Charcoal kiln test, and stuff that's growing

In an earlier post I was making a traditional charcoal kiln, but I also had a second oil drum, and today made that into a different kind of kiln I'd been told about.

Step 1: cut the top off an oil drum, and make slots in the side near the bottom (I did four, equally spaced):
Step 2: burn out any remaining oil (this wasn't smoky this time, as there was plenty of air getting in through the slots at the base)
Step 3: cut the top off a smaller drum, and pack it tightly with dry wood. I'm using a 20 litre veg oil drum for now, but I hope to get something larger, as I won't get an awful lot of charcoal out of this one: Step 4: put the small drum inside the big one, open end down, and make a fire around it. You can see several "hot spots" from the air being drawn in rapidly through the slots:
Step 5: Let it all cool down, and get your charcoal out of the small drum - I've not done this yet, it's cooling down right now, so I'll find out in the morning if it worked....

It should work better than a normal oil drum kiln (whole drum full of wood, lit and then sealed once the smoke turns blue), because the wood in the small drum will be heated and the volatile gases driven off, leaving the charcoal behind. There'll be no oxygen in the small drum, so the charcoal should not get burned up at all. Another advantage is that the fire in the larger drum can be made of twigs that aren't suitable for making charcoal, and the highly flammable volatiles driven off from the wood in the small drum will help feed the fire.

Tracy wasn't there with me today, so while the kiln was burning, I set about sharpening my chainsaw - this is much more pleasurable in the wood, rather than at the kitchen table! I mounted the saw on our chopping bock, using a neat little clamp:
I also took the opportunity to tidy up the camp fire area, arranging the log benches and rebuilding the stove:
I cleared an area for a tent too - I've got four mates visiting next weekend and we're going to camp there, hopefully cooking with my own sustainable produced charcoal!

And finally, here's some pictures of stuff that's growing. First, the biggest fungi I've seen in a long time. No idea what it is (so we won't be eating it...), but it was growing on the base of an ash tree in Sweep Wood:
Then the pond, which is decidedly green:
When you look closely, there are actually a lot of bubbles on the surface. Not sure if these are methane from decomposing matter in the pond, or oxygen from photosynthesis. Next time I'll take a match to find out! ;-) There's also a few random plants taking root on the banks of the pond - there's plenty of light there as we coppiced some of the nearby chestnut. We're really excited to see the pond slowly coming to life, as we have done absolutely nothing to introduce any species - this is all happening by itself.
Out in the wayleave, beside our entrance, the grass seed we put down on the track is beginning to yield results:
And in the wood, one of the oak stumps has decided to try and grow again. The only problem is that every single shoot is getting nibbled - I assume by rabbits or squirrels. Perhaps we could try using some closely spaced sticks to make a kind of fence to keep the rabbits off, though I'm not sure how well it would work...We're up again tomorrow, early in the morning, as we have some customers coming with a tractor and trailer to collect several tonnes of chestnut logs for using in their stoves - one of which is in a local pub.

Mike