The Perils of the Forest
Fifth edition; 09.02.23
The five pollarded trees have all been cut up and stacked. Pigl the pig has been working diligently to dig up the roots of the bracken and make those old terraces look almost new again. I tend to take the toddler down into the forest during the day now and work as he plays. The terraces that we are working on are about two to three meters wide, and then there is a drop down to the next terrace.
In a way this is good because he's never more than a few metres from me and I can easily get to him if he goes too close to the edge, it still poses a hazard though if either of us would fall. I think the best way to deal with the inherent dangers of this place is to carefully court them. It can be a good thing if he is in the forest from a young age under supervision, while it's still possible to supervise him, so that he can learn about the risks and responsibilities of being there.
At this age he has a natural tendency to destroy things, not knowing that they exist for a reason. My job is to teach him the reason of things. For example the moss that grows so thickly on the ancient stone walls; it's just so tempting for him to reach out and tear it off. When he did this I thought that it might be a good way to let him be distracted as I work, but then it occurred to me that the moss is a part of the forest. I told him that it was important, I even explained why; it insulates the stone from the heat of the sun, keeping the micro climate at a more pleasant level on the forest floor so that things can grow. In time he'll absorb the why of things, but for now he is beginning to learn the way of it, so I think taking him into the woods is a good thing for him.
When I was a child, I was privileged to have access to the forest. For me it was a big playground, and that definitely impacts my adulthood love of the woods. But I didn't start to see the patterns of nature til I'd grown up. If someone had carefully explained it to me back in those days then it would have added a whole new dimension to the place.
But as the title of this post suggests, there is another side to the woods, especially when you are working in them. The place is undeniably perilous.
Back in Germany, as a postman, there were hazards; the heavy post bikes were far too easy to crash and many of my colleagues hurt themselves that way. But in general, a German city is quite a safe place. Everything has been constructed according to a strict set of regulations and things have been designed to mitigate danger. Human error is and always will be hazardous, there was a car accident in the town where we used to live and several people were killed.
Though the forest here operates on a strict set of natural laws, there are no safeguards built in to ensure that it’s a safe place. A great deal of extra caution is needed when in the woods. The other day, I was hauling the last log up the hill to the pile at the top. Each log needed to be lifted from one terrace to the next; I'd lift one onto my knee using leverage, then haul it into my arms and scramble to the wall, from there I'd heft it up and into the next level. I'd make a pile on the next terrace up, then climb up the hidden steps that were built into the structure and repeat the process. I'd got most of that done before becoming a full time dad, but the last - and biggest - log was yet to be lifted to the very top.
I should have cut it in half while I was working with the chainsaw. I lifted it at one end and kind of hauled it up so that it stood vertically, then I carefully began to lower it down again on the other side. The plan was to manoeuvre it so that one end rested on the terrace wall and the other end on the flat spot below, then lift the lower end and turn the log by ninety degrees so that it was fully on the next level.Â
As I was lowering the upper end onto the wall, the immense weight of the thing began to push me backwards, I was stepping back to compensate, almost tripping. I could feel that I was losing balance though, and after a few steps I felt myself begin to fall and crack! I'd landed - with the log on top of me - directly onto a viscous jagged rock that protruded from the leafy ground. I thought about how if that rock had been just a little lower on my back then I'd certainly have damaged my kidney.Â
I spent the next day or two wondering if I'd fractured a rib. My wife asked jokingly; If you crack a rib in the woods but no-one hears it, did you really crack a rib? Well my son and my pig were within earshot so the rib must have cracked. In any case the injury is not a serious one, I'm sore and that's not even the worst of it.
The worst is knowing that the accident could have been so much worse. I'll definitely not do any more serious heavy lifting when I'm also looking after the kid, and I’ll be sure not to lift something that is clearly too big, better to take the extra time to make it smaller and more managable. If I was brought out of action then there would be no-one around to keep an eye on the todller. Lesson’s learned.
The wall is slowly starting to rise and close off our future bedroom. Since I became a full time dad, Jackie has taken on the responsibility of the building work. I've given her some tips that I picked up and now she's building the remaining external walls of the house. A few months back we had a delivery of hollow clay building blocks and some fine sand trucked in, and now it's gradually transforming the house.
Usually people put their windows in the south facing walls, but we decided to put our bedroom window on the east facing wall. It can get chilly here during winter but the house will be well insulated when we're done and the fire is more than capable of keeping the place warm. It's the extreme summer sun that we're thinking of. Even with double glazed windows, the sheer intensity of the summer heat blasting all day on the south side of the house will really heat the place up if we let it, so we decided to make the most of the morning sun and enjoy the indirect light during the afternoon, hopefully keeping the place cooler.
