Autumn in Bridgewood

Posted by Tanos on Fri 17 Oct 08, 12:52 AM

Autumn is an ill-defined season. Astronomically, and therefore on the BBC weather forecasts, it begins with the equinox about the 21st of September and finishes at the solstice in late December. But colloquially, summer lasts into August and winter is definitely here by November, and autumn fills in the gap. I used to think of all this in terms of dates and months, but now I've gone back to the old Anglo-Saxon derived "Fall of Leaf" rather than "Autumn" that we acquired from French.

Fall of Leaf has started in Bridgewood now, with the leaves in the process of falling from the large trees ("the standards") whilst the shrubs and thickets, particularly of hazel, are still sheltered by the wood and flush with green leaves. The picture at the start gives an impression of this, and it's taken from the same point as the February vs June pictures showing the contrast between the end of winter and summer.

Despite it being October, for the last two weekends I've had lovely sunny afternoons, with blue skies and no need to wear a coat. Working with the chainsaw keeps you warm in any case: it does the cutting for you, but it's a fair weight to hold at arms length for hours.

I did most of the felling needed in The Glade at the centre of the wood during the summer (as this picture shows) and then marked out the remaining stretches of all the rides on the ground, which I've been carving out properly with the chainsaw in the last few trips.

It's now possible to walk (rather than clamber!) all of the routes, and the North and South Rides together form a circular route of about a kilometre and take twenty minutes to walk at a casual pace. Doing this has also turned up some more species, including silver birch and horse chestnut.

My big push now is to get the rides open up to the sky rather than just cleared at ground level, as this helps the ground dry out after rain and in the longer term promotes a wider range of plant species in the sunlight. Felling trees might seem destructive, but it gives flowers and shrubs a chance on the edges of rides and clearings, which in turn provides more habitats for insects (Bridgewood already has several species of butterflies and even dragon flies) and birds. Left to their own devices, trees would close up the canopy and starve other species of light, and leave you just walking through leaf litter at ground level.

The fall of the leaves has also prompted me to be more organised about firewood and I've now started stacking two foot logs to dry for next year. I'm using corrugated iron sheeting to keep the rain out and some galvanised iron to keep them off the ground. These were salvaged from old pheasant feeding stations. Of the species growing in Bridgewood, ash is the best firewood ... but I'm not planning to fell any of the ash trees. However, I am felling a lot of the hazel understorey in clearing and widening the rides, and some of the hazel bushes have one or two decent trunks and the wood should burn well.

Eventually I'm hoping to have a set-up in the wood which is quite sustainable in terms of energy, both with wood fuel and solar power, with a minimum use of a petrol generator when necessary.

Edited Sat 18 Apr 09, 1:17 AM by Tanos

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