Cairn Chipping.

 Cairn Chipping.

The decision to fell the P7 Eucs required the felling/coppicing of the willow that grew amongst them. These were surviving original Salix triandra and together with S. purpurea, Salix viminalis, and other willows I put in to use the space when it was clear most of the Eucs had not survived the winter of 10/11. This generated a lot of rubbish brash. I did not want to chip back into wood as a mulch. I thought the Oxygen demand from the rotting chip would exacerbate the affects of winter waterlogging on the wet clay. Burning wet brash next to the A1 is not really an option. So it was piled for chipping. I also took out a lot of S. triandra and non timber scrub from the wild wood. This was piled and was more out of the way but having decided to pay for chipping was there to make it worth while for a days chipping.

Piles of brash waiting for chipping at Cairn Wood.

  After a long wait Chris Willatt and his father in law came and did the chipping with me. 

All the piles of brash at the far end  were chipped as well as some willow from the other end. We finished as light fell four loads of chip went to Simon Ward's yard. At least 10 cubic meters I estimate from the size of the pile. I failed to photograph the pile before it was pushed up with the rest so must remain a guess. A successful day.

Winter dec 23

 Winter 2023.

Summer 2023 was reasonably wet after a dry spring, soil moisture was comparatively high by the end of September.

Mid October Storm Babat struck. The Trent had not been particularly high and the woods were not badly flooded. The shelterbelt ditch must have risen as the bridge logs had been displaced. Bob Beard's field by the green lane was submerged and as I write on new years eve it still is and has been at least half flooded since October. There have been several storms since October and Babat produced the worst local flooding in Carlton. The Trent has since risen and flooded the Holmes so it can be seen from the bathroom, after a few days when the Trent went down it can now be seen again.

It was apparent that there had been weather issues at Pit Wood when Ben and I went down just before Christmas. The Ash by the gate had blown down and the piles of logs ,Poplar and Alder that are now going to waste, had collapsed. Moving to the triangular field it was obvious that a lot of Eucs had been blown over. These were mainly the viminalis and were leaning on other trees though some had the whole root plate exposed and water could be seen in the holes.

I had thought to post this blog at New Year, however storm Henk arrived to spoil some New Years eve parties. On New Years day the two large Ash on Holme lane had blown down and joined the one by Holme Lane gate on their sides.

The fallen Ash in Triangular wood, actually half a twin trunked tree, and the one in the rectangular field 

The one by the gate had had huge dryad saddle brackets. The photo is from May 2022. You will have to take my word for that in 2023 they were much bigger. The crown looked reasonably healthy but most of the trunk was rotten. The fallen tree in the triangular wood was half of a twin stemmed Ash. Either two trees or coppice regrowth of a very young tree. The normally dry ditch under the trunk was fairly full and may have contributed to the fall. The trunk of the tree in the rectangular field  was rotten the rot appears to have entered through an area of bark that was grazed off by rabbits or squirrels about 10 years ago.

The wind of Storm Henk may have been New Years Eve but the rain it dumped in Staffordshire and Derbyshire arrived in Nottingham on Jan 5th. Nottinghamshire county Council declared an emergency for flooding from the Trent.

I went to see the wood on the 5th The end of the Lane Brotts Road and the most of the layby were under water. This was flooding caused by the Trent coming over at Dunham Bridge. The two previous flooding events Storm Babat and storm Gerrit were when the Trent was a bit lower and caused by local rainfall, and were associated with Grassthorpe flooding.  The flooding was a bit worse on the 6th  after two days of no Rain. The Trent peaked at Muskam around midday but was still steady at Carlton at 9 in the evening when it was 9cm above the record level at Torksey. This event is similar to Christmas 2012 when Dunham Bridge was closed for several weeks. The triangular field was flooded for a week and the area of the rectangular field planted with poplar and alder for a while. The forecast for  the first part of January is now cold, calm and dry. I have decided not to risk driving through floods, or walk down Holme Lane which has extreme pot holes. 

The river level reached 11cm. above its previous record at Torksey on the 7th at 2:15pm. At about that time the water in the Brotts lane lay-by had gone down by a few inches.