ilultham

The other day I finished reading this rather excellent book called "Barn Club" about a community project building an elm framed barn using traditional methods.    One thing that really struck me was how there was still lots of elm trees about if you knew where to look. Not that they get to a good size anymore, unless in a pocket that never got seriously affected by the disease, but there are still some that get to useful timber size. Also how much this timber used to be used. Many of the old carpentry books I've got talk about it's uses, from water pipes to coffins to the hubs of wheels!  There have also been some steps forward in the elm trees, I did a little investigating and came across a guy on twitter selling the elms that have have been developed by the Spanish government called Ademuz. These are said to be more resistant to Dutch elm  disease so I'm hoping that is true.  I planted two here, in a place where they could both grow on and upwards. Hopefully m...

 Good fences make good neighbours and all that. I decided that as I had a few spare plants left over it was worth just patching up the old hedge that divides between us and farm next door.  Mainly hawthorn and I'll be honest and say I'm not sure how they'll be do being so shaded under the other trees.  Hopefully enough will take that can be laid in a decade or so to help strengthen the hedge and fence line. A few hours well spent hopefully and a few more trees in the ground on our little smallholding! 

I'm so pleased with the last week - we have a new fence and hedge in! Woop!  We did this years ago with the first field nearest the house , to separate off the footpath from the field and make things more private. We kept thinking about doing this with the second field as well, but it was during lockdown and seeing how few people kept their dogs on leads and could control them that made us decide that this was the right thing to do.  time kept slipping on this year though and it kept being really wet. I had planned to put the fence up, with the help of my dad and the post knocker, but with it getting close to spring and a lot of trees that needed to go into the ground it was time to just bite the bullet and get the professionals in. My friends Alex and Chris (along with Jamie) came with all the right gear and experience and got the two runs of 100m and a pair of gates hung in a day! They've done such a tidy job of it I can't help but smile when I look at it.  A lot of tre...