Our best experience in woodland work was when we used heavy horses to extract timber from otherwise inaccessible areas. (Evelyn also enjoyed having her own Christmas tree shop at the time!)

Justin received his first formal training with a chainsaw at Newton Rigg College of Agriculture and Forestry in 1981. At the same time he studied 'Management of Small Woodlands' as part of a Diploma in Hill and Marginal Farming. While studying he helped support his family by doing paid work for a local woodland owner, alongside some part-time farm work.

Subsequently for a few years he helped to manage a rural 'job creation scheme' providing employment opportunities for people who had been unemployed for a while. This large workforce included three gangs engaged in forestry.

For some years now Justin has been directly involved in the care of two small woodlands, comprising perhap twenty five acres (10ha). He has derived great satisfaction from involvement with woodland and hopes to develop this further.

We will be pleased to manage or care for woodland and can undertake work either on a purely commercial basis, or would consider: work in return for wood, tenancy, share cropping, ‘community supported woodland’, or other cooperative ventures.

We have dabbled on a small scale, with woodland products, from birch sap wine for our own consumption, to hurdles, charcoal, bodging and round wood building.

We have always enjoyed the benefits of burning wood for fuel. We expect to continue doing this and sometimes may have limited quantities of firewood for sale.

Working with heavy horses has been one of the highlights of our working life and we are hoping that we may be able to get another horse and do some ‘Horse Logging’ and find other use for a horse on the land.

Justin + Evelyn. 2009