Snow and strong winds.

Now you see it.







What tree?













This was the view from my living room window this morning.







Never got to the fishing this weekend as the weather forecast was so bad. Snow, storm force winds, sub zero temeratures, not the best for going out in a boat!













Had a call from Roy, my buddy up the road saying that a big old ash had came down during the night, and that we should go " tidy it up", for our wood burning stoves.






So I loaded up the old Husqvarna 266, put on the safety gear and met him at the woods. He brought a tractor and trailer so we pulled the tree into a safe position, and removed the stump.


You have to leave a wee bit of the stump because, as a tree grows it pulls odd bits of slate, gravel etc into the tree, and this can seriously damage the cutting teeth of the chain.





I cut it into ten inch slices while Roy loaded it on to the trailer. Roy has a wee Stihl chainsaw and started cutting up the branches but he hit a stone and lost the edge off his chain, so got the shitty job. Unlucky Roy!! Best way is to cut three quarters of the way through, then roll thetrunk over and cut the last quarter from the top.
We will have to spend a couple of evenings splitting it into burning size pieces. Ash is the best firewood you can get, as it contains only 35% water, even less at this time of year as there is no foliage. Beech is also a good burn, but at 55% water needs a summer of drying before use.


We hauled about three tonnes down to Roys woodshed. Once its processed we will share it out, between our woodstores.


This is a great start for my fuel for the coming winter. A start like this means I can spend more time fishing this spring and summer as opposed to collecting wood for winter.. Can't rest on my laurels though, because most winters we use about 3 tonnes.