Wood Fuel Co-operative / Update From the UK

Hi all,

Been a while since I've posted anything so I thought I'd fill you in. About 1.5 ago I came across a local co-operative who provide free labour in the woods (we're fully trained and insured) in exchange for wood fuel, if you'd like to read more check out our site: http://www.axewoods.org.uk
There such a cool bunch of people who it's been great to get out in the woods with, my wife and children come out too and get stuck in! There are pic's in the gallery section of us all (I'm on the left in the one with three of us stood behind our little tractor trailer).
As a result of hooking up with these guys I've now got my ground felling ticket for small to medium trees and saw maintenance and I'm now pretty much two years ahead. For the training I treated myself to a new saw, husky 560xp and had to get all the PPE (boots, trousers, forestry helmet) which I now appreciate the importance of wearing whenever I cut!
My phone memory is full of photo's of the children, as soon as I can free up some space I'll add some pic's to the thread

 

Nice! Can't wait for pix!

 

That's great! I'll check out the gallery. Good to hear from you again!

 

Great to hear from the other side of the pond for sure. Sounds like a nice group. Love the tractor.

 

Wow, you guys do have some big trees! I always thought you only had smaller stuff.
That's a really cool tractor you have there, reminds me of a slightly larger version of the Ventrac made here locally.
Ventrac Compact Tractors & Attachments

 

We've got some pretty big trees, the site we've been working the most is 80% ash, some must be close to 80 feet. The tractor is pretty cool and certainly makes extraction easier
They're all good folks, most the guys have been cutting for a fair few years so it's nice to have their experience to fall back on for someone who is fairly new to operating a saw.

 

Nice link and pics - always fun to work as a group!
The second pic looked odd to me, and then I realized I probably split wood left handed - hand't ever thought of that before.

 

That pic is at a cool Iron Age earthworks site where some trees were felled to preserve the earth banks, we just came in to process the wood and clean up after them. Really cool place to hang out which isn't normally accessible to the public so that was cool. The pic with a light dusting of snow is the same site, the little dude in the lime green coat in that pic is my youngest

 

The guy with the maul looks all wrong to me too. I am so right handed that I do almost nothing with my left hand but that looks awkward to me. He may be doing it left handed.

 

Thanks, yes we really landed on our feet finding the group. It's great knowing that we now have a sustainable and reliable source of firewood to keep us warm. We're putting in a second small (4kw) stove this Summer so we'll be getting through even more wood

 

You guys have probably all heard of this book (featured in the link here How a book about Norwegian wood has become a global hit ) but a lot of the guys in this group swear by it, I must buy myself a copy.

 

Looks like a cool group to be involved with and I like the tractor also!! Thanks for sharing!!

 

With land at such a premium over here, amenity woodland starts at around £10k per acre so owning a wood large enough to sustain us in firewood is not an option for us at this time. Groups like this are a great way to have a reliable source of wood without paying through the nose.
I guess over your side the cost per acre varies significantly according to demand / population density, is there a typical figure in your neck of the woods?

 

Yeah, land prices vary wildly. I have a buddy who purchased some hill land in southern Ohio for $500/acre. Some of the more premium farm land near here has went as high as $12,000 (not a typo) per acre. Someone looking to build a house in the country can expect to see land prices double that (and more) for an acre or two with road frontage.

 

The way farmland varies, I look for deals. My present 40 acres, 16 ha, cost me less than $1000/acre but that was a bankruptcy sale. Prior to that I bought a place about half that size for $1500/acre. My smaller place I planted to trees shortly after I bought it and it has now grown enough to actually consider harvesting the ash that will be EAB killed for firewood. Right now decent farmland is selling for well over $4000/acre. (mine was not decent farmland, it was rolling hills and creek bottoms)

 

I was reading the article about your problem with the Ash dieback disease. Very interesting.

Gary

 

Those prices certainly sound appealing. If your couple of acre plot included planning permission to put a home on it then your £10k an acre would be more like £100k! Still I guess it's a classic case of market forces.
I love the idea of a small holding with 10-15 acres of woodland and the same again in pasture but I don't play the lottery so it'll remain a dream for the time being

 

Yep, coincidental that the Ash tree is taking a hammering both sides of the Atlantic, at least with the fungus a degree of natural resistance will mean they don't die out entirely but it's sure going to massive affect a huge percentage of our native deciduous woodlands..