Wood.

Before the storm we had asked Alain, our neighbour, to deliver some oak for next winter. He said that we would need about 12 metres cubed and measured the wood burner so he could cut it all to the correct size. Although we had the 6 poplars that came down in the storm we still need the oak as it burns so much better and gives out much more heat. I went out one day and on returning saw Nigel, looking rather bemused, surrounded by a pile of logs. He had started to stack them and said that Alain would be returning shortly with another load. There was an awful lot of logs and it took Nigel almost a week to stack them. So no worries re heating next winter, no logs to chop as they are all ready to go straight on the fire.
The poplars took rather more time to sort out. First Nigel cut off the branches and we had a couple of days burning them. Then Nigel chain sawed the more managable bits of trunk. Finally Alain came over with the log splitter on the back of his big tractor and cut them all into smaller bits. Alain offered Nigel the use of his small tractor and link box to move all the logs from the field to stack them at the side of the hedge which was a tremendous help, it would have taken such a long time to do that with just a wheelbarrow. Now we wait until Dominique, another neighbour, can come over with his digger to push the stumps back into place. We are hoping that once the stumps are back that the trees will continue to grow.