Treefellers (well 2 actually)

Thursday/Friday 30th Sept 1st October 2010
Moored at Stoke Bruerne
No Miles No Locks.

Thursday.  Walked up to the pub again today, not to drink but to get a loaf from the shop, we stopped for a chat with Tony and Heather who run the Fudge Boat, Heather was going into Towcester on the bus so Jayne joined her.

Homemade Fudge.

There's been a pair of working boats, Planet and Gilbert, moored close to us since we arrived, these belong to a chap selling Army Surplus and was here for the Village at War weekend, he needed to turn the pair around, the nearest place where the Canal is wide enough is down a further 2 Locks so I went to give him a hand as he only had a young lad with him, 2 others went to help as well so we made light work of the Locks.

At 5 o'clock we walked back to the Boat Inn for a drink as it was "Happy Hour" (actually it's 2 hours)  that finished at 6, afterwards it was back to the Navigation for a 2 for £12 meal then back to the No Direction which was nice and warm as we had lit the fire earlier.

The Helter Skelter goes up at the Vintage Fair, on the left are the Swing Boats, Dodgems to the right.

Friday. Today it was wet, very wet, Jayne has stayed on the boat all day, I had a walk up to the Village at around 4 o,clock to check if Nutfield and Raymond had arrived, they were just emerging from the Tunnel, so walked back and helped the crew to tie them up. Most of the crew that brought them from Braunston disappeared back home tonight leaving Robin in charge, I hope more volunteers turn up tomorrow else Robin and myself are going to be busy.

In the last blog I mentioned that blogger Halfie asked about burning wood which we sometimes find along the Towpath from fallen trees, on our fire, burning wood that has not had time to Season (dry out) is not to be recommended as it can coat the inside of the Flue with a tar like substance, but, most fallen trees are dead and therefore usually dry enough to burn, it also depends on the type of wood, however I have seen people cutting up un-dried wood and putting it straight onto their fire and they didn't seem bothered. 
We clean our chimney with a special brush at least twice a year, once around Christmas and again in the Spring when we have finished using the fire, this is a very messy job which involves removing a baffle plate and firebricks from the fire, standing outside on the edge of the boat and pushing and pulling the cleaning brush which is attached to a 5ft wire handle up and down the flue, the important thing to remember is make sure that the door and the vents on the fire are closed.

Where logs are concerned we are fortunate to have a friend, Phillip, who I used to work with, his family own a couple of fields very close to Kings Bromley Marina where we moor, the fields are used to graze horses, in the corner of one of the fields there was a dead oak tree which needed to come down.

The Dead Oak, lots of logs here.

So on a Snowy morning in January this year Phillip and I attacked it, Luckily Phillip had some experience in tree surgery having attended a Training course, but he later admitted that he had not "dropped" one this big before.

Phillip makes a start

.

Once it was down we both set to with our Chainsaws, one of the most satisfying things in life is using a Chainsaw, well it is for me. (sad I Know)

Logging it up.

Another trailer load of logs, we filled the trailer 4 or 5 times that day.

The trailer is made from the front half of an old Dumper truck.

The Logs were transported back to Phillips house where our share was loaded into the back Jayne's Nissan Note and taken back to our shed which we rent at the Marina, they were ready to burn immediately and lasted us until April when we finished using the fire.