There's a variety of photos that I want to post, but they're not on any specific topic... First off, here's an impressive fungi I found, I've not identified it yet, but will take the fungi ID book up to the wood later on.
Also, the other mystery tree (i.e. not the Alder Buckthorn) is now confirmed as a Crab Apple, as it has some fruit for the first time:
We think it didn't fruit before because it didn't have enough light, but since we coppiced in the area, that's changed.
Another interesting development in the same part of the wood is that heather has started growing, the seeds spread in from the wayleave presumably. Again, this would not have happened before we coppiced this area:
Initially I just saw this one plant, but as I looked around I realised there were lots of plants, this was just the only one flowering.
Here's a couple of butterfly pictures. First, an old favourite: the Speckled Wood, but this time in the coupe we cut two years ago, where I've not seen them before. Perhaps the slowly increasing shade as the coppice grows is making it attractive?
And a Common Blue, one that I've not been able to photograph nicely before:
And finally, a few pictures of people in the woods. A couple of weeks ago our neighbours John and Helen had family visiting, and the kids got a chance to fell a chestnut (we picked one that's shading the Alder Buckthorn, which we'd like to grow better):
and also see birch bark's effectiveness as a firelighter:
I also hosted the men's group form my church for dinner, cooking a curry from raw ingredients up in the wood:
That's all for now. There's another busy week ahead, including a visit by some of my work colleagues to see what the woodland is all about.
Mike
Sunday, 23 August 2009
Odds and ends
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Friday in the woods
Friday was the last day my family were visiting, so we had dinner up in the woods in the evening. The wayleave is now dense with leaves:
and there's all kinds of flowers out on the ground, such as Violet:
and Blue Bugle:
Also, our mystery tree has now flowered, thus confirming its identity as Crab Apple. I'll be interested to see if there are any fruit, as I've never noticed them before...
As we were cooking for six adults and my nephew Joshua:
we needed several fires going. There was the one we were sat round, which my brother Andy had started in the afternoon before we got there, and hot coals from that were used to light the kelly kettle to make drinks. I was also trying out my new pot stand attachment for it:
With so many of us we couldn't fit dinner in one saucepan, so we had the big one on our normal cooking stove:
and a smaller pan on my shiny new woodgas stove:
You'll notice it has a tiny battery pack - this supplies a controlled amount of air to gasify wood at the bottom of the stove, and more air at the top of the stove to burn the gas produced , just under the pan:
I'll do a post just on this stove soon, including how to use it.
After dinner our neighbour Andrew called in to collect some wood for a caravan trip he's going on, so he can have a few camp fires on the way. He had a quick go with the air rifle while he was there:
but seemed surprised he hit the tin can first time:
Anyway, he got into splitting logs after that:
and we loaded up his truck.
My nephew had to go home to sleep, as he's only little, but my parents stayed up with us until dusk, sat round the fire.
and we left with the sound of the Tawny Owl echoing through the woods.
Mike
