Burning the Elm Stump
What a day. This autumn has surely been the best on record in England. Every day I keep saying that today has been the most beautiful day ever, and I have been saying it for weeks now. This afternoon the sky suddenly went that magic darkest grey in the fabulous sunlight, and I saw a blue fir, a golden beech and a scarlett-leaved cherry against it.
"Oh Polly, you stupid, stupid girl", I said to myself. "You have nearly missed what might be the last of these lovely days. Get on out there!" It was 3.45 and I had been working at my desk since I got up late. I got up late because I had been to London and back by train the day before (never again; but that's another story). What a way to spend a precious life.
So I charged out and raked a load of bright yellow ash leaves for my leaf pile (kept in one of those huge cubic bags); I cut a bit of grass mixed with leaves for the compost heap; I picked up what I think are the last three Bramley apples; and, at exactly 5.00 when it was by now dark, I started another little bonfire.
On the whole I don't ever burn anything outside because I compost everything or make logs for inside, but I am trying to get rid of a rather small elm stump that sticks out into my drive. I have had a really hot bonfire on it for two nights running now, but it goes on sticking up there defiantly like something from Hiroshima. The bow-saw goes nowhere with it. Perhaps it's some rare hardwood and not elm at all. My face is sore with the heat and I am covered in tiny burns. No wonder they used elm for weirs and keels in the Middle Ages. It's indestructible.
This is from a lovely website and I'm going to make a link to it:
ΒΆ Uses. -All parts of the tree, including sapwood, are used in carpentry. The wood is close-grained, free from knots, hard and tough, and not subject to splitting, but it does not take a high polish. It does not crack when once seasoned and is remarkably durable under water, being specially adapted for any purpose which requires exposure to wet. To prevent shrinking and warping in drying, it may be preserved in water or mud, but is best worked up soon after felling. In drying, the wood loses over 60 per cent of its weight. Elm wood is used for keels and bilge planks, the blocks and dead eyes of rigging and ship's pumps, for coffins, wheels, furniture, turned articles and general carpenter's work. Elm boards are largely used for lining the interior of carts, wagons and wheelbarrows on account of the extreme toughness of the wood, and it has been much employed in the past for making sheds, most of the existing farm buildings being covered with elm. Previous to the common employment of cast-iron, Elm was very much in use for waterpipes.The inner bark is very tough and is made into mats and ropes. The leaves and young shoots have been found a suitable food for live stock.
http://www.the-tree.org.uk/BritishTrees/MrsGrieve/mgelmcommon.htm#use
We also have wych elm around here and I am trying to take cuttings of it.
Why the ash tree in my hedge has dropped a carpet of yellow leaves and the one in the field perhaps sixty paces away and perhaps six feet higher is still clothed in green, must be because the huge one in the field is cold and exposed like everything in the Wiltshire plains, but my equally huge one in the hedge has a warm road beside it, fences, walls, ivy and everything else that has warmed it up enough for the leaves to turn yellow. It's coming down, anyway. I want a bole and poles every year. I'm just hanging on there for the mythical man with a chain saw who is going to come into my life one day.
The world also seems a little dead at the moment. Sometimes it's lovely to be outside in the dark because various squeaks and shuffles start up and the tawny owls start hooting in distant fields, but tonight there was a kind of deadness, and this mirrors the lack of birds in the garden at the moment. It's just not cold enough. Today I had one measly spotted woodpecker, one measly greenfinch, one measly house sparrow, and one pretty but lonely chaffinch. Bring on the icy Februaries when I have flocks of all sorts. I can't wait to blog about them. Even the night sky was disappointing: just some clouds and the odd plane, not the lovely stars or owls. Lonesome.
You might notice that I have put a comma before *and*in my lists here. It's one thing from America that I think is a really good thing. I will add a few more good things if I can ever think of them (roast sweet corn must be one) as I go on, as part of my campaign against knee-jerk reactions (such as anti-Americanism, inverted snobbery, and so on).
"Oh Polly, you stupid, stupid girl", I said to myself. "You have nearly missed what might be the last of these lovely days. Get on out there!" It was 3.45 and I had been working at my desk since I got up late. I got up late because I had been to London and back by train the day before (never again; but that's another story). What a way to spend a precious life.
