Not long after the trees were planted (1995) we made some bridges across the ditches to make real easy access to the forest. We put chicken wire over the timber so they wouldn’t be slippy. Normally in March the timber is coated with slime and moss, – but look at it now.  Completely dry. In 30 years of living in Ireland I don’t ever remember the ground being so very dry at this time of the year.

The vegetation has been utterly beaten back by first severe flooding; then heavy snow falls; then severe frost for a prolonged period, and now you could almost say drought. Ideal conditions now to get in and do some pruning before the vegetation begins to grow.

Check this out…. No gum boots! Imagine being able to walk out into my very low-lying, usually swampy alder forest wearing just sneakers on my feet in the middle of March! Incredibly dry underfoot.

I passed over the now dislodged big bridge that crosses from the wetter, alder land onto the bank of the higher and drier, oak, birch, hazel part of the forest. This heavy bridge was lifted off its anchorage by the floods back in November. It weighs a ton and will take a couple of very strong people to put it back in position.

While I was crossing this bridge I heard the unmistakeable sound of mating frogs….thousands of them.  I could see them in the distance from the bridge but of course as soon as I crept nearer they, quite rightly, vanished out of camera range. We have four ponds along the wettest area of the forest.  Some we keep clear of weed but we leave this large pond with grass and only clear away the brambles from around the edges.  It makes a perfect breeding pond for frogs. If you look hard you can see some of the slower frogs in the bottom left corner. The grassy surface was swarming with hundreds of frogs until I crept over with my camera. I know, I know, – I don’t have the patience to be a wildlife photographer!

Love is in the air.  Spring has arrived…… today anyway.  Although experience tells me that there’s bound to be some more weather to come before ‘May is 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

The fast pioneering alder trees have really put on growth and the Cabin Woods were again getting darker and darker. New light needed to come in and some thinning needed to happen.  I marked four trees and when Niall Miller came to help out with some other work, he felled the trees and harvested the firewood for me.

Niall Miller getting ready for some more sawing. Working in woodlands is what Niall has done most for more than twenty years.

When we planted this woodland ten years ago we put in four different varieties of alder: common, grey, red and Italian. It’s a good chance to see how the different species have done.  I favoured any native alder that came in by itself and now there is a reasonable variety of stem sizes in this very young woodland. The alder varieties all have different characteristics. One thing they have in common is that they all grow fast.

Four trees were cut: Grey, common and Italian alder. Notice the different colours of the freshly cut timber.

The beauty of owning small, young woodlands is that the ideal ‘little and often’ guidlelines for thinning can be easily applied. Now the crowns have more room to fill which means that the increment or growth will be kept high.

A few days after Niall had been here I had a visit from my good friends artist Cathy Fitzgerald and sculptor Martin Lyttle. Martin and Cathy were telling me that their own little alder woodland also needs thinning as the canopy has again closed over. You can read about their conifer forest in transformation on Cathy’s blogsite.

Cathy & Martin standing in newly made light after thinning in the Cabin Woods

Notice how bright it is in the woods now that the little bit of thinning has been done. By now the brambles are completely tame and there is very little to do in this small woodland except fell some of the larger trees every couple of years. There is a little regeneration of ash and alder coming in, despite the family of huge hares we have resident on the farm. It should be enough.

It’s truly amazing to walk through this area now and experience just how firm the ground is after all the torrential rain.  Before the trees it was very wet and rushy. Much more productive under trees and a wonderland to walk through and enjoy at any time of the year.

Narrow strips of woodland don’t generate enough shade to keep the brambles down and the fence along the lane has become overgrown with a big strong crop of them. I’m constantly having to cut them back to allow tractors and my jeep to get down the lane. Their desire is to knit up the bare ground and turn it back into forest.

Brambles eating up the fence.

I decided to go in and do a bit of clearing in order to keep the brambles at bay and also to prune up some of the trees. I wanted to go at a slow pace and enjoy the work. Tough gloves, thorn proof jacket and jeans, loppers, secateurs and a fold up pruning saw. I left the slash hook behind in the shed, as there is a chance at this time of the year that there still might be a nest in use.

Within minutes I was noticed by the most observant of the bullocks.

Our cattle are pets.  Three bullocks and three cows. They keep the fields as fields. They provide wonderful dung for the garden. And we just love these wonderful big gentle creatures being here. One of their secret wishes is that the fences that keep them out of the woodlands would magically disappear some day and they could walk in and have their fill of the lush leaves and sweet wild herbs, including brambles. So of course when I started pruning the trees these two spotted the action and guessed there might be something in it for them.

Two of the bullocks enjoying a feast of ash and oak leaves from the prunings.

 In times past I’m told that people would collect ash leaves throughout the summer for cattle feed through the winter months. The cattle love them.

Our little black bullock licking up every leaf with his prickly long tongue.

Here on this farm I’m always trying to strike a balance between what we want to achieve, ie beautiful, productive woodlands that offer shelter for the fields and what the birds and creatures who live here want, ie lots of wildness for cover, homes and food.  There was no hurry. I wanted to enjoy the work and going slowly like this means I hear any warning call from small birds whose nest I mightn’t have spotted during my preliminary search. Underneath the brambles I noticed the tracks of hares that lead to their little hiding places. 

Hidden beneath the brambles, a cosy, leaf-lined sleeping place for the many hares that live on our farm.

Three Hours Later……..

The work I’ve done on this top section of the little strip of woods is quite drastic. I wanted to really blitz that corner and clear out the fence really well. I’ve tried to keep some cover for the birds by heaping the brambles in the centre and linking the piles up with the hare runs. The freshly pruned trees look so bare, but I know even by the end of this growing season the crowns will fill out, settle down and there will be new growth appearing on the floor again. 

The fence reappears, trees pruned and brambles heaped up for bird cover.

I’m always astonished by the ever enduring desire of the earth to cover itself. And how efficiently and quickly it does it, when let. When I finished this corner of work I had to go to Carrick-on-Shannon to collect something. On the busy main street, with people walking everywhere, I noticed this familiar little plant growing between a stone wall and the harsh pavement:

Tomato plant sneaking in on a busy pavement in Carrick-on-Shannon

It’s little message of the earth’s abundance offered a cheery counterpoint to all the doom and gloom talk on the radio on the drive to Carrick.