I’ve spent a fair amount of the past three days wood wrangling. On Friday Jane and I chopped down quite a few smaller pieces (up to about 3cm across) and then I sawed up and split some large chunks too. I did some more yesterday morning, shuffled various bits of wood around and was pleased to have the various stores we have round the garden all looking nicely full with one section free for the next bit of processing.

Then, early yesterday afternoon, Jane got a call from a friend to alert us to a large branch that had come down near their house in high winds the night before so we went round there and gave a hand with processing it, sorting decent lumps, branches, smaller sticks and green waste (it was a conifer, so plenty of that). We went back for another go this afternoon and also hauled some of the green stuff down to the local tip.

It is now all stowed away (partly through the expedient of creating another stack in the front garden) and we should have enough to keep us in log fires not just this winter but next winter too. We are also pretty much at full capacity for storage and there’s lots of work ahead in gradually processing larger bits into smaller bits (to fit our small stove and also to dry out more quickly).

Still, if we here of more free wood going in exchange for a bit of labour, we can probably make more room. There probably is such a thing has having too much in stock but, meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the luxury of not having to be stingy about when to set a blaze going in the burner.