“what are you doing in the winter ?”

Often people ask us what we are doing during winter when we are closed.
This winter we work a lot with nature conservation. Here are some pictures from where we are right now, working to restore ancient pastures and cultural landscapes with old oak trees. This area, Östergötland, actually is known for these oak woodlands.
Right now it has been some really cold and beautiful, sunny days. It is wonderful to be out in the forest and see the landscape changing back to its ancient looks.

Specially the spruce trees and the young birches will fall for Håkans chainsaw. Old rough birch and fun pastures birches we save. At least some of them.

Compared to the big forestry machines, it takes of course longer to cut by hand and pull branches. But it’s fun and creative, you do not have to go to the gym, you get out, you feel alive (especially when you have to run to get out of the way from falling trees in the last second …), you get no vehicle damage on the land (more than enough with wild boar damage here). And you get exactly how you want it. Only advantages.

Here it is rather obvious how the landscape once looked like. With independent oaks that were able to spread out their crowns. The past 50 years there have been some grazing horses in periods but not enough to prevent the birch and the spruce to grow. All of those will now be cut down to free the big oak trees again.