There is forest in Sweden, lots of forest; most of the country is covered with forestland. If you own a house, that usually includes a larger or smaller piece of land, which of course you are supposed to keep up. Trees that are getting old/bad should be removed in time, trees or branches that are too close to power lines can be dangerous.
For me, one of the reasons I’ve encouraged Martijn from the very beginning to take a course in power saws so that we can work with them safely. Of course, the professional power saw was there first and the course followed.
Energy company engaged
The neighbors in Krusbo told us that when trees are close to power lines, you can call the power company; they will take them down for you. This is also the wisest thing to do, because if it does go wrong and you accidentally hit a cable yourself it will be at your own expense. So a call to the power company in my ”best” Swedish and indeed settled. Around the cables I had marked quite a few trees, getting it right the first time seemed best. Martijn would then only have to strip the trees of branches and cut them into small pieces. Afterwards, I can then throw it back through the log splitter and a new supply of firewood is born.
Lots of forest – lots of trees
With the certificate in his pocket and all the official accompanying clothing, Martijn left for Sweden to do some serious work at our cottage in Knåpbodarna. The power company had indeed done its job and the trees were down. What we had not realized – and this is indeed a bit naive – is that most of the work follows only after the trees are down. Big trees with lots of branches left that you have to cut off all one by one and then get to burn the branches in a big pile. Only then can you cut the big tree into small trunks, and of course you have to lift them back to somewhere to make a neat pile. And since I had marked trees to my heart’s content, there were about eleven trees crisscrossing our property and the back of the forest waiting for him. This was a little too much in one week’s time. In addition, the first snow began to fall at the end of the week and hampered work quite a bit.
Far from finished…
No matter, as much as possible has been eliminated and when the snow is gone next year the rest will follow. As there are probably a lot of other work then as well. I’ll be honest, besides the fact that I think it’s very important to maintain our land safely, there’s another reason I wanted Martin to learn how to properly handle a power saw. Many Swedish people have nice high sawn-off tree trunks at the beginning of their property, with those half knots sticking out the sides. I think that is so cool and preferably with a real Swedish fence like that too; it would complete our cottages… 😊
Who knows?
I couldn’t find a nice picture of those tree trunks and Swedish fences I’m talking about. Are there people who know what I mean?