New Year, new woodburner as the old saying goes!

That's not really an old saying is it, but it sounds OK.  As you'll have guessed, we finally managed to install the woodburner in the workshop.  New Year's day was a nice bright sunny, blue sky day and so, instead of going for a walk as planned, we decided to get the woodburner done.  It was a little awkward.  The flue, when all pieced together, is quite long and unwieldy.

Once it's poking through the roof you have to put the thick rubber grommetty thing on and then the cowl on the top.  So, I was inside holding the flue while Bob was outside doing the rest.  Obviously, the grommet has to be a tight fit to keep the rain out and so was quite difficult to slide down.  Once all the bits were on we had to lift it and slot it into the woodburner itself and then secure it with the brackets we made the other day making sure it's central to the hole in the roof because the flue has to be a certain distance away so it doesn't melt the roof! 

That done, the grommet has to be moulded into place fitting up and down all the wriggles in the roof, then siliconed and then screwed on.  It was actually only just big enough to cover the hole (would have been so much easier if there'd been a bit more leeway).  We haven't finished off the ceiling inside - waiting until it's rained to make sure it doesn't leak first.  We did then light it straight away just for fun - with just a handful of shavings and little bits of wood it lit really well and you could feel some heat.  Bob's going to be roasted if he stokes it up properly!

I did some more pointing in the lounge on Wednesday and Bob has carried on with moving things into the workshop and clearing out the barn at the top.  He's sorted through the piles of timber and we now have more firewood!  We've also found a nice chunky piece of burry elm to make a coffee table out of and some small pieces of pippy oak which can be panels in kitchen cupboard doors.  There was also a scaffold plank which we might clean up and use for shelves on the landing - have to see what it looks like first.

Yesterday we had an outdoors day - it's so rare to get a dry, sunny day we thought we'd better make the most of it.  First we pruned the hedge so it now looks like a few sticks in the ground!  Then we went up to our little wood and chopped trees down.  There was a fairly big holly tree which is sprouting from the bottom, but is dead from the waist up.  That was fun!  All the branches were on one side which means it would naturally fall that way, but that was not the way we wanted it to fall (onto the neighbour's land and the fence).  So we tied a rope onto it and I kept the tension on that while Bob cut a wedge out of the side we wanted it to fall and then cut part way through the other side and knocked a wedge in.  We were hoping to get it to slowly keel over with us pulling it in the right direction with the rope.  It was quite stubborn though and Bob had to keep going back to cut a bit more.  Eventually, with a lot of hauling, it did exactly what we wanted it to do.  Half the branches shattered as it fell into nice log-size pieces - handy!  We checked them with the moisture metre and, because it's been dead for a while, they were perfectly dry and ready to use - very handy!  Holly burns really well and gets very hot so we'll use those for cooking logs.  We then cut down some ivy covered hazel that had got out of hand.  That should sprout quickly into nice straight, useful poles (coppice).  Bob got clouted on the jaw by one piece that flew up unexpectedly because of the weight of the ivy on it.  He was a bit sore last evening, but it's not too bad this morning.  I guess he might have a bruise under that beard!

I'm at work in a bit, but off tomorrow and I think were going to have a big bonfire in the wood to try and tidy up a bit.  There's a huge pile of branches from a previous chopping session, plus the stuff from yesterday.  While we're tending the fire, we can cut the wood into logs and stack it and that will be a good job done (good fun too - I like having bonfires!).