Peasmarsh Forest School

Last week I was delighted to go along to the opening of Peasmarsh Forest School - my friend Rich supplied the oak they made into the sign, and I'd helped with the milling of it. The school had got a pyrography expert to put their design into the sign, and had also treated it with some preservatives so hopefully it will stay looking like this for some time to come:

I'd supplied them with some benches, and small logs to use as stools, as seen in the photo below. But the main reason for the photo is to show their innovative method of making popcorn over a fire, using two sieves and a wooden pole! No oil required, and it just uses a bit of wire to hold the sieves together:

Here's the end result, I shall be trying this myself very soon... expect a video!

In our own woods, I've mainly been upgrading some of the tracks and moving logs...

Not that exciting, but at least we've had some nice weather to get on with the job!

Mike

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Digging in the woods

For once it wasn't the wild boar digging holes, it was me! I've been trying to persuade this bog not to drain into the track for some time, but have finally decided the only way is to dig a ditch to try and drain it in a different direction:

As you can see from the above photo, part of the reason for this is that I need to drive on this bit of the track this summer, to extract wood I cut 18 months ago, and a drier track will make it much easier. I'll go back in a week and see how it's going... But the rest of the track was fine - for readers that know the woods, the photo below was taken by the Wild Service tree and two Oak trees on the track that separates Chestnut Coppice from Sweep Wood, which is quite deep inside the woods:

Here's a few pics from Rye Harbour too, taken a few weeks ago.The gulls were busy building nests:

They were all making a lot of noise, especially this Common Tern:

For the first time I got a photo of Great Crested Grebe down there, though I think they are fairly common.

And finally, a couple of scenic shots to finish off. First, Rye Harbour:

And second, Pett Level:

Mike

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