So I charged out and raked a load of bright yellow ash leaves for my leaf pile (kept in one of those huge cubic bags); I cut a bit of grass mixed with leaves for the compost heap; I picked up what I think are the last three Bramley apples; and, at exactly 5.00 when it was by now dark, I started another little bonfire.
On the whole I don't ever burn anything outside because I compost everything or make logs for inside, but I am trying to get rid of a rather small elm stump that sticks out into my drive. I have had a really hot bonfire on it for two nights running now, but it goes on sticking up there defiantly like something from Hiroshima. The bow-saw goes nowhere with it. Perhaps it's some rare hardwood and not elm at all. My face is sore with the heat and I am covered in tiny burns. No wonder they used elm for weirs and keels in the Middle Ages. It's indestructible.
This is from a lovely website and I'm going to make a link to it:
ΒΆ Uses. -All parts of the tree, including sapwood, are used in carpentry. The wood is close-grained, free from knots, hard and tough, and not subject to splitting, but it does not take a high polish. It does not crack when once seasoned and is remarkably durable under water, being specially adapted for any purpose which requires exposure to wet. To prevent shrinking and warping in drying, it may be preserved in water or mud, but is best worked up soon after felling. In drying, the wood loses over 60 per cent of its weight. Elm wood is used for keels and bilge planks, the blocks and dead eyes of rigging and ship's pumps, for coffins, wheels, furniture, turned articles and general carpenter's work. Elm boards are largely used for lining the interior of carts, wagons and wheelbarrows on account of the extreme toughness of the wood, and it has been much employed in the past for making sheds, most of the existing farm buildings being covered with elm. Previous to the common employment of cast-iron, Elm was very much in use for waterpipes.The inner bark is very tough and is made into mats and ropes. The leaves and young shoots have been found a suitable food for live stock.
http://www.the-tree.org.uk/BritishTrees/MrsGrieve/mgelmcommon.htm#use
We also have wych elm around here and I am trying to take cuttings of it.
Why the ash tree in my hedge has dropped a carpet of yellow leaves and the one in the field perhaps sixty paces away and perhaps six feet higher is still clothed in green, must be because the huge one in the field is cold and exposed like everything in the Wiltshire plains, but my equally huge one in the hedge has a warm road beside it, fences, walls, ivy and everything else that has warmed it up enough for the leaves to turn yellow. It's coming down, anyway. I want a bole and poles every year. I'm just hanging on there for the mythical man with a chain saw who is going to come into my life one day.
The world also seems a little dead at the moment. Sometimes it's lovely to be outside in the dark because various squeaks and shuffles start up and the tawny owls start hooting in distant fields, but tonight there was a kind of deadness, and this mirrors the lack of birds in the garden at the moment. It's just not cold enough. Today I had one measly spotted woodpecker, one measly greenfinch, one measly house sparrow, and one pretty but lonely chaffinch. Bring on the icy Februaries when I have flocks of all sorts. I can't wait to blog about them. Even the night sky was disappointing: just some clouds and the odd plane, not the lovely stars or owls. Lonesome.
You might notice that I have put a comma before *and*
* * * * *
But now, here I am, logging in again to say that my redeemed day is being unredeemed, contaminated, polluted by listening to a revolting Frederic Raphael play on Radio 4: unwholesome people, doing unwholesome things, and speaking unwholesome words. What a pity. I know I just have to turn it off, but it's in the other room and I want to finish these sentences. It goes with all the feelings I have about town and country. Dinner parties, private views, adultery, Londoncentric. Yuk, it goes on as I write: yucky, yucky, yucky.
Tonight's tipple is also a disappointment: Stone's Ginger Wine Special Reserve. All it is is hotter than the usual green one. They probably added a whole load of extra ground ginger. Don't bother.
This is what the wych elm looks like in Spring (this is its fruit)
but the one up my lane is really pink.
Labels: Bonfires, commas in a list, Dark Evenings, Elm, Frederic Raphael, Ginger Wine, Wych Elm
posted by PollyBee @ 20:02
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