We just had a week’s holiday in Scotland and Northumbria and I was keen to get back to my woods and get a few jobs done. The weather was looking good, so last Saturday I was up at 6am and off by 7am. The roads are nice and quiet and I’m usually the first in the woods. I spent the first hour as usual just wandering with camera and looking over the various areas to see what’s new. Nothing much new, the woods are probably at their peak for the year before starting to wind down again. In the hazel coppice, the new shoots are doing really well but …. something’s been nibbling at them! I guess it’s the roe deer. I was a bit miffed but that’s nature for you. You can see how they have been neatly cropped.

I had a few jobs on my list – more cutting, chopping and stacking of last winter’s felling, a never ending job but essential. Did some tidying up of rubbish that I keep finding here and there and which I tend to throw into an old plastic bin. I wanted to remove it, so bagged it up to take home. I decided that where the log pile is (and where wildlife has been taking advantage of it’s shelter) I would create a small permanent wildlife home by using some of the gnarly and odd shaped logs which are really hard to split for firewood. I set about cutting up the logs into shorter lengths ready for splitting and throwing the rejects into a pile by the brash hedge. My friends and neighbours from the next plot arrived and came to see me and “L” (I shall call her that for anonymity) decided she would like to help me split logs with her birthday present, a Fiskars X17 axe. I have the next larger one an X25 and they are great axes. I was well impressed with her technique, standing poised with axe above her head, she seemed to pause and focus completely on the blow that was about to come, like some kind of log executioner. Wam and the log was split neatly in half. When I commented to her husband about how expertly she weilded the axe he laughed and just said, “Scary isn’t it?” Between us we got through the pile in good time. What a difference it makes having a helper. The old log pile has now grown an extension but still got a load more to deal with. A couple more sessions should finish it off.

While dismantling the log pile for cutting I exposed the blackbird’s nest that I disturbed earlier in the year. By now the young have flown and it has been abandoned so it’s safe to destroy it. A pity really as it was a well constructed nest but I can’t keep the huge log pile just for that nest and they probably wouldn’t re-use it next year anyway.

I have been given a stout larch log which I want to make into a workbench. I have seen a video of one and fancied having a go but not got around to it yet. First job is to drill four holes for legs to be pummelled into. I picked up a really large hand auger on a car boot sale, cleaned and sharpened it up and took it with me. These were in common use before we got power tools. In the woods there is no elecricity so it’s a handy thing to have. It has an “eye” in the end where you insert a strong stick as a handle for turning it. It’s hard work but satisfying as the bit turns and you hear the wood getting chewed up and spit out. Hard to judge the angle that the holes need to be too, as you need the legs to be splayed outwards. I banged in a few stout hazel rods and stood it up. It looks like Bambi on ice – legs akimbo. Might need modifying and two of the holes re-drilling now I know what it looks like. I ran out of time so it’s a work in progress. As I write this I have been sanding down the paintwork on the house ready for repainting. What a nasty horrible job. I’m hating every second and dreaming of my next trip to the woods.