Storm Damage ?

[oldclaypaws]

have not fully checked ours till this weekend

Too busy repairing the dustbin, no doubt?

[greyman]

Here in West Sussex behind the South Downs near brighton we had unexpected damage. We have several standing dead oaks in the middle of the wood whiich only lost some bits off the top. However right at the northern edge of our section an oak had a fair sized limb twisted from facing west to facing north and then forming an arch over the track by impailing the end in the ground. Really looking forward to working on that tomorrow in the rain and mud... still that should help keep the traffic on the track to a minimum.

[Zenith]

We've been away doing a spot of birdwatching on the Norfolk coast for the last 10 days and so haven't had chance to check our wood in Worcestershire. I don't expect much damage, however, as I think the Midlands escaped the problems. Even over here on the east coast things weren't as bad as I was expecting. In fact, last night's winds seemed stronger and gustier than those earlier ones.

Despite having a great 10 day holiday, I'm still looking forward to going to my wood when I return tomorrow. I'm sure the winds will have brought more sweet chestnuts down for me to eat!

[oldclaypaws]

Here in the Southwest, the gales we had a couple of days ago were worse than the so-called St Judes day storm. We lost a very large oak, down in the middle of the wood. Saves felling it as part of our thinning plans, seems nature is doing that for us quicker than we can get our act together. It'll take several visits to chop the 2 ton+ of upper branches and stack it, didnt have a chance to inspect the butt, if its good timber it'll get dragged out and either sold or go towards the 'cabin'. All part of the joys of woodland ownership.

C'est la vie.

[Wendelspanswick]

No major damage here in West Somerset either, the tracks have been well scoured by the rain though.
Do windfalls count towards your personal limit of timber you can remove without a felling license?

[SimonFisher]

Do windfalls count towards your personal limit of timber you can remove without a felling license?

I'd have thought the clue was in the name - felling license. If it's windfall, then you're not felling!

[Wendelspanswick]

It was just something OCP mentioned in one of his posts about the mature Oak butt windfalls he has in his wood, something about including them in the felling license?

[oldclaypaws]

I did mention milling wind fallen timber as a good rehearsal first, then later in the thread mentioned I'd found a contractor who had all the kit to do it, and we'd also costed the cost of felling and just needed to sort the license. That was two distinctly separate phases, firstly extracting and either milling or selling the wind-fallen butts, followed by moving on to the standing trees as an additional operation with the required license.

Clearly, you don't need consent for a tree to fall over, or to process it into timber once its down, and it doesn't count towards the felling or permitted quarterly quota. I can just see the FC driving round and saying to owners, "Nope, you didn't have a license for that tree to fall over, now put it back up !"

On inspection the tree that came down a couple of days ago is like balsa wood, soft as cheese and fit only for deadwood heaps. Great habitat for bugs but not even fit for firewood. It simply snapped at the base. Many windfallen trees such as this one will be weakened by disease and not necessarily have much value or use, thats probably why they are dismissed by the FC as seperate from any official allowances.

[Wendelspanswick]

Glad to see no damage caused by last nights storm in our wood and meadow but we do seemed to have gained a stream!
And one of the stone tracks up has a huge channel scoured out of it, luckily it runs straight down the centre so we can still drive up easily enough.
Merry Christmas all.

[oldclaypaws]

Yet another big dead oak down, leaning at 45 degrees against its neighbour. Its pretty dangerous. Will have to invest in a TIrfor winch and pull off my leaners. Although some of them weigh 3 Tons +, I would think a 3.5 ton sideways pull will be more than enough to free them. They're stacking up ! I feel like sticking a sign on the road, 'pick your own logs'.

Gonna be busy.