Learning from Logs
“Hey Lorn, come see this!”
Si calls out across from the woodchip pile where he’s shifting logs kindly dropped off by our friend Woodchip Tom. Over the last 3 years this wood chip pile has grown and shrunk, there have been piles of wood deposited and used. No log goes to waste here at Kith.
There’s quite the pile to shift right now, the mountain of logs has certainly grown recently and as usual it’s taking up a little of our already small car park space. So, Si’s mammoth task is to squirrel it all away into little corners of Kith to dry or until we’re ready to use it.
The reason he called me over was a peculiar phenomena he’d noticed whilst moving the pieces.
The huge one in his hand, (pictured here) weighed very little. In fact, our 4 year old B could probably have lifted it if it weren’t such an awkward shape.
The tree was already dead when Tom had felled it. The water and sap had long gone when he came to make his felling cut to take the tree down, this is why it was so strangely light.
When Si lifted it, he chuckled to himself as he almost threw it over his shoulder lifting it with such gusto.
The log was pretty sizeable in comparison to some of the other pieces.
What made him call B and I over was just how noticeable it was when you stack them against each other. The smaller pieces were so much heavier, from a different tree but full of water and moisture.
We like little curiosities like this, it’s lovely to notice them whilst we’re pottering.
Next time you’re out and about (at Kith even) and you come across some freshly cut logs, if it’s safe to do so, try lifting them one by one. The heavier logs are still full of the lifeforce of the tree, the lighter ones are likely much older, dead or seasoned.
This is one of those life skills you don’t know you know, until you know! And learning by living is one of the best ways to test this out. Simply heading out to your local wild space and taking it all in. These are the skills which you might need, when making a log fire for example, if you went to pick up a log and it was pretty heavy, it could be an indication it’s pretty wet and not great for making a fire.
