Coppicing I

Went out coppicing for the first time with our woodland group. So far we've mainly participated in events that had to do with food – Christmas get-togethers, for example, where we baked allotment produce into various portable dishes and inflicted them on the other woodlanders and their children. This time, N, the volunteer organiser, has heeded our request to schedule an event at a working-adult-friendly time of Saturday 1pm – late enough for a nice long lie-in but early enough to catch most of the afternoon sun.

It's below-freezing and the wood is covered in snow. It's a beautiful, clear, crisp day. There are about 10 of us. We're all given loppers, small bowsaws, heavy-duty gloves, head and eye protection and the usual health and safety talk, some instruction as to what to cut and how, and off we go. I'm paired up with a taciturn girl who's clearly done this before. I watch her a few minutes, then get the hang of it. OH has gone off with another Old Boy and is hacking away at a hazel. I start enthusiastically on a prickly sloe but am stopped soon by N, who explains that sloes should really be left alone. Classic. Of all the trees and shrubs I could have coppiced, I pick the wrong one. 

Eventually, I tackle a hazel and reduce it. It's quite hard labour but I enjoy the sawing. I am motivated mainly by the prospect of being able to take home all the wood I cut. So what I'm cutting is hazel stakes for beanstalks and maybe some framing or fencing. As we're still considering buying a wood-burning stove in the Spring, I'm also looking forward to cutting firewood.

After a couple of hours, N calls a teabreak. She and her daughter brought a small camping gas stove, and soon, 10 steaming cups are lined up on the frozen ground. We stand or sit around with our drink and biscuits and talk wood. We learn that creating long lines of branch pile fencing is not so good – because if the wood gets dry and burns, you also create a potential line of fire that eats its way far beyond where it would naturally have gone. So we must take care not to create a line with our branch piles. We also discover that coppicing is only done during the winter months when the wood is not growing and birds are not nesting (makes sense), and that to protect the new shoots coming out of the stump sides from deer bite, we will need to come back and make little cages for them.

I get to talk mushrooms with one coppicer, A, who has already gone on guided tours through these woods with our local mushroom expert. I am very excited – I have always wanted to learn how to identify mushrooms, and with some, I think I'm getting quite good at it already, but I do need a trusted authority with me before I'd actually commit myself to eating mushrooms I've picked myself. I tell A that we've spotted what we think are Shaggy Parasols, Amethyst Deceivers, Beefsteak Fungus and lots of Boletes.

N, the volunteer leader, has said that she wanted to meet us all at some point in a cafe so that we could plan other activities. I think I'd love many, many mushroom walks during the spring, summer and autumn.