Joe introduced us to Eddie and Hugo. Joe works his two horses in deep woodland were machinery cannot access, or sensitive habitat such as bird sanctuaries and they beat the bracken for Breckland District Council. He’d trained Hugo and Eddie to obey anyones commands: ‘Hugo Left’ for example, and he generously gave many of us their reins to prove this was absolutely right. With the pair and a few of us first time horse loggers, 4 logs were dragged out of Rachel’s wood.
‘Eddie takes a size 9 – same as me’
‘They are just like kids – naughty and looking for a chance to eat.’
Based at Sotterly, they work on the Sotterly estate – one day alone felling 125 trees in a day. The horses move 1/2 hundred weight depending on the bark – smooth ash more easy to drag than creviced oak. On the estate Joe looks after the oaks. High pruning, halo pruning – increasing the amount of light to veteran oaks.
We ate lunch (Baron Bigod cheese, Penny Bun bread, shared food, hot lentil soup,) around the oak cabin built by Graham Norgate and Paul Jackson – Graham and Rose were with us for the lunch
Kaliwood 