Moving logs and making a fire pit

Earlier in the week we tried a new way of moving logs around the wood, and it worked pretty well:
It's possible because we've been steadily filling in ruts in the main ride in our wood - they've been there for many years, and were quite deep. now the land rover can make it through with no problems. This will be our main way of getting out everything we cut last winter, though we'll probably stack it higher.

Another neat thing I tried is something mentioned on the survival course we went on. The idea is for a fire pit with an air tunnel to the base of it. Obviously it's only worth doing this for a place where you have fires over and over, but we have that in the wood. Our version used an old steel pip that had a bend in it as the air pipe. I dug out the fire pit a bit, and then buried the pipe in the ground:
once we had a small fire going, there was a good draw at the other end of the pipe:
I'll take some more pics of the fire another time, but I reckon it could do with a bigger pipe for more air.

And now for a few pics of stuff growing. The broom in the wayleave is flowering beautifully:
and my raised bed of blubells has done OK this year:
(I kept it propped up when the windblown tree was felled, as I thought it was a nice feature)

We've had a lot more bluebells near our camp this year, they've steadily increased since we coppiced there in 2007/8:
The other wild flowers in our coppiced area are coming out in force now, such as Tormentil:
Heath Speedwell:
Thistle (not flower yet, but many more of them than last year):
and last of all, a new flower I've not ID'd yet:
Please leave a comment if you know what it is.

Mike

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New plants growing in the wood

Thanks to people on the Wild About Britain forums who helped ID these. First, a Heath Speedwell, which has started appearing in various places in the coupe we cut in 2007/08, which has tiny but pretty flowers:
Next is Scarlet Pimpernel, which is growing in the wayleave just outside the wood. Apparently it likes growing in disturbed ground, so no surprise it's where the tractor was driving with the oak thinnings just over a year ago:
And down at the other end of the wayleave, near the gate, is Ragged Robin, growing where there's a seasonal pond in the winter:
Also in the coupe are more common plants, but still good to see as they weren't there a couple of years ago, like Dock and Nettle:
Oh, and the bluebells are getting ready to scatter their seed now:
We're pleased to see so much new stuff growing in the coupe we cut in 2007/08, and as we're going to keep the rides cut back, much of what's there should be able to establish itself.

Mike

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