This month

We continue our preparations for the start of the new woodland season, with Version 3 of the session plan now taking shape. The long spell of hot, dry weather has kept demand for our charcoal high, bringing plenty of hard work along with welcome income for the group. The Hub shelter is now complete and has already been welcoming families to enjoy the space. We'll also look at some of the activities and events that have kept Heartwood busy over the past few weeks.

Woodland Wins

There are still spaces on our First Aid training courses available and are free for Heartwood members. The course is one day, held at the Old School Room in Blackfordby and covers a range of injuries and ailments.  

Every Heartwood session relies on having qualified first aiders on site, and first aid is a skill you'll hopefully never need but will always be glad to have. If you've been thinking about taking the course, please do consider booking onto one of the remaining places. Courses are being run on Saturday 15th August, Sat 19th September and Sunday 20th September. The dates are all on the booking system.

A small group of members spent a July morning extracting the remaining timber from Foxley Wood as the tracks have now dried. All the timber was taken to the Hub and is being processed into charcoal timber. It was astonishing to see how quickly the woodland floor had changed. Only a few months after we finished working there, the understorey had burst back into life, reminding us just how rapidly these woods respond to careful management.

Woodlands in detail #2

This month it’s Bridge End Copse, Moira

Landowner – Privately owned

Type – Mixed broadleaf. Oak, Ash, Alder, Birch, Cherry, Willow and Hazel

Sessions – Session size is limited by parking, so there will be a 12-person limit. Parking will be on site and with limited space we plan to load the cars as we leave, so the bays will be filled during the session and load in turn before leaving. Extraction to the loading point will be by ATV.

General – This is a new site for us this season and will likely only be for a single season as the required thinning should be completed in that time. Some thinning work has been carried out by contractors, but the remaining compartment will be completed by us. The woodland is very pleasant, the trees are not too tall, and are generally a manageable size, making timber handling relatively straightforward. This site is one of the sites carrying a National Forest Woodland Management grant so will have nest, bat and owl boxes installed as part of the work.

Engaging with Others

Home Education Families

A group of 15 children and their families joined us for a bat morning. Everyone made a bat box from parts supplied by us – can you imagine the noise fifteen hammers make? The woodland echoed with enthusiastic tapping while families discovered fascinating bat facts hidden around the site. It's a pleasure to support the children's home education and just as enjoyable for the Heartwood volunteers taking part.

Hammers

The Hub - Project Updates

Shelter Conversion

The conversion of the central shelter is now complete. There is now a comfortable seating area for a well-earned brew, conversation and catching up after a morning's work, screened off beautifully with woven willow panels from the “long table” where woodland stories and plans are shared between “Time Out In The Woods” (TOITW) session attendees. If you haven't visited the Hub for a while, come along to a TOITW session and have a look.

New Shed

A shed has been donated to the group. The plan is to use this as the “Christmas Shed” replacing the existing one which will become a charcoal store. The shed was collected and dropped at the Hub, so will need a strong team to put it back together. Keep an eye on the TOITW sessions to help out

New shed

The Hub Update

Dragon Watch

The dragons have been run on a very regular basis this month. Demand has been extraordinary, almost certainly helped by the long spell of warm weather. Our stock of hardwood to convert has been the lowest for some time, so we have been working with other woodland owners to see whether they have surplus. We should get through the season now with the supplies we have secured, but certainly next season we need to factor in more charcoal timber extraction as part of the woodfuel sessions.

It's a useful reminder that woodland management and charcoal production go hand in hand – today's thinning becomes next summer's barbecue.

Christmas

Planning work is gathering pace. A further visit with the team at Rosliston took place this week where we shared plans for the layout of the “woodland workshop”. The team at Rosliston are very excited about the plans, they especially like the proposal Dave Barker has been working on for the decoration of the entrance to the workshop. Dave already has volunteers to help build and decorate. We already have an AI mock-up of the finished workshop, but we'll keep that under wraps for now as we don't want to spoil the surprise.

A reminder that the sessions to support the Christmas market are on the booking system and a shift plan for the days to share the load.

Next month...

  • The final woodland session plan.
  • More Hub improvements.
  • Dragon Watch returns.
  • Christmas preparations continue.
  • The countdown to our AGM and soon after the new woodland season begins.