The highlight of the weekend for Tracy was that she discovered she can split logs with a maul! I think she'd just assumed she couldn't before - it's one of those things that if you try it in a half-hearted way it doesn't work - you have to really mean it!
While Tracy was splitting logs, I was loading longer ones into drying racks. There's still a few more racks to do, and we want to get them loaded up soon to make the most of the summer weather for drying:
There were jobs to do back at camp as well, like making some kindling while dinner was cooking - it's always useful to have a pile of ready-chopped and dry small bits of wood
The summer wildlife is beginning to come out now, like this lizard:
the beetles:
And this hornet. Before you think it's just a wasp, compare it to the size of the dry chestnut leaves, or the honeysuckle leaves!
Despite it's fearsome looks, the European Hornet is apparently quite docile.
There are loads of birds around, but with the leaves on the trees it's much harder to get pictures of them. It took us 10 minutes to get this mediocre picture of a Song Thrush, but I was still pleased as this is the first one we have of this bird in the woods - they're fairly shy.
I managed to get one of a Robin too:
One bird that's different is the Blackbird - now that there's some ground cover coming up, he seems happy to roam around the woodland floor near our camp:
The trees are growing at an incredible rate. The buds on the coppiced Sweet Chestnut only started opening at the beginning of April, and six weeks on, each bud has become a shoot six inches long or more:
Another tree growing like mad is a Birch in the wildlife corridor that we deliberately ring-barked in the winter to create some standing dead wood. You can see how it has put out new shoots just below where I cut the bark:
and the top of the tree has only a few leaves (compare it to the other Birch behind it):
On the other hand, bits are falling out of some trees - this oak branch came down in the wind:
but at other places there are young oak just starting out in life, and we've built little fences round them to hide them from marauding rabbits:
That's all for now. I'm off to Leeds this weekend for a stag party, including outdoor kart racing and clay pigeon shooting! I think Tracy may well go to the woods though.
Mike
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
The weekend's work, and lots of wildlife
Monday, 5 May 2008
Bank Holiday in the wood
We had a good crowd yesterday in the wood, for BBQ, chat, fire, wildlife and various other woodland activities. People came and went through the day, but it was generally busy:
For cooking I tried an experiment with our BBQ - I started a fire in it and loaded it up with chunks of chestnut:
By limiting the air supply I did manage to get some of to start turning to charcoal:
I did add a bit of charcoal we'd bought, but at least some of what burned was our own - I'll have to get on and make a small kiln next...
Paul had another method - He'd brought a grill with him, and we used that with a few bricks and collected embers from the main fire - very effective!
Harvey was very well behaved, but while we were all eating he had to be tied up:
But it wasn't long before Tracy took pity and came to keep him company:
Paul told us that Harvey like to ride in wheelbarrows, but Harvey wasn't so convinced...
Once he was in there he seemed to like it though!
He wasn't the only one to enjoy playing in the wheelbarrow - Joshua liked it too!
OK, so what wildlife did we see with all this activity going on? Well, lots of birds around as usual, and Andrew (the pastor form our church) was able to help us identify them by their calls - he's a bit of a bird expert! I do at least know what a Chiff Chaff sounds like now!
The wayleave is turning back into a jungle again:
and even things that are dead seem to have not realised their situation yet, such as our chopping block (serving as water dispenser here):
Here's a zoom onto the side of it:
We saw some cool beetles too:
and a grass snake (no pictures of this one, sorry).
A bit of work did get done too. Brash burning was in progress as usual (not much left now). Also, I'd bought a maul (for log splitting) at the market on the way out, and Paul was keen to demonstrate:
The other job that got done was the tree shelters, which were cut into smaller pieces for the self-seeded oak:
and also put round the chestnut we planted a week ago, which all seem to have taken to the their new homes OK:
Hopefully these shelters will give all these trees a better chance by keeping animals from nibbling their tender bark.
That's all for now, Thursday evening should be the next trip, when Rachel's brother will be visiting for the day.
Mike
