Danny Graham: Our young forester locks horns with brother

THIS month has been not only productive but also financially very rewarding. While, far from the being varied and interesting, the work has been tedious and monotonous. A slog! For the last consecutive 30 days I’ve laboured at the art of making very large trees into small pieces of wood; three-metre logs, oversized logs, whole trees, arboreal waste, bits of hedge and even telegraph poles – in fact, if it can be cut into 8–10” lengths and split into something that resembles firewood then I’ve done it! Firewood morning, noon and night, seven days a week, breakfast, dinner and tea. 

READ MORE: Our young forester finds himself managing staff amid the firewood boom - Danny, Champion of the Woods (October 2022)

Motivated by a love of what I do (and a need to survive financially in this cruel, dark world) I soldiered on to the point where my back ached and I began to tire. Like any normal human being this was the point where I began to question what I was doing. Did I really need to proceed at this pace and might it be time to take a short break? Just as I was arriving at a decision, I got a call from a contractor in need of some hand cutting. As we all know, a change is as good as a rest and I immediately jumped at the opportunity. It turned out to be a good decision as not only did I enjoy the change of scenery but there wasn’t a great deal of felling to be done. Rather, I was required for the clearing up of several patches of windblown oak. This, I’m relieved to say, required a lot more mental dexterity than just disking firewood.

A couple of days into the job, at some lull in proceedings, I took the opportunity to sit on one of the newly felled tree stumps and reflect on the past couple of months. At that moment the sun appeared and, as I enjoyed its warmth, I concluded a good deal of my hard work had paid off. I was proud of the fact I’d built up something from nothing, that

I’d helped others along the way, that I’d developed and resourced a sustainable system of production and that I’d put myself in a strong financial position. This calm reflection was suddenly shattered by the stubborn buzzing of the phone. At first I thought it might be a forwarder driver enquiring as to why I was daydreaming on a tree stump, but no such luck. It was my accountant and she was ringing to give me the bad news about my tax return and just how much I owed the tax man. I knew it was going to be bad, but not that bad! In fact, it was monumentally more than I had anticipated. 

As I placed the phone down I noticed my grip had tightened and an outline of the phone’s detail was imprinted on my hand. I was angry. It felt like I’d worked flat out throughout the year processing 800 cubic metres just for someone else to enjoy the benefits of all that effort. My mind was awash with images of lazy people sitting in front of the television all day watching Jeremy Kyle and other irrational thoughts. Maybe I should build a log cabin and go completely off grid, or emigrate (it’s always better somewhere else isn’t it?) or only work for myself or only work for cash or ... 

It took me a while to calm down, but boy did I take it out on those innocent looking Sitkas – motivated largely by debt!

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m the youngest of three brothers. I’ve got a good brother and I have another brother. We were all fortunate to be born into the ownership of a small family farm. My good brother lives in a cottage on the farm, drives a timber wagon for a local firm and has the facility to park the wagon on the farm at night. He has also, in the last couple of years, become a firewood merchant. This has been encouraged by him realising the benefits of free storage space, free use of the family tractor and associated machinery and discounted firewood processing rates from yours truly! It actually works for both of us. 

Also on the farm I have a small workshop where I sharpen chains and weld whatever item some careless operator has broken. Throughout the week I’m there most mornings and nights and so having my brother’s timber to fall back on to process (should I have a spare half day) works quite well. I don’t mind doing the work at cost price. Basically, he buys in the timber and I cut, split, bag and stack it. Then he delivers the bags, burning as few calories in the process as he can manage. Understandably, in the current climate, he has seen a sharp rise in demand and so needed more storage area in which to stack his valuable stock of timber. This has resulted in a conflict of interest with the ‘other’ brother. The other brother, the eldest, runs the 350-acre farm, which consists solely of store cattle and roughly 30 acres of woodland. He is extremely protective of every inch of every acre and the success and expansion of his brother’s business seems to fill him with jealousy. It’s almost as if he resents either of us getting on in life and being successful. Naturally, this has resulted in the two of us uniting against him and forming an alliance (as well as reaching the conclusion that he’s a prat).

He’s basically claiming the area occupied by a dumpy bag of logs could be better used to fatten livestock. To try and argue with him would have led to a major family fall-out so we’ve been left with only the 30 acres of woodland. However, it now turns out the eldest brother is also protective of the woodland. These are shelter belts and they provide quality wind protection to the fattening cattle. As an expert stockman he is right to an extent, but then as a forester I also know a little about trees.

The majority of this woodland was planted by our grandfather back in the early 1950s. I can observe from the density of the trees that my grandfather didn’t know much about planting and if you add in 70 years of complete neglect then what you see is a dwindling mess of spindly windblown conifers, most of which should have been harvested 30 years ago. Next to one of the plantations near the farm runs a hard track and as it’s in quite a windy location it is ideal for stacking timber. The alliance decided that trying to negotiate a little deforestation in this area with the eldest brother would be a no-go, inevitably leading to verbal abuse, physical restraint and heavens knows what else (shotguns are kept on the premises). Fortunately for us, the eldest is into fox hunting big style and is away with the hounds most Saturday mornings.

The departure of the blue Isuzu on Saturday was the cue for the alliance to spring into operation. By 6.30am my orange Husqvarna was brashing out 70-year-old Sitka and by 7am it was all over. The blitzkrieg had resulted in mutual benefits; the good brother now had space in which to store his timber and I had acquired a little spruce to go through the kindling machine. We weren’t quite kitted out with a forwarder or grab for the extraction process, but we did have a farm-spec Valtra tractor, a rusty D shackle and a long two-tonne climbing rope doubled up six or seven times, which combined to make an effective skidder.

All in all, the operation went well and by the time the eldest brother returned from chasing foxes we were all safely embedded in the bar of the local pub. Hopefully it might be some time before he notices the gaping recess in the wood, the 3-inch-deep sawdust covering most of the tracks or the several hundred bags of kindling which have appeared in the log store. I’ve managed to strategically avoid the eldest brother for last six days since the felling, and tomorrow I fly off to America with my girlfriend for a well-earned holiday. I’m hoping by the time I return the shotgun will be back in its cabinet and my good brother will have absorbed the bulk of the vitriol. I can then continue to nibble away at the rest of the woodland one Saturday morning at a time, replanting as I go and creating a more organised and effective shelter belt for the future.