Saturday 10 September 2011

August camping trips in the wood

Wow, that was a busy month for camping and visiting the wood! I think we had a total of four camping trips with various people, and numerous other day/evening visits as well. I'll start with a few of the group photos that often get taken...

Metal detecting with my brother Andy, nephew Joshua, and friend Matt with his family:

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Friends from work, some of whom camped:
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Friends from Rye:
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Friends from Sidley:
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We also had a visit from the Udimore Gardeners Club (link with photos)

Every visit that includes some hours of darkness now includes using the rope swing in the dark, which is quite a surreal experience. Here's our friends Josh and Ben having a go!
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Toasting marshmallows round the fire has also been popular, as well as setting fire to sticks and waving them around...
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One benefit this summer has been our supercharged fire pit. I posted a few weeks ago about how we made it, but now it has a new feature, based on an old PC fan that my friend Olly gave me:
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This is powered from the 12V solar PV system that I often take to the woods when we're camping to use for lighting:
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The result is an almost smoke-free fire, which can put out a lot of heat, or be small and controlled for cooking:
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We've done a few jobs over the summer too, such as moving logs and making racks to store them in:
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Cutting chunks off a tree butt to use as a work surface back at the campsite:
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and also relocating the toilet, where my brother Andy helped with the digging:
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and my nephew Joshua checked the new hole was deep enough:
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The old toilet is safely filled in and the new one ready for use now:
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Joshua had a really good time in the woods, and it was his first ever camping trip! So everything was new, from where he ate breakfast...
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To having to scare things away...
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And one day when we popped back to the house for a shower (we thought 4 days without one might not be a good idea...) the excitement overcame him...
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He also really enjoyed playing with Matt and Anita's son Ishan when they came to stay for one of the nights:
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The metal detecting (see the first picture in this post) yielded some great results:
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The trawl includes a shell from a WW2 plane (unexploded, so it's been carefully disposed of now)
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and two 20mm shell casings, probably from a Spitfire:
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Here's the three of them side by side:
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We saw lots of wildlife during August too, though most of it when Tracy and I were there on our own, as 3 and 4 year old boys don't usually play quietly! Here's a few pics...

A caterpillar (Pale Tussock moth?)
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a Speckled Wood butterfly:
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a Gatekeeper butterfly:
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One of many large beetles, which are now dying by the dozen as Autumn approaches:
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a dragonfly:
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a Robin, flitting around the trees in the wayleave:
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which coincidentally looks great on a summer morning:
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I was particularly pleased with these pics of a Wood Pigeon, which has been making a nest near our camp (they nest all year if they think they can):
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And last but not least, we discovered a second Alder Buckthorn tree (well, shrub at present), this time along the public footpath. This is good as it's the food plant of the Brimstone caterpillar - and I was pleased to see some leaves had been eaten!
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Well that's the story for August. I'm doing my London-Brighton bike ride soon, so after that I'll have more time for blogging as I won't be training!

Mike

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