The south facing wall will be complete soon, so it's time to start thinking about the more complicated job of finishing the east facing wall. It's not just that this wall will have a window in it, but also that - along with the rest of the house - it's just not been built straight...Â
The previous owner and builder of this house did not have any experience in building. I definitely don't fault that, my own experience is very limited and Jackie has no experience whatsoever. The problem with his construction project is that it seems to have lacked any forethought.
Planning, patience, and diligence are key ingredients to any successful project, and this house doesn't appear to have benefited from any of that. Structurally speaking, it's sound. Having only one level to it, there are almost no loadbearing requirements involved so at least we don't have to tear the whole thing down (although the thought often crosses our minds.) The thing is though that we need this house to be in a livable condition within the next year and a half ideally so that we can move on with our lives and give the land the attention that it deserves.Â
Til April we're taking it slowly, just working on finishing those walls and installing the window. After my immigration appointment we'll get serious and try to have the newer part of the house finished within the year.
We've got a much clearer idea of our borders on the other side of the valley since the owner of the neighbouring property was here. We've agreed to make new boundary markers and get them in place within the year, and then we have a decision to make.
A particular plot of ours is heavily overgrown Eucalyptus plantation. It doesn't appear to have been managed in over a decade, so now it is extremely dense and a huge fire risk. Our original plan for the plantation was to gradually cut it down - piece by piece - and carefully reintroduce native trees into these cleared patches. But seeing the condition of the forest as it is now, I've been rethinking this strategy.
The second part of the plan, a careful reintroduction of native forest, still stands and will likely take many decades to complete. But in the meantime I believe that the plantation needs to be brought under control to reduce the risk of a catastrophic fire. There are several thousand trees growing on this plot, they've been cut in the past and have regrown into a tangled mess. The scale of this mess is far too big for me and Jackie to address so the only feasible option seems to be a clear cut.
I'm well aware that clear cut deforestation sounds counterintuitive, but a certain degree of pragmatism is essential in this life. The plantation will quickly grow back within a decade, but during this regrowth period, the trees can be pruned. This will result in a more open forest, where we can easily graze goats and pigs to keep control of the undergrowth level, thereby reducing the risk of fire. When we have control of the Eucalyptus on this plot, we'll be able to proceed with the gradual transformation of the forest into a mixed woodland.
The clear cut will also generate some cash that we desperately need for the reforestation project. We'll need to buy animals and pay for their feed and amenities. It will likely involve various kinds of fencing material in order to protect the new trees that will be planted. We need to explore alternate methods of funding this project but we can't commit to it this year. When the house is livable, that plantation will rise up to the top of the list.
A new video about the steps that we’ve taken so far to help our forest is being released on Saturday the 11th at 11:00 CET. After that we will release a part two, delving into the history of (eucalyptus) plantations in Portugal and showing up close the situation in our plantation.
On a final note, I’d like to put out a request for the Portuguese readers of this Newsletter. It’s wonderful to see all of the Portuguese subscribers who have taken an interest in our project in your wonderful country and now I’m reaching out to ask if any of you would be interested in helping me to improve my Portuguese language.
I’m looking for someone who has about twenty to thirty minutes available each Sunday to talk to me on the phone in your language. For the past month I have been learning as many words as I can and I have memorised over a thousand now, so it’s time to start getting more experience in speaking the language. I’m lacking in grammatical structure and since I was never a very good student in school, I’ve not had much success learning languages in a formal environment.
At this point my reading level in Portuguese is good enough to understand most newspaper articles but I find it quite difficult to understand the language when it is spoken, so a weekly chat would surely help with that.
If you are a Portuguese person who would like to help me learn European Portuguese and even ask any questions personally about our projects in Central Portugal, please email me at: oakandolive3@gmail.com
Oh my goodness. Be careful. You don't want to hurt yourself at 28 such that you won't be able to be 100% operational! Hernia is a the biggest danger by forcing too much and badly. Beware!
From what I know of many places, the best way to limit fires is to clean the soil of brushes, not exposing too much the ground to the sun by clearcutting. It's Portugal, not Germany. It gets pretty dry and fast. You're are lucky to have plenty of water where you are but it might also be that shades are intense because everything seems abandoned. That could change as well if there would be too much exposure. Just thinking out loud here :)