Blown down ash tree

With all the gales we’ve had of late, it was only a matter of time before something came down nearby. I had my hopes pinned on a lovely burr elm, but I’ll settle for an ash, if it’s free!

This one is very near the coast, so access is going to be tricky. I’ll have to drive along the beach to reach it – you can just see this to the right hand side of the photo. Apparently the sand is fine to drive across at low tide, so long as I don’t stay parked for too long! Option two, is walking up and down the steep muddy bank, carrying whatever I can.

The wire in the foreground of the photo below was an attempt to control the direction of fall – with trees of this size, there’s not really much you can do…

The ash clearly had a few problems before it came down, with excessive heart rot clearly present. A healthy tree will lift its roots when blown over, which is certainly not evident here. However, this rot will often fade out towards the other end of the trunk and leave a good section of solid timber. Being nearly three foot across, there is certainly scope for getting some good sized blanks for turning and all the unusable pieces will nicely top up the firewood pile.