I’m planning a family day at the woods in a few days time, so wanted to get a couple of things done and sussed beforehand. Now the big sycamore is down, I thought I’d better continue to cut it into moveable logs. As often the case, some of my plans don’t happen. It was a glorious dry morning and it felt like I’d entered my piece heaven. Lots of fresh new growth springing up and some tree leaves opening, birds singing and no-one else there but me. I like socialising but I also love the head space of being alone in a beautiful setting like that. I spent a good hour and a half walking around, drinking coffee in my shelter whilst watching the birds, before doing anything that resembled work. After a heavy winter schedule of felling etc it was just nice to be able to savour the experience of just being in the moment and taking it all in. There’s a (slightly cheesy) expression being used for the health giving and de-stressing qualities of being among trees – “forest bathing”. It pretty much describes the feeling though.

Some time ago I buried a big metal box in the ground to secretly store some tools. It was a pain to access it, so I decided to dig it up. Rather than just fill the hole with earth, I wanted to make it into a sort of “critter hotel”. The idea is to fill it with loose rubble and small logs to create a labyrinth of small spaces for things like toads, rodents, insects etc to shelter or hibernate in. So the next photos show the process.

Covered back over with a small layer of earth and leaving some “doorways” should make a nice home for the “little ones”.

You’ll remember on my last visit, I spent a lot of time on the W.T. photography project and almost lost all my photos when the memory card threw a wobbly. I needed to retake a few so that was the next task which I can happily say are safely on my P.C. now.

My composting toilet has very little privacy – I ran out of materials for the wicker walls and they have shrunk down too. Now that I have neighbours and the toilet is close to their border, I need to provide more screening. The idea of using hazel rods from coppicing isn’t going to work because I just don’t have enough. So plan B is to build walls around it in a similar way to a log cabin. It will provide a good shield and last a long time. I need them to be about nine feet long and as I had brought the chainsaw, it was a spur of the monent decision to fell a few of the tall scraggy sycamore that need thinning anyway. After doing the big ones recently, it was a breeze to take four down and cut them up. Not such a breeze to lug them all back to the logshed for future processing! They were only a few inches diameter but when full of sap, they are a fair old weight.

The last little job was to transplant a few ferns. They are just emerging and I read that it’s a good time to split them. I want to increase  ground cover diversity in one area. I tried with one but think I messed up with the splitting and ended up with two sad looking, curly stalks. I planted them anyway and moved a complete one so we’ll see how they fair over the new season. More woodland tales to tell next week.

Yet another glorious, sunny spring day at my woods last thursday. Just got back from a nice caravan break in the Lake District and it’s noticeable how much the plant life has grown in such a short time. The bluebells are just starting to open here and there now.

I had three objectives. To meet Robin who had offered to help fell the last of the three big sycamores; transplant four hazel trees that had been given to me and were just heeled in, waiting to go in the coppice area once those big trees were down and take some more photos for the W.T. fixed point project. The hazel were going in an area away from the proposed drop-zone of the sycamore, so it was safe to put them in. I spotted a small frog, tried to take a photo but it just kept hopping away (as they do). I often wonder where they breed because there are very few permanent ponds in the woods.

When Robin arrived he wasted no time before getting stuck into felling the big tree. He used to work in some woods near Nottinghamshire and his confidence showed, slicing through the big base at ground level. He didn’t bother with the usual “bird’s beak” method of taking out a wedge on the side you want it to fall. We just wedged the back cut to stop it falling back, then used a felling bar to lever it when it was about ready to fall. We were slightly off target and the top of it crashed into a tall hawthorn but you always have to expect some collateral damage when felling in an overgrown woodland. Robin was visibly buzzing with adrenaline and said he’d really enjoyed using the chainsaw again. I was enormously relieved to have it down safely. It just remains to be cut up and processed. Now the coppice area is looking very light an airy ready for the new season’s growth.

Where I brush-cut the overgrown bramble in the sycamore plantation last autumn, the wood anemonies have enjoyed the extra light and are at their very best. For now they are surpressing the bramble but once they die back in a few weeks, I’m sure the thugs will be back.

So taking a break from the chainsaw, I set about re-taking the fixed point photographs that mainly failed at the last attempt. It’s turning out to be more challenging than I first thought. Fighting with difficult lighting, remembering exactly what I took the first time and keeping the tripod level have all been issues I needed to solve. I bought a small bubble level for the tripod, made some wide feet to slip onto the tripod and brought my tablet with the orignal photos on to compare and compose my new shots. I took my time because I really want to nail it this time. What could go wrong? I had about eighty shots taken, all previewed to make sure they were good and only nine more to do. Well, my camera memory card throwing a wobbly was what could go wrong! The memory card looked full but I couldn’t see any files on it when I tried to download them. You can imagine the expletives going through my head. Fortunately after many hours of faffing about with my computer and using some flash card recovery software, I managed to retrive most of my shots. The files were not in an orderly list anymore, so trying to identify each shot was a nightmare. Still I enjoy a challenge as long as it has a potentially positive outcome and I am just treating it as a learning curve and brushing up my photography and IT skills at the same time. Technology huh!