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
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