Quite a few developments since my last post. I’ve been twice. The first visit was a beautiful frosty and sunny morning. It was nice to see the wood in yet another different light. It’s a time for getting on with some jobs and right now I’m concentrating on clearing bramble and preparing my log store for when I can start thinning. The frosty conditions made brushcutting easier and I managed to increase the area I’ve been working on, quite considerably. I did some more work on my log store, collecting dead branches to prop up around the sides to disguise and tone down the garish wooden pallets. I met some neighbours who had just seen a small herd of about 7 or 8 roe deer pass along my ride. I cut some more dead sycamore trunks for logs to take home.

Whilst resting for lunch, I noticed a flock of about 20 small birds in the trees near my bird feeder. As far as I could see they were mainly Great Tits and Blue Tits. I have noticed the seeds have gone down, having had to fill them two or three times since I put them up but it’s the first time I have seen any birds on them and I wasn’t sure if it was just squirrels raiding it. The birds flew on and off the feeder for some time, one of them landed on the nest box I made in summer. Hopefully, they will adopt it in spring and rear some young.

My last visit was interesting. The man from the Woodland Trust had arranged for the local archaeological society to visit mine and a neighbour’s plot to look at some digs that were done about 20 years ago. My neighbour has the remains of an ancient cave dwelling where two skeletons were found buried. Carbon dating showed them to be a man aged about 35 years and a young woman of about 15 years and dating back around 3500 years ago. The dig on my site wasn’t easy to date but is the remnants of an old bank and ditch that was probably a field boundary at one time. There are records of Roman enclosures in nearby fields so they could be part of those.

I spent the rest of the day cutting logs and foraging for dead branches to disguise the log store and thoroughly enjoyed it. The icing on the cake came the day after. My Forestry Commission thinning licence. Now I can start re-coppicing the hazel which will give me some much needed material for stakes and other projects plus some firewood to season for burning next winter. Things are going to get a whole lot more interesting soon.