Pollarding ash before the season ends

It’s the last few days before the hedgerow cutting / tree felling season ends (on March 15th). The trouble is, earlier in the winter the ground was too wet. So now we’re in a race to get this year’s work done – or at least get the big cutting done even if the clear up takes a bit longer. One task is to pollard some of the trees at the side of the lodge field. We did some of these a few year back and those are recovering nicely. The idea is to reduce their height and get new growth, but to keep this above the reach of nibbling deer. As you can see, we get some wood fuel out of it too! These were a bit more tricky as they were leaning the wrong way. It’s a pity we didn’t have a video of roping the trees and pulling so they didn’t smash the old shed, but we were too busy pulling the rope and then running out of the way. Timber!