Local is Good

Where ever possible I like to source my wood locally – and preferably from wood which has been brought down naturally.  It doesn’t get much more local than just up the road in my village.

I recently noticed on a walk that a good sized branch had broken off a large cedar tree in high winds.  I found out who owned the tree and they were happy for me to help myself to as much as I wanted. The branch seemed to be in good condition (you need to check any fallen wood quite carefully as often there is a reason it has broken off – rot for example.)

The process of gathering wood (unless you are a professional woodsman) involves pretty basic equipment (chain saw, mallet, axe and wedges) and a lot of brute force – oh and a trailer is very helpful of course.

Here are a few photos of the log being prepared.  The first photo shows the tree – you can see where the limb has broken off, quite low down.  The branch was a good size (I need something with a minimum of around 2 foot (60cm) diameter to make it worth while as the wood has to be split into quarters to minimise shrinkage and subsequent splitting.)

I start by chain sawing across the branch to make the log into a moveable length.

Then with chocks, an axe and a mallet I split the log into manageable pieces (here I ended up splitting the logs into quarters on site as the logs were quite large – each quarter weighed over 50kg.)

I start by making a groove across the log, and then make a split with the axe. I use the axe as a wedge and hammer it down into the log.  As the split opens up I insert larger wedges (bits of wood, metal etc.) until finally I can pull the log apart.  It takes a while and quite a lot of brute force, but it is a tried and tested method which I can do on my own, and anywhere, as long as I can get the car (and preferably trailer) to it.