wouldn’t be able to pull them out. So those rods had to be hack sawed off at the base, having first scraped back the soil to get in as low as possible. Not much fun.

Steel rod from the tree sleeve stuck in the ground and impossible to now remove. It now has to be hack-sawed off at base.

If the tree sleeves are removed at 5 - 7 years instead of later, there might still be risk of hare damage.  But the damage will usually only be to  a few trees by then and the damage is not fatal, as you can see in the top photo of the lime tree.  We’ve also found that if branches of the trees the hares go for are pruned and left lying at the base of the tree the hares will go for the nice fresh young bark of the branch and will leave the trunk alone.  We do that here in mid-February before the ‘March Hare’ activity sets in and so far it has been very successful.

Hare damage on one of the branches we cut in February at the base of the tree we wanted to protect. It works!

My friend Rory and I doing the tourist thing at the famous Little Mermaid

I didn’t know before I went that Copenhagen is famous for its cycling. Cycle paths were planned in at a very early stage and 36% of the population cycle to work or place of education. The Danish Government are aiming for 50% by the year 2015. Think of it!  And the cycle paths aren’t just a painted line on the road.  Most of them are separated from the road by a small curbstone and the pedestrian areas also have this little curb. So even though cyclists, pedestrians and cars travel right alongside each other, there doesn’t seem to be a problem.   The car dirvers have so much respect for the cyclists.  It took me a little while to gain confidence amongst so much bicycle traffic. But before too long I was whizzing along confidently with all the thousands of other cyclists in the city.

One day we put the bikes on the train, -  very easy and commonplace, - and then we cycled out to Jaegersborg Dyrehaven, a forest park north of Copenhagen.

Jaegersborg Dyrehaven translates as The Deer Garden and there are about 2000 deer living peacefully on the 11 square kilometre estate parkland.

Here are a few of the 2000 dear at Dyrehaven grazing peacefully in the forest

This would normally be a foresters nightmare, but Dyrehaven is maintained as a natural forest park, with the emphasis on tourism  over commercial forestry.  However of course new trees need to come in so as to perpetuate the forest. Some areas had been planted and were deer fenced.

New planting beside a forest block is protected by a deer fence.

In other areas the forest block itself had been fenced, including some neighbouring grass land so that the forest could regenerate and expand naturally. I thought it was great to see examples of both being tried.

Some oak, beech and minor species regenerating naturally behind the deer fence.

Old trees are felled only if they are a danger to the public, so there is plenty of dead and dying old trees adding their unique atmosphere to the healthy forest. It was a Saturday when we were there and many people were out enjoying the peaceful, natural setting.

Children climbing and playing on upturned old tree roots

I loved to see the huge amount of dead wood standing and lying around where the big old trees had fallen.  In these ways the park took on a truly natural and quite magical character.

Here's me sitting in an area of dead and decaying beech trees. - A haven for insects and birds

I was blessed lucky having such a great tourist guide in my friend Rory, who has lived in Copenhagen for nearly twenty years.  That made all the sightseeing easy and a lot of fun. We spent some time wandering through Christiania where people have been forging out another way of life in the city centre over the last thirty years.

The lovely tranquil setting of Christiania, right in the heart of the city

It was impressive to see how nature and home made houses have been allowed the freedom to remain, right close to the centre of Copenhagen. Wandering along the unmade road beside the river I could have easily imagined I was way out in the countryside again.

Tom Nixon listening intently at Pro Silva event at Currachase last May

We had invited Tom Nixon from Trojan Heavy Horses to come along and give some demonstrations of log extraction with one of his wonderful horses.  He didn’t have a huge amount of work on at the time and he thought it would be a good way of showing forest owners just what a horse can do in a forest and to speak a bit about the economics of horse extraction.  But that was back in May and this week I received this email from him explaining that he won’t be able to make it:

Hi Jan
I hope alls going well for you.
Things here are picking up pace and we have been busy most of the summer. A number of new options have become available to us for next spring with private contractors which will add a completely new angle to forest management with horses.One of these options is the fertilising of young plantations using an adapted timber arch and an ATV spreader. This is usually carried out by hand but with my system it will become more efficient and completely accurate which with the price of manure is very important. Other options we are looking at is bracken rolling and weed control.
We have decided that in order to keep going we must grow to a point where we can tender for larger jobs, whether they are thinning or windblow.
With this in mind I have brought on board two more workers, on a temporary basis for the moment, to take on felling and horse work and have just purchased an ardenne stallion  to add to the team, but also breed with my own two ardenne mares,and ensure good working stock for the future.
While bringing on the extra help, I have had to organise chainsaw courses and contacted the FTEI hoping they might help with the cost. Last week they rang me and said they have organised a course with four places for the first two weeks in October in West Cork and are willing to finance the lot.
Needless to say this is a huge help for the likes of us as the courses usually run at about €800-900 each, and while I have committed myself to attend Baronscourt on the 3rd October I hope you understand my predicament.
This progression is the only way I can foresee a future for this businness in Ireland and am quite determined to make it work.
I am sorry for letting you down in October as I know the ammount of work that goes into these things but hopefully it will lead to bigger and better demonstrations and contracts from now on.
All the best for now Jan.
Tom.
Trojan Heavy Horses.

I was so excited when I read his email.  No, not because he can’t make it to the Pro Silva event!!! That’s a little disappointing.  But I know there’ll be other days when he’ll be able to come, - maybe when it’s nearer to him in West Cork.  But I was excited to read this email because of the person Tom is and how he single mindedly approaches his special line of work and just keeps on keeping on.  Of course he and his horses are going to be busy and of course he’s had to train up more help and of course the FTEI will back his request for chainsaw courses.  He’s not wimping off to the Government asking for special grants to help sustain his business.  No.  Tom wants horses to work in the forest, not just during his lifetime.  He believes in his heart and soul that horses have a crucial part to play in Irish forestry. He thinks about it all the time. He’s constantly finding ways to weave horses back into the tapestry of rural life, not to be forever suspended in heritage parks and museums. He knows the horses have to pay their way if they’re going to work themselves back into the Irish picture. And his mind is fixed on that happening. So he finds solutions. Things work out. It’s called passion. Doom and gloom?  Nah. Tom Nixon isn’t effected by the so called ‘news’.  He’s just out there doing his work and making his dreams become reality.

Tom drawing out logs using Scottish logger Jim Johnston's Brabant'

PS  Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention the on-line directory Tom is creating on his blog site for people involved in Traditional Skills, Crafts and Produce. Check it out.

Thomas Baker and me in the alder wood that Thomas and other volunteers pruned last summer.

Last summer I ran an informal workshop on the farm on the subject of tending young woodlands. About twenty people turned up on the Saturday morning.  The deal was that in the morning I’d show people through the woods and offer what I have learned about tending the woods.  After lunch we would do some pruning of alder in the ‘new plantation’ by way of exchange and to get some ‘hands on’ experience.

It was great fun, but of course less than half the people stayed to help.  That didn’t matter, I was just glad so many people came.  One of the people who stayed on to help was Thomas Baker, a young man who was doing work experience/ voluntary work at that time on Dan and Becky Hillman’s small holding near Mohill.  Such a nice young man and he really seemed to enjoy the work.  We had a good conversation afterwards and off they all went.

Thomas Baker pruning some small alder trees in the 'new plantation' early last summer.

Since then, not much has happened in the new plantation, except of course the trees have grown.  It was planted in 2003, so it’s young yet. Niall Miller (Fuinseog Woodland Crafts) has gone in to the higher ground each year and cleared brambles where the oak and birch, scots pine and hazel needed help. I felt the time had come to go in and take out some of the faster grown trees here and there to give space to some of the slower oak and Scots pine.  I was kind of putting it off because the task of getting in there seemed too much. But of course when you put off a job like that, especially given the growth rate in the Cavan/Leitrim area where I live, it rapidly gets worse. And then as if by magic I got an email from Thomas Baker saying he and a friend would be staying in the area during the summer break and they’d love to come over and meet up and do some work in the woods for a day.

Thomas and Gerry who volunteered their work in the 'new plantation' recently.

When they arrived I was on my way to a funeral.  So I just showed Thomas and his friend Gerry into the area where I wanted to start and they set to work.  I was gone several hours and when I came back there was a beautiful new patch of sunlight pouring into the forest where Gerry and Thomas had worked and the way was clear into the rest of the forest.  They’re no slouches. They had done loads. It was just what was needed to get me back in there.

Thomas and Gerry standing in the new light after their work in the 'new plantation.'

The atmosphere was bright and cheerful where the two boys were working. Their arms were scratched from the brambles, they were sweaty from the hard work and they were simply happy to be thus engaged in the woods. Their clearing and pruning was of a high standard and they seemed as pleased with their work as I was. I was so grateful for their help, which came just at the right time.

We had some lunch up at the house and had a chance to catch up.  Thomas has had a fascinating and very educational time for the last eight months staying at Prickly Nut Wood in West Sussex with Ben Law.  He’s been learning the art of coppice management; making tools and rustic furniture from what comes out of the woods, and timber house building. He goes back now for another few months.  It was clear to me,through listening to Thomas, that the course offered is very practical and that it has not only taught him a plethora of new skills but also helped to nurture the interest that he had when I met him just over a year ago.

Thomas is pleased so far with his decision to leave out university study from his career choice. He felt that there is a lot of good learning to be had outside the university and that it was often broader in its scope, more practical and offered more work opportunities later in the ‘real’ world.  Gerry is new to woodland work, but is developing a keen interest in it.  He is very attracted to the idea of owning some forest and learning to live in it, manage it well and put to use the variety of materials that come from woodlands. They were both doing some work with Peter Cowman in Roosky learning the skill of cobb building. There’s so much good stuff available these days. Our conversation just never got around to the ‘doom and gloom’ subjects that have become so fashionable lately. Off they went with vows of keeping in touch and well wishing all round.

Since the visit from Thomas and Gerry I’ve been in the ‘new plantation’ (someday I’ll find a proper name for this 6 acre forest!) nearly every day.  Gabriel and I have cleared a little path along by the main drain/small canal for easy access and Gabriel is slowly clearing the four ponds of all the heavy grass and bramble that is growing over them.

Gabriel clearing out the grass and bramble from one of the ponds in the 'new plantation'.

I have marked some trees for felling near the ponds to let in more light.  We have done more pruning and I’m taking out some trees as I make my way along the rows. Often all it takes to get moving in a new area is a little interest from someone else, - well, a little sweat also helps. A helping hand is worth a thousand times more than good advice, is the old saying.

Cathy Fitzgerald visited here a couple of days after the work had been done so I couldn’t wait to bring her down and show her this section of our forest that she had never been in.  It’s a place I love being in now.  Plenty of light and I can see what I’m doing in there now. Thanks lads!

Cathy Fitzgerald and I admiring the healthy young trees in the 'new plantation' on my farm.

PHOTO OF ME AND CATHY IN WOODS