Saturday 19 April 2008

Shed building, and a dead boar

Over the past week we've been building a shed at our allotment, trying to get a bit done in the evenings. It was nice doing it on sunny days:
and before long we had the floor built, resting on logs from our own wood! :-)Today it was raining, but we decided to go there anyway in the afternoon and carry on, getting the walls up:
We put on the beam that goes over the doorway and then quit, as it was miserable weather and we wanted to pop up to the wood for a bit before it went dark.

One of the things we wanted to see at the wood was a dead boar that we'd heard was near the road in one of the woods that borders ours. It was quite easy to find, but very sad to see. It didn't look like it had been wounded, not sure what killed it. (p.s. Just in case anyone is wondering, we didn't touch or move the boar in any way)
On a more positive note, we noticed something happening to the stumps left from the chestnut we coppiced:
It's exciting to see the buds forming for the new growth - and also a relief, seeing as this was the first time we'd coppiced our wood, and although we knew it would grow back, there's always that niggling doubt until you actually see it!

Pete and Tom have had a good week. Something out the window surprised Tom just as I took this photo - if you look carefully you'll see he's airborne:
Pete said he was an eagle, and tried to prove it, which also gave us a chance to count his feathers and see that they are all growing back nicely after his moult:
After all the excitement it was time for a nap:
though once rested Pete serenaded Tracy, being careful to sing into her eye!

Mike

2 comments:

Tim Noble said...

Hi there

I just bought my own wood in Buckinghamshire. Although the weather has been abit rotten I've been up there a few times in the last two months.

I'm keen to coppice some of the areas to create a more diverse habitat....got any advice?

Tim

Mike Pepler said...

Hi Tim,

Pleased to hear from you. I'll send you an email, but one of the places you can go straight away to get some advice is the Small Woodland Owners Group (SWOG), which Tracy (my wife) is running. It's hosted by woodlands.co.uk, but is separate. Here's the address:

http://www.woodlands.co.uk/swog/
The forums are the place to ask questions and chat.

Mike