The felling of diseased ash trees last winter resulted in a large volume of excess timber on the reserves. We left some logs as habitat piles but the majority were removed and sold for seasoning as firewood by Backwell Logs.
Over Easter we enjoyed the sight of heavy horses working in Jubilee Stone Wood to extract logs, as descrbed in this article: Ash Trees and Working Horses - April 2023
After the visit by the horses, there was still a large amount of timber to haul out from the steeper and more inaccessible parts of the woods. We tried lots of different methods to get the logs down to the road for collection, including small tractors and a brilliant 'logging arch' constructed by Andy, our metal-working treasurer. Over the course of many months our volunteers simply used sheer muscle to shift tons of logs, as can be seen in this video of horses and volunteers in action: