Open Day

It has long been my belief that in Scotland we have as many types of rain as the Inuit do snow. I have been compiling a compendium of these rain types for some time. The type of rain that fell occasionally during the open day is called Niar Llams, and it can fall for a while without actually making anything wet, although quite substantial in appearance in lacks in water delivery- it is the wet look of rain types and that was fine with me for the open day. It meant that the consultants could meet people and discuss the specifics of their situation in depth in the simply beautiful interior of Glenlyon Kirk, which we had kindly been allowed to use for the open day.

I had the night before discovered just how many people who would perhaps have been attending were away on holiday with their children. A reminder of how out of touch with holiday timing you get when you are self employed and also of how the demographics of the glen have changed of late. That there are so many families with children bodes well for the future of the school and the glen as a whole- Shame they were all on holiday when the open day was on though. That said I genuinely believe that a good time was had by all who did attend and I was pleased that most of the people who came stayed for the whole day.

Lots of people stayed for quite a while, having delicious refreshments helped.

Woodfuel Experts chat away, Bernd and Steve in the middle talk (presumably) woodfuel with fellow experts from  St Andrews based Stoveco. The table top is made from locally grown larch 225 years old, milled with a chainsaw and an Alaskan Mill.

Part of the plan for the day was about networking. Communities across Scotland are working together to improve their lives and environment, and the work being done at Tombreck with the Big Shed and Loch Tay Food Chain is really valid and inspiring. The Big Shed, built with timber from Bolfracks Estate and milled on site at Tombreck is really taking shape and is going to be of real benefit to the area as a nexus for creativity, shared learning and capacity building. The open day as a whole was a great opportunity for people to meet and chat (network).

Dennis Anderson of Scottish Sawmilling Services who did the milling for The Big Shed dropped in at the open day which was very nice.

Georgia's baskets and the Rowan poles looked the part.The wood slab is from a 300 year old oak

One of the highlights of the day was the Iron Horse demonstration, from Artcom Tradebridge, suppliers of interesting forest machinery. The demo was a bit later than planned and as such made a nice end to the day.

Hooray - It's time for the Iron Horse Demo'.

Although a small machine it can pull logs with ease.

Incidentally I was recently introduced to this rather good palindrome, from a 20 year entrant to a writing competition called U@50,  needless to say it stunned the judges. I thought I was clever realising Glenelg was a palindrome, but this is something else altogether....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRG4ySdi_aE&feature=related

The day before Tommorow (special deja vu blog)

So as the big day approaches, is everything ready? "Probably" is the only answer I can give. In the last blog  I welcomed back my old friend Rain, who is welcome to go now, any time he wants to... Taxi for Rain please.... or at least be elsewhere on Saturday. This uncertainty with the weather is part of what makes it hard to know how ready you are.

 Oh Mighty God of Rain- Will you be blessing us with your watery gifts tomorrow?
If the weather is nice and sunny (no offence Rain) I plan to have some of the event outside in front of the church and have the consultants inside, answering questions and generally consulting on multiple aspects of wood heating. Outside will be the Loch Tay Food Chain and Big Shed representatives and also the various products for sale including some amazing woven creels, baskets an platters from local weaver Georgia Crook who has a studio and work on sale at Tombreck. 

J

Just a few glimpses of Georgia's work reveal both her talent and the incredible beauty and texture of the natural materials she works with - no plastics here.  

As to the day being a success, if just one person visiting tomorrow fits a wood heating system as a result of the information they have learnt then the day will have been a success in my opinion. Once that person, (very happy at having such cheap and good heating) starts telling their neighbours, " I wish I'd done it years ago" and people can see that these systems actually work and are not difficult to use, then more people will fit them.As woodfuelled heating systems become increasingly common, so oil heating with its ever rising cost and pollution will seem, even more than now, a poor solution to the problem of heating.

R

Rowan poles from Coppice Experiment 2, available for sale on the big day. An ideal gift for the Rowan pole collectors we all know and love.
These systems are so common in areas just like the glen all over the Nordic Countries, Austria, Poland, Germany, Canada, U.S.A.... In Finland there are numerous examples of wood fuel supply chains, often community owned cooperatives in which people take control of their own local heat needs. Local timber heats local houses, haulage costs are very low, so the fuel is more economical to produce and thus cheaper for the end user. Employment in forestry is guaranteed into the future, which ensures good sustainable forestry practice and as these chains are often community owned, any profit goes back into the community, rather than into the pockets of distant oil barons whose increasingly desperate ransacking of the worlds stored carbon (or oil) is paid for by our need for heat.
I certainly know where I would like the profits from heating my house to go and it isn't to Shell, supplier of oil to Glenlyon and environmental vandals par excellence. If Ogoniland was in America, not Africa then one day we might have seen Shell getting hauled over the coals alongside BP. The behaviour of Shell in Ogoniland is truly shocking, and deliberately so which makes it much much worse.

  Ogoniland in Nigeria, undoubtedly a lot nicer before Shell came along.

S

Gas flaring is a major contributor to global warming, a waste of energy and a serious health hazard. 

Rain Old Friend- welcome back, where have you been?

There has been excitement for the weather forecasters lately, bad weather on the way. Good. This has apparently been the most dry (or perhaps the most hot?) year since 1918.
I know its probably not a particularly popular opinion for most people, but I'm really happy to see Mr Rain coming to visit for a few days. We've had just about all sun (hot type) for a long time now and I have been missing Mr Rain as has the land.  He generally hangs about round here quite a lot, I remember one February (99 I think it was), when Mr Rain came and stayed for a whole month.

 Rain- so much more than just a way of making Rainbows.
We were working is smallish Sitka at the time and got soaked every day- everything, everywhere was wet , all the time, but when you work outdoors in Scotland, its not uncommon to have "precipitation anticipation" or be expecting some rain in other words. You soon get to know it of course and I've sometimes thought that I could match the Innuit's 80 whatever words for snow* with easily as many types of rain. If you were then to describe the accompanying weather pattern you would be into the hundreds. For example in Autumn in Scotlands most East- West aligned glen, we often have this pattern of really hot sunshine followed immediately by hard wet rain, they come in bands, one after another and can last for seconds a few minutes or ages, a bit like when you are out in the Islands and can see Mr Rain's little helpers scurrying about on the horizon with their little black sacks full of water to dump on wherever takes their fancy.

These Autumnal bands are nuts to work in, Its cold when it rains and the waters pouring off you, Then Lugh the Sun God jumps in and suddenly you are Roasty McToasty and steam is pouring off you. It is for me, weather like that that always puts me off the idea off moving to a hot country, You know (perhaps you don't, maybe its just me?) how it is, you go somewhere abroad. Really hot, "nice" Mediterranean type weather, your'e on holiday, everything's lovely, food, people, culture etc. At some point you idly wonder about moving there, wouldn't it be nice, ooh yes wouldn't it. Then by week 2 reverse cabin fever starts a little chant in your head " The weathers a bit boring isn't it?" "A bit of rain would sort out all this dust" "Its too hot to....do anything", " The weathers a bit boring isn't it?" and the answer is yes their continental weather patterns are pretty boring compared to our maritime climate.

So after having only had about 6 weeks in which it has rained since February, and having had almost unbroken and let me say, very beautiful blue skies right through from the winter snow to now, I'm glad for a few wet days, and from a view point other than the anthropocentric, all the flora and fauna are needing it too. Its strange though because although it must have been especially harsh for the Salmon Parr this year, trying to get upstream with so little flow, the wildlife especially insects and amphibians is really abundant this year. Frogs and toads being the most obvious example of that following the first drops of rain.

I

 I think this is an "Andrewlloydus webberus", but my toad ID is not very good.

One of many amphibians I encountered while doing some moisture measurements the other day.

Almost invisible in this photo; Camouflage and too small a photo size combine to hide a frog. I'll give you a clue, its not on the moisture meter.

Prior to that Insects were coming in vibrant bursts, during one particularly pleasant and colourful week there were Dragon and Damsel flies emerging everywhere, very sparkly in that ongoing, vaguely relentless sunshine. A few weeks before that it had been hover flies, truly remarkable close up like so many insects, and somewhere imbetween had begun the relentless march of the Beetles, as some but not loads of butterflies flitter overhead. I have seen a few lizards and slowworms have also been about (mostly victims of cars or cats), with the reptiles it constantly seems like some (usually unusually hot) years you see quite a few, some years you see none. What has been lacking of late in their usual abundance is Bee's, I keep hoping they are just a bit late gathering their numbers after the late frosts (the Midgies certainly are - Hooray), but I remain kind of concened.

T

There were blue and red dragon/ damsel flies all over the place, far too busy to stop for a photo. This picture in no way does justice to their colour.

  

Nearby here is a bank of Comfrey, which is grown for many reasons, as it has many uses. One is that the bees adore it, last year there were so many bees of so many varieties on it that it was almost anthill like in its hypnotic effect, you would see a few bees at first, then ten, twenty, a hundred, more, till there just seemed to be bees everywhere. This year it is more like 5, 10, 14, 20, 21 or is that the same one again, there is just not the abundance that there should be. Hopefully it is still just a bit early in the season for them and everything else is a bit ahead.

T

There should be umpteen bees in here- lets hope there will be soon. 
I met a nice and very interesting chap here the other day, while he was fixing a dyke (damaged by a bull) that he had built some time ago. He told me that the latest research on bees suggests that it is microwaves that are decimating bee populations, such as those used and emitted from Mobile phones. This is very worrying when you think how many people have them now, not just here but across the world.

Norman Haddow, a master craftsman at work.
They don't work in the glen, but the signals do leak through here and there for patient teenagers on holiday who will wait half an hour by a particular rock for a text to come through (it probably said "I'm on the train").
There is also a phone mast (for military use only) and also if you want to receive a TV signal you will need a satellite signal - Microwaves again.   
Anyway I have become diverted, I was going to talk about the rain and the sun and how everything as always needs to be in balance. Too much of either is not good and while we used to pray to Lugh and countless other sun gods for a good harvest, I bet we rarely did it with the concentrated fervour and immediate need that native American plains Indians would have carried out a rain dance. The rain dance as I understand it (a much misused term now) started as drought set in and continued until it rained. Participants danced and chanted until they dropped from exhaustion, when they recovered they got up and carried on, a trance like state was seemingly entered which perhaps helped to deal with the ongoing effect of dehydration. If it did not rain, drought, followed by famine and eventual death was a certainty. In rainy countries, somethings always growing so there is always something to eat, (read any John Muir book for proof- nice plate of Lichen anyone, this moss is very juicy?).

My little place in the country- I have been building this summerhouse for years, nearly finished now.


 *Peter Hoeg's "Miss Smillas feelings for Snow" discusses and explains these Inuit words very well.

An Informative Afternoon- Glenlyon Kirk 17th July 2010 12.00-5.00

Remember the excitement of phase one of the Home Heating Assessments ( I'm only joking- how could you forget)?  Well, set your thrill receptors to max because there is more to come.

A

 A glen resident waves goodbye following a survey in Phase One

Not only is Heat survey Phase 2 happening soon (please contact GWI if you live in the glen and would like your house surveyed), but now that most people have got their Phase 1 results, we are holding a woodfuel informative afternoon /open day type thing to answer any queries about the survey results, any questions about woodfuel heating in general and to provide up to date, glen focused information on the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
Woodfuel expert Bernd Pinamonti and RHI consultant Steve Luker will actually be here, in Glenlyon to discuss, one on one, your personal woodfuel heating requirements and options,  Potential payback times should RHI become policy, and, how much wood you might need a year- cost of, etc.This is an excellent opportunity to really learn about woodfuel heating options, from people working in the field.

People are looking forward to it already. One resident contemplates the upcoming event.

Sorry I just remembered how exciting this must be for you - the reader, I probably should have said sit down first. Now would you like some water? 
Feeling a bit calmer, I 'll carry on. In addition, people from The Big Shed project (Shedi's) and the Loch Tay  Food Chain will be giving a talk and discussing the really interesting and positive actions and opportunities that are happening "over the hill", and what benefits they could bring for people in the glen.

Bracing themselves for a long wait- The Informative Afternoon is not until the 17th of July.

Locally grown Small Round Wood (SRW) products will be on display and available for sale, plenty of long whippy poles are a certainty so if you are struggling for Teepee poles for runner beans or that sort of thing, you will be in luck. This SRW  comes from some further coppice experimentation (Coppice Experiment 2)

Coppice Experiment 2. This bit of woodland looks better now its been thinned.

We have lots of poles from the thinning, they make much better pea supports than imported bamboo does
All of the above topics really need a blog of their own; Bernd has done a great job on the heat surveys. His survey forms are really comprehensive breaking down easily into payback with and without RHI (on ave... respectively). Steve Lukers input on RHI has, right from the start given the project an added economic impetus and awareness of how this innovative initiative makes the payback times for conversion to woodfuel compared to staying on oil  "A No Brainer Mate" according to my Australian friend Jason.

Shepherds, Farmers, Mole trappers, Dykers and assorted forestry types are all welcome.

During the afternoon I will no doubt gibber on about forestry and wood fuel supply chains and some other things.  Oh yes, we will very probably have an extraction demo from an Iron Horse - possibly the most low impact, economical extraction device available and undoubtedly the bit of the day you will chat to your nippers about. Incidentally no Jason an Iron Horse is not what Ned Kelly rode about on.

 

 These Iron horses really are quite astonishing, as you will see if you follow this link
http://www.artcom-tradebridge.com/ironhorse.html   

After watching this link an appropriate thing to say may be..."Golly Gosh those Iron Horses really are a spiffing looking bit of kit, well done Swedish chaps. 
If this short film has left you suddenly realising what a gap there is in your life as concerns viewing small tracked vehicles in action, you may find this next link heartening. This one is also recommended watching for fans of ultra dramatic music and implausible emergency situations, something one will rarely see in mainstream films methinks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCdvIzMxpt8&NR=1&feature=fvwp

The way the music picks you up, exciting, exciting, rescue, rescue, and then changes for the interior cab shots is just thrilling... you will see what I mean (I hope).

By the way- Children are welcome at the Informative Afternoon, I think they will find it interesting too.

How would Sam Steele have dealt with BP?

Despite being unusually busy I have read and enjoyed numerous books lately (as always),  and sometimes while perusing  "The Silvicture  and Management of Coppice Woodlands"   or the rather excellent Woodland Way by Ben Law, I have paused and thought " Oh I must mention that in a blog". Sometimes I mention these interesting things to my partner and sometimes she answers.
Anyway I was feeling a bit stuck for a blog- so much is happening Springwise and everything else that I just could not find something to focus in on- as I say so much is happening at the moment- then from the pages of a book the woodfuel message leapt out, relevant to modern society and potentially accompanied by astonishing photos. I think we all know that they can be an important component for a good blog.

News on the radio this morning that the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is potentially double the amount previously estimated was accompanied by BP's share price rising 7%, as investors hope the American President is going to stop shouting at BP.

Yesterday I was reading of how BP's emergency plan for containment of a leak in the gulf were so detailed  they not only included plans for cleaning Walruses, inhabitants of sub Artic regions rather than the Florida coastline, but also listed a Japanese home shopping website as one of its "Primary equipment providers .....for rapid deployment in spill response resources on a 24 hour, seven days a week basis". The author of the article I was reading suggested that perhaps the whole document had been cut and pasted from a plan for Alaska.
Anything else - Oh Yes  I remember - Number Crunching Private Eye No 1262-

£6 - Hourly payment by BP to volunteers clearing up after oil spill.
£1.500- Hourly pay of BP Boss Tony " Its not our accident" Hayward
£1,500,000- Hourly profits of BP in last quarter
I would like to say that all the above made me really angry about the way massive oil companies and large corporations in general behave as regards their environmental responsibilities, but I can no longer remember a time when I wasn't really angry about that, so no joy there then.

What has been quite interesting is seeing Barack Obama become annoyed at BP and enter to some degree uncharted territory, the thought of Dubya criticising BP and wishing to punish it is not one that comes easily.
I think I may have a suggestion for him......One of the books I was recently reading was about a really extraordinary period in the mid 1890's when an estimated 100,000 worldwide people gave up their jobs and lives to head for an extremely uncertain but potentially highly lucrative future in the Klondike.

T

 These would be miners face a 33 mile over this pass and beyond to Dawson. The Mounties in a bid to avert starvation had a check point at the top and each person passing through had to have a ton of food and supplies with them. Carrying this up took a number of journeys or involved paying "packers".

