Deadwood

This last month has seen a lot of changes around our house.  And a lot of noise.  We finally took the decision to take some major trees down.  It was a shame, as they were big old things doing their bit for the planet but they were all diseased - some with Ash dieback, which is affecting all the Ash trees apparently, and some just rotten.  We didn't realise how bad they were until they came down - it was a bit of a shock to see the main trunks of several of them were completely hollow.  Given the fact they were close to the house it has been the right decision - our winter storms could easily have felled them, with potentially disastrous results. 

Deadwood, 2022.  Nikon F2, Vivitar Series 1 35-85; HP5+ on Foma 133 paper.

The place looks bare now - some 60-plus years of growth taken back.  We left some of the younger trees, which will probably do better now there is less competition for light and water.  And we'll have to plant something to replace the felled ones, though what that will be hasn't been decided yet.  The big issue now is how to get the wood into small enough pieces to fit in our wood-burning stove.  I keep reading articles about how wood-burning stoves emit a lot of small particle pollution although the recent DEFRA communique suggests that they don't actually emit as much as previously thought.  Given that our only other source of heat is oil (kerosene) I think burning the wood is OK.