We were up a the woods yesterday doing a few odd jobs, and excited to see a male Brimstone butterfly in our wood. I changed camera lenses while Tracy kept an eye on it, then I chased it out into the wayleave trying to get a picture, only ot find a second one out there! Brimstones are fast and don't land very often, and at this time of year there's precious little food to tempt them to land anyway, so I had to try and get photos of it in flight, in between running to keep up with it. Hence they're pretty poor pics, but here they are anyway as proof of the Brimstones' presence - you can't mistake them because of the colour:
There's other signs of Spring too, such as honeysuckle and thistle coming into leaf:
And also the fact that there's enough sunshine to light the kelly kettle with a magnifying glass!
Mike
Monday, 15 March 2010
First Brimstones of the year!
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Making kindling, and some other odds and ends
On Friday we visited our friend Fiona at her wood, and she told me a neat way to make kindling (or in this case, fuel for our woodgas stove and kelly kettle). As soon as we were in our wood, I tried it out.
You start by tying something round the log you intend to split up. I used a piece of rope with a slip-knot in it, but Fiona suggested a piece of bike inner tube - next time I get a puncture I'll try this.
Then, use your froe and wooden mallet to put a split down the middle:
Turn it 90 degrees and repeat:
Then carry on making parallel splits, according to the thickness of kindling you want:
Turn 90 degrees again and repeat:
and finally, take the rope off:
Neat eh?
We used some immediately to cook lunch, and I also discovered that the kelly kettle fits neatly on top of the woodgas stove, allowing you to make a hot drink after cooking without lighting another fire:
Also, because the kettle creates a good updraught, you can even unplug the fan in the woodgas stove, producing an interesting effect when you look down from the top:
We rearranged our little camp yesterday to benefit from more of the shade from the oaks, and also make it easier to get things in and out of the shelter. We took the opportunity to rebuild the fireplace and make a table beside it with a spare concrete slab I'd picked up near home recently:
While we were sat there having lunch, look what slithered by:
We'd better keep an eye out, this is the first time we've seen an adder this close to our camp - I guess they like the hot ground there on sunny days!
The heat had also brought out a huge range of insects, such as crickets and dragonflies:
and butterflies too - here's my first photo of a White Admiral this summer, and one of a Speckled Wood too:
We took a walk up into Sweep Wood (my parents' patch), and clipped back branches that were reaching into the public footpath. Along the way we saw a fungus which I'd happened to take a photo of nine days earlier. Here's the first photo:
and here's the later one, after just nine days!
We also noticed that there's a lot of honeysuckle out in Sweep Wood, it'll be nice in a year or two when the butterflies can get to it, after we've coppiced there...
Finally, we found a tree that was very interesting, mainly because it has fruit on it! I think they're plums, but we'll see how they develop over the coming weeks:
Mike
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
