Ashden woodland trip 2013

Just back from another camping trip to the woods, this time joined by friends from work and their families... A few intrepid campers started the outing on Saturday, and it was lashing it down with rain, so we opted to walk to a pub for dinner. Thankfully the rain paused for a few hours after that, so we did get to light a fire, drink beer and Jesse even entertained us with the guitar for a while!

The following morning (when the weather had dramatically improved!), our numbers were swelled by the rest of the group, and we went on a tour of the woods, looking for signs of wild boar activity and other wildlife...

Once back at the camp, it was time for lunch, and Sarah had brought along a Toyola charcoal stove. Toyola is one of our past winners at Ashden, given an award for production of efficient stoves in Ghana and a novel way of helping people to pay for them. It certainly did the job here, and we cooked some sausages in a pan on it!

It wasn't all about eating though, there were some woodland crafts going on too - here's Carla using a side axe while making a wooden mallet:

Time for a quick group photo...

Chainsawing is a bit antisocial, from a noise point of view, so we waited until most of the day visitors had gone before getting out some spare safety gear (PPE) that I'd brought, and having a go at cutting up some logs... So that was five people getting their first go on a chainsaw - when you live in a city, there's not always much opportunity to try this, but they all did very well!

The fine weather held right through until today, so we had one more chance to sit round the fire into the evening before the end of the trip...

Looking forward to the next time!

Mike

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Woodgas Outdoor Fireplace review

Some time ago I posted a review of the Woodgas Campstove we use for cooking in the wood. Well, now I've got another video - this time of its big brother, the Woodgas Outdoor Fireplace:The fireplace works on exactly the same principle as the campstove, with a fan drawing air in through the holes round the outside of the base, and injecting a small amount through holes in the base of the combustion chamber:The limited amount of air, combined with the heat of the fire, results in the wood being gasified, to produce a mixture of carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen (known as woodgas), which is then ignited when it reaches the much larger airflow coming in through the holes in the top (don't worry, all the CO is burned, no risk from the woodgas):There are a few small differences between the fireplace and the campstove. The campstove had two power sockets - high and low - and ran from a pair of AA batteries. The fireplace can take a 9-12V supply, so can run directly from a lead-acid battery, or eight smaller batteries in a pack. However, it is supplied with a mains adaptor, as many people will be using it in the garden, hopefully to replace one of the nasty fossil-fuel burning patio heaters! The fan in the stove only uses 2W of power, while the heat from the stove can reach 16kW! The fireplace also has a knob to vary the airflow, although you'll normally only use anything less than maximum while lighting it.
The fireplace also has handles added to the side. These stayed cool even after an hour of operation, allowing you to move the stove (carefully!) after you've unplugged it without waiting for it to cool down.
Anyway, here it is full of fuel and ready to go. A full load of fuel should burn for an hour and a half, and you can top it up (gradually) while it is burning.Just before we get to the video, here's a few photos of it in action:
nice, eh? Well, without further ado, here's the video on how to use one:

If you want to buy one, go to woodgasstove.co.uk

Mike

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Making kindling, and some other odds and ends

On Friday we visited our friend Fiona at her wood, and she told me a neat way to make kindling (or in this case, fuel for our woodgas stove and kelly kettle). As soon as we were in our wood, I tried it out.

You start by tying something round the log you intend to split up. I used a piece of rope with a slip-knot in it, but Fiona suggested a piece of bike inner tube - next time I get a puncture I'll try this.Then, use your froe and wooden mallet to put a split down the middle:
Turn it 90 degrees and repeat:
Then carry on making parallel splits, according to the thickness of kindling you want:
Turn 90 degrees again and repeat:and finally, take the rope off:
Neat eh?

We used some immediately to cook lunch, and I also discovered that the kelly kettle fits neatly on top of the woodgas stove, allowing you to make a hot drink after cooking without lighting another fire:
Also, because the kettle creates a good updraught, you can even unplug the fan in the woodgas stove, producing an interesting effect when you look down from the top:
We rearranged our little camp yesterday to benefit from more of the shade from the oaks, and also make it easier to get things in and out of the shelter. We took the opportunity to rebuild the fireplace and make a table beside it with a spare concrete slab I'd picked up near home recently:
While we were sat there having lunch, look what slithered by:
We'd better keep an eye out, this is the first time we've seen an adder this close to our camp - I guess they like the hot ground there on sunny days!

The heat had also brought out a huge range of insects, such as crickets and dragonflies:
and butterflies too - here's my first photo of a White Admiral this summer, and one of a Speckled Wood too:
We took a walk up into Sweep Wood (my parents' patch), and clipped back branches that were reaching into the public footpath. Along the way we saw a fungus which I'd happened to take a photo of nine days earlier. Here's the first photo:
and here's the later one, after just nine days!
We also noticed that there's a lot of honeysuckle out in Sweep Wood, it'll be nice in a year or two when the butterflies can get to it, after we've coppiced there...
Finally, we found a tree that was very interesting, mainly because it has fruit on it! I think they're plums, but we'll see how they develop over the coming weeks:
Mike

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Woodgas camp stove demo

You may have noticed in some recent posts that we've got a fancy new stove to use at the wood - well, here's a demo video of how it works. (Still pictures and a text explanation are below)

It's a WoodGas CampStove XL. What it does is "gasify" the wood, burning the gas produced in an efficient manner right under the cooking pot. Basically there's a cylinder inside it that you fill with small sticks:
If you look carefully you'll see some small holes at the base of this cylinder - these allow in a small amount of air to gasify the wood. Gasification means allowing the wood to partially burn, resulting in a mixture of gases, including hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide (so don't use it indoors). These are all flammable gases, and as they rise up the inside of the stove they meet with more air injected through a ring of holes at the top of it:
The gas mixes with this additional air and burns. Right above it sits your cooking pot, resting on a simple but effective pot stand:
The air is drawn in through holes around the the outside of the base of the stove, which encloses a small fan. In the picture below you can see the two power sockets for the fan (high and low speed), and the air inlet holes:
The battery pack contains two AA rechargeable batteries (I reckon my 3200mAh batteries will run it for over 15 hours), and you plug it into the high or low speed socket depending on how much heat you want out of the stove:

Mike

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Friday in the woods

Friday was the last day my family were visiting, so we had dinner up in the woods in the evening. The wayleave is now dense with leaves:and there's all kinds of flowers out on the ground, such as Violet:
and Blue Bugle:Also, our mystery tree has now flowered, thus confirming its identity as Crab Apple. I'll be interested to see if there are any fruit, as I've never noticed them before...
As we were cooking for six adults and my nephew Joshua:
we needed several fires going. There was the one we were sat round, which my brother Andy had started in the afternoon before we got there, and hot coals from that were used to light the kelly kettle to make drinks. I was also trying out my new pot stand attachment for it:With so many of us we couldn't fit dinner in one saucepan, so we had the big one on our normal cooking stove:and a smaller pan on my shiny new woodgas stove:
You'll notice it has a tiny battery pack - this supplies a controlled amount of air to gasify wood at the bottom of the stove, and more air at the top of the stove to burn the gas produced , just under the pan:I'll do a post just on this stove soon, including how to use it.

After dinner our neighbour Andrew called in to collect some wood for a caravan trip he's going on, so he can have a few camp fires on the way. He had a quick go with the air rifle while he was there:but seemed surprised he hit the tin can first time:Anyway, he got into splitting logs after that:
and we loaded up his truck.

My nephew had to go home to sleep, as he's only little, but my parents stayed up with us until dusk, sat round the fire.and we left with the sound of the Tawny Owl echoing through the woods.

Mike

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