Storm Damage ?

[Dexter's Shed]

Chinese?

get to specsavers, it's an ENGLISH BULL TERRIER

[oldclaypaws]

As former regional Chair of a well known animal charity I know my hounds and of course recognise your beast as a Bull Terrier / Number 17 with fried rice.

Nice looking Mutt, or as my 2 would call it, 'a light lunch'.

Don't tell any potential trespassers or squirrels, but my 2 massive 130lb ruthless fighting/hunting dogs are probably the softest lumps you could ever meet. The big one is scared of chickens and when she grabbed a squirrel thought it was a squeaky toy, so she just nudged it to make it squeak. The young one mainly hunts falling leaves and snow flakes, and spends every night sleeping with her head on my chest and nudging me for cuddles. Vicious.

If theres no other excuse needed, buying a wood is great for the dogs. My 2 don't get on well with other dogs (typical Akitas), so having a private enclosed 'dog park' is fantastic for them. They are very good most of the time and know the boundaries, they resist the temptation to go and play with the sheep in the field next to us (and the big black beast is scared of sheep too, as well as chickens!)

[Rod Taylor]

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Another day another Conifer down, and one more pumping silt to the surface so will probably be on the ground before my next visit. Here's a picture of the tell-tale sandy silt pumped to the surface, which is not something I had encountered before this winter.
Fingers crossed the strong winds die down while I still have some big trees left, as I already have enough down to cut for logs for the next few years.

[Treeation]

Hi Rod,

Was intrigued about the pumping silt??? Whats that all about then??

Patrick

www.treeation.co.uk

[TerryH]

Here, in W.Sussex, we got off lightly in the St Jude storm but in the wind and heavy rain of December 23rd two stems of this big four stem ash came down, one to the ground and the other is hung up in a particularly overcrowded area...

we've marked the area off with barrier tape and are part way through extracting the hang up. The stool had quite some rot in it by the looks of it.. shame I didn't spot that earlier.. too much weight on too weak a base. All the weight is on one side now so will be keeping an eye out for any movement of the remaining tree.

[oldclaypaws]

Just finished clearing up most of the debris from last month, when we got hit bad last night by another battering. Losing count but its something like the sixth or seventh scary storm we've had here in the South West.

Another few days worth of chainsawing to follow, several old oak boughs and overstood Hazels down. This time it seems to have hit us on the South / East sides. Never seen so much surface water as I witnessed this afternoon. The lane to the wood had a foot of running water in it, and we had a couple of attractive new brooks flowing through the wood (its normally dry and streamless), into quite large temporary ponds about 30 feet across and a foot deep. The dogs thought it was great fun and had to jump in every pool.

We've amber warnings for the next five days, with another 'St Jude's' magnitude one pencilled in for this coming Saturday. -For reference thats St Cuthmann's day- soon we'll run out of Saints to name storms after.

All that money spent pumping the Somerset Levels (£100,000 / day), and after this week it'll all be back up to where it was before. Taunton was virtually inaccessible today by flooding on three sides; sorry to say its not just a matter of dredging rivers, this is unprecedented and looks to me like symptomatic of change towards a climate with far more extreme events. (Please note, Mr Patterson).

[Rod Taylor]

Hi Rod,

Was intrigued about the pumping silt??? Whats that all about then??

Patrick

Sorry Patrick missed reading your reply till now.
It looks as though the soil is so wet that the rocking of the tree and root ball is liquidising the soil and pumping a sandy sludge up to the surface. Nearly all of the Western Hemlock that have done this have already come down, and I expect the 3 that are still standing will be down before the end of the current gales. The soil is a mixture of clay and sand so possibly prone to this, and the soil in the wood is the wettest I have seen in the 7 years of owning it. Fingers crossed for an end to this wet spell.

Rod

[TerryH]

Oh dear.. another ash tree casualty.

Happened sometime over the last three weeks. Strange how it's split in the middle like this as it is (or was) a very healthy looking tree. My wife saw it and said "lightning strike"... but there's no charring to be seen anywhere so I don't really know.

What does the panel think.. if I cut it down at the base is there a chance it will re-grow as coppice?

There's some lovely wood inside that big split. We've got quite a bit of prime quality timber lying around now.. just need it to stop peeing down with rain for a little while so we can get out there and deal with it all...

[Rich]

It's never happened to me, but I've been told that ash can split like that when you're felling them. If it's a forward leaner it's a good idea to plunge your bar in next to the hinge and work backwards, leaving enough holding wood. Then stand well out of the way when you finish the fell.

It should regrow with enough light... you might have a bit of work to do to open up the canopy a bit!

[oldclaypaws]

What does the panel think.. if I cut it down at the base is there a chance it will re-grow as coppice?

Should be OK, ash shoots well when coppiced, but cut it at about chest height, not at the base. Deer are very fond of ash shoots and you want it above the 4'6" browsing height. -A lesson I've learnt over the last couple of years after lots of nibbling.