Very few of them managed the (properly arduous) journey to the emerging town of Dawson in the Yukon in the short time frame when gold was still to be found, however that did not stop a lot of people from getting rich in some way or another during the glory years of Dawson and the Klondike. The whole thing is a real macrocosm of human society with all its attendant facets and I could go on for hours about it all, however I will allow myself to relate just one small nugget of woodfuel thought on the subject.   
That this huge influx of people into an area of barren, generally frozen wilderness did not just end in disaster or utter lawlessness was due very much to the fledgling Royal Canadian Mounted Police and in particular one man Sergeant Sam Steele who did indeed have a steely gaze when it came to came to controlling hordes of unruly (mostly American) miners.

  Sam Steele had negotiated with Sitting Bull before the Gold Rush took him to the Yukon.

Steele used two main punishments to keep law and order in Dawson,  one (a blue ticket) meant you were leaving town and the other meant you would be working on the government woodpile. This woodpile was incredible. It kept more than 50 prisoners busy morning to night, the police and Govt offices alone used enough wood to make a pile 2 miles long and 4 foot square, all of which had to be sawn into lengths by the prisoners who could be serving backbreaking 3 or 6 month sentences on the woodpile.
There is a story from the time of an American gambler who, on coming up before Steele was contemptuous when fined fifty dollars.
"Fifty dollars - is that all? I've got that in my vest pocket," he said.
Whereupon Sam Steele added "...and sixty days on the woodpile. Have you got that in your vest pocket?"

A

An older Sam Steele- what a crazy hat! 

Now it occurs to me, in relation to punishing BP or wishing it and its ilk took more care with our environment that perhaps this approach would be better than fining them what will always be a small (oil) drop in the Ocean.
If corporate responsibility involved those responsible for these disasters personally and actively cleaning them up alongside all the people whose livelihoods have gone because of this slick, and alongside all those volunteers - there because they care, then perhaps some small glimmer of understanding and an actual feeling of responsibility and concern at the results of their negligence may eventually start to permeate these peoples lives. Who knows they may actually begin to care about the damage they do, rather than just the money they make- Either way it would worth finding out, just a month cleaning oil on the beach would probably do it for most of those BP fat cat's and they would always be truly welcome to work on my woodpile should they discover a previously unkown love for the outdoors. 

Good reading - Klondike - Pierre Berton,
Practical Forestry for the Agent and Surveyor- Cyril Hart 


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Getting the Hazels in

On Friday we planted the hazels. Our planting site at Loch Archie runs above a recently buried power cable and this certainly made for some interesting planting. The site is currently planted with (tubed) native broad-leafs (BL's) with the exception of the strip we were planting. Prior to the BL's being planted it had been a small commercial block of Sitka Spruce which was felled about 4 years ago. A number of rootplates from these spruce alongside woody debris from the harvesting operation had been incorporated into the soil of the strip we were planting. For those who have not had the experience of trying to plant trees in wood instead of soil, it basically involves a spade bouncing of buried wood and a new spot being found for the trees. It was only an infrequent problem, but it meant some bits were hard to plant and that some of our lines and spacings were a bit wonky.

Our planting site, looking to the West, then to the East.

We had a really enjoyable visit from some of the pupils and teachers at Glenlyon Primary School. The school is making great progress towards an Eco-Schools award and recently held a well attended and very pleasant  event aimed at creating vegetable growing areas in the schools grounds.The kids from the School are mostly well adapted to the glen weather which is just as well because not long after they started planting trees, we were blessed with some water to help them get established. I really think in this case the pictures mostly do the talking.

 
The intro bit- "This is a Hazel tree and we are planting them because......." Luckily no-one fell asleep.

Getting started with Screefs and T-notches for planting. Note various waterproofs hanging on the gate.

Headteachers and pupils get busy and the trees start going in.

Sometimes tree planting can be exciting.

Rain is good because it helps things to grow.

Mixed emotions as time to return to school comes.

Eventually we got all the trees in and Loch Archie now has a new hazel corridor along its north end.

All Done!
My thanks in particular to John and Jason who were so very helpful on the day and also to Victor Clements of Scottish Native Woods for organising the trees and to E-Forests for donating them.