Log on!

By ‘C’:

Team log   05-06-18   10:00   SU 562 926

Team assembles for team-briefing, and moves out to work area

Task: logs, splitting and stacking of

Method: axe/sledgehammer + splitting wedge; gloved hands

Actually our first stopping point this morning was to view the end-user.  The point of this morning’s exercise (besides keeping us fit) was so that this beast can be fed over winter:

It is a ‘big bale boiler’, designed to take bales of straw.  In fact, at this site straw is not burned, except for small quantities as kindling – it being too valuable a commodity from PoV of nutrition for soil in the fields.  Fuel for the boiler is grown on site, though: timber – extracted from woodland which is thinned on a ‘continuous cover’ basis.  And if enough reserves of firewood are built up, then it can dry over two seasons, and thus be more like 18% moisture content than 30% when loaded into the boiler.  This makes a big difference to energy efficiency.

So, shift those logs!

Some of them are hazel which we felled this last winter.  The job of timber extraction is also one we have done at this site – that’s a summer task.

The team split into two groups: one to stack logs inside the shed; and one to split those logs which needed reducing in size before they were stacked to dry. 

Just getting in the shed required the footwork of a mountain goat to begin with:

Then there was a little bit of sorting to do:

By tea-break, things were looking much tidier:

Outside, the log-splitters were also hard at it:

(Note the 5-metre distance between work stations.  Gloves have sure-grip palms.)

The job can be done with a long-handled axe, but that requires great accuracy.  Unless the second cut falls in exactly the same place as the first, then all the energy from one blow has been wasted.  Much easier to use first a small mallet to hammer in a wedge …

then switch to a heavier tool to give it a really good thwack:

Better still, to use the type of wedge known variously to volunteers over the course of the morning as 'the spike', or 'star', or 'grenade':

Unfortunately, there was only one of these available.

From the team log   11:15   

Whistle sounds for tea-break

No-one responds: they are all having too much fun

11:17   Whistle sounds again

Green-Gymmers respond to summons – and find alternative re-use has been found for some of the logs awaiting processing:

11:30   Team eagerly back to work

11:40   ‘C’ decides to have a go at log-splitting

11:45   Wedge now at drunken angle, and so tightly stuck it cannot even be removed to start all over again

‘C’ retreats, tail between legs 

[But at least not tail caught in log – Ed.]

12:47   Team reluctantly agrees to wind down work

Log pile now considerably smaller:

Shed easier to get into and out of:

Interior of shed much neater – also has considerably more wood stored in it:

And tonight, volunteers should all be sleeping like the proverbial.