How it all began

This is an introduction to give you some idea as to how I came to be here doing what I am doing.
It was 1996, Life was stuck in a rut, repetitive job, long hours for not much reward. I was fed up of Britain, house prices were already out of reach and it seemed that we would be renting forever. We also had a baby on the way so life was about to change, so why not make it a big one and change everything.

So we went to a French property show in Harrogate, couldn't believe how cheap properties were in the Limousin. We could have a house and barns and lots of land with a monthly mortgage payment way less than what we were renting just a house for in Cumbria.
I only had enough spare cash to do one property finding visit. This was also my first time in France, and so I struck lucky and agreed to buy the second property I visited.
In August 1997 the mortgage was arranged and the place was ours(and the banks) It consisted of 2 houses in need of renovation, 2 large barns and 27 acres of land, mostly treed and badly neglected and

spread over 46 separate parcels. After half a dozen week long renovation visits during the following

winter we arrived here permanently in early June 1998 with all our possessions packed in a van, a 9 month old baby, virtually no money, no job and not a word of French- even to me this now looks a little foolhardy when I see it written down.

So what, I asked myself could I do to earn some money here. This is how I got started producing firewood both for ourselves and to sell. I had only once before picked up a chainsaw, I did a weekend chainsaw course run by the BTCV somewhere around Newcastle when I was 18. The course was great however at the end they showed an old Forestry Commission Video of chainsaw safety and accidents which scared me to death and resulted in me not picking up a chainsaw for another 15 years.

So I was now in the situation where economic necessity forced me to conquer my fear of self preservation and so I acquired an old, late 1970's Stihl 08 which is all metal and weighs a ton. Little by little trust was built between man and machine and a great partnership resulted. I now have a Husqvana 365 which is a beautiful machine, powerful, productive and solid but not too heavy.

So I began to make a start on my woods using a basic principle to remove the poorer and overcrowded trees to give space to the better ones so that they might realise their full growth potential. So this my first ever posting in my very first blog gives you a little background to what will unfold in the posts that will follow. Hopefully a few of you will find the adventure interesting and worth following. I refuse to believe that I am the only tree mad person out there!

Thanks for looking -Michael