anyone else watch "wild wood" on bbc4

[Rich]

was amazed even as a pestie myself that they had destroyed around 95% of the birch trees

Yes I was too! I know birch seem to suffer far worse than many other species but it did seem to be a high figure. Equally amazing was the vigour with which the presenter seemed to be using his slasher and bill hook. I couldn't imagine being able to keep that up for a full day... maybe I should go to the gym on the way home from the woods tomorrow ... might raise my stamina a bit

[ncrawshaw]

"My" squirrels don't seem to eat the birch trees but, boy, do they like hornbeam! The older trees are OK but they make a mess of the smaller ones.

[docsquid]

A heartfelt request here: I recorded the entire series while I was ill/in hospital/out of circulation, to watch when I was better and potentially review for the Newsletter. Except our Virgin + box developed a fault last week and we lost the whole lot (trashed hard disk).

So..if anybody could review the series for the newsletter (it doesn't have to be long, just some impressions about the series and the subject matter it covered), I would be REALLY grateful. I have watched only one episode so don't feel qualified to review it. MANY thanks to all you lovely SWOGgers.

[Rich]

Hi Sarah,
It's on series catch up on the Iplayer, I think this means you can download and catch up the whole series.......in fact I'm sure as I'just clicked the link before I started this post and it's downloading all previous episodes. Oh isn' the BBC wonderful!

[Bulworthy Project]

Only 7 days left on iplayer to see us teach Rob Penn to make charcoal
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nvwr0
Judge for yourselves!

[The Barrowers]

Just watched it alongside Top of The Pops 1977 on TV. Now thats multi functional

Best use of sit down I know.
Both very good except Showwady Waddy who are a lttle off my taste

B and T

[Emma S]

Episode 2
Rob made some 'organic super fuel' which was a kiln dried??? low quality firewood.

Anyone got any details on this - what was the kiln they used/is this a 'new' marketable product, anything??? My OH said it looked interesting but they didnt show too much detail about the kiln - also said it looked a bit like brown ends you get from charcoal makoing a bit, only blacker - is it a kind of half way house between wood and charcoal??

[SimonFisher]

There's a thread here on the same subject http://www.swog.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1346

I believe what they were doing was heating the wood to remove all of the moisture to make it lighter. By doing this close to where the wood had been cut, they avoid having to transport a heavy product and make it viable to make use of and sell the small diameter stuff that often gets discarded.

There's a bit more to charcoal than just drying the wood I believe.

[ericmark]

removed

[Daniel]

I saw this programme when it first came out, but just revisited it, well worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm0psWl3Nzs