Deep in the woods

After a few months' of using the firewood range, we can quantify our firewood usage. We more or less burns one seven or eight year old tree in a week. Our calculation says that we need to chop down and split between forty and fifty trees every year.
Most of our firewood comes from the woodlot down across the valley. Most of the trees planted by Nelson are eucalyptus trees which are suppose to coppice. When they are harvested, they would come back again, and in theory are harvestable again in seven or eight years.
Uncertain if if our energy need can be met from our own energy source, we decided one day to carry out a feild investigation with our clipboard pencil and chalk in hand.
We walked around the wood counting the number of trees which look big enough to be chopped. We chalked and counted 92. Some of them are in awkwad position, some are too big to be handled by a chainsaw novice, therefore not all would be havrestable, we know. Nonetheless, it is reassuring to know that we have enough fuel to get going for at least a couple of years.
We counted the number of trees chopped down. Forty two, since September 2007. Twenty five of them are growing back. Some very vigorous, others struggling. Only slightly more than half of the trees chopped has coppiced successfully.
We estimated it is safe to assume there are about 600 trees. Applying the rate of coppicing, we should have more than 300 trees growing back continuously. If we replace some of the unsucsesful coppicer, we probably have enough.

Firewood harvesting is going to be a monthly event.