It’s been two weeks since my last visit and I was ready for my “woodland fix”. During the summer, I set off early and when schools are out, the drive is easy and I get a good long day to play in my woods. As I pull up to unlock the main gate, there’s always a lovely feeling of expectation. I know I am going to spend the next seven or eight hours bathed in woodland goodness, free to explore, sit, plan, work or play. I can be spontaneous and indulge myself in “messing about” in the woods. Something we usually stop doing when we reach adolescence.

I drive slowly up the long track to my small woodland haven, park and  turn the engine off and step out. The tall trees are still and dark, towering above me and offer a place of sanctuary and quiet, a welcome relief from the fast-paced roads that brought me here. I savour the day ahead in the same way I might when a plate of delicious food is placed in front of me. I start as usual with a slow walk around my paths. What has changed since last visit? The sun streams through the tall lanky sycamore trees, reflecting off the bramble and ferns. Leaves and spider webs shine bright through the backlit sun and I think to myself once again “how lucky I am to have this”.

Since my last visit, I have been busy at home building pieces for “Champion” – my shavehorse and I was keen to fit them to the bench and complete the project. It’s been a challenge but I have taken my time and worked on it carefully. It would be so easy to make one mistake and ruin hours of work. The main task was to drill a hole through the body to take the wooden pin that will allow the frame to pivot. Sounds easy enough but it’s 8 inches wide and done with a hand auger. The challenge is to align it correctly so it comes out of the other side at right angles to the bench and level with the entry hole. I clamped some straight pieces of wood to it as guide lines so I could “eyeball” the auger against it and stay straight. It worked and relief washed over me. Now the fun part, fitting the frame and platform and trying it out. It works a treat. I am so happy with it and the satisfaction of making a working tool completely from scratch and with materials from the woods, is enormous.

My next door woodland neighbours arrived and made coffee. We took them to the shavehorse for me to show them and demonstrate and R. had a little go on it. After a bit of catch-up, we split and headed off to pursue our own agendas. I wanted to cover my large firewood stacks now that they are nicely seasoned and dry. I’m hoping to bag some of it to sell. A while later I met up with them again and we lit a Swedish fire torch. Basically it’s a dry log with slots cut in it. You light a small fire in the centre and it burns from inside to out. You can use the top as a hotplate to cook or boil a kettle on. It took a lot of effort to get it started but it worked. Good as long as you’re not in a hurry for a brew.

The last hour was spent pulling nettles and bramble in the old bird rearing area. Three years ago, very little grew there and I think it was due to the pheasants eating all the seedlings. I am really pleased to say it is recovering nicely. There are ferns, wild raspberries and numerous other new ground cover plants. It’s covered with ash and sycamore saplings. The ash may or may not survive the coming disease (Chalara) and the sycamore is unwelcome there but I spotted lots of other tree species saplings among them – wild cherry, beech, hazel, hawthorn, holly. This area is due to have some large sycamore removed to let light in and when that happens, these saplings will flourish and repopulate the area with more diversity. All in all, another great day at the woods.

The weather has been grim this summer. I was hoping for a one night camp-over this week but yesterday looked like the only dry one. I’m enjoying a more laid back approach at the moment, making sure I do some fun/interesting/stimulating things rather than just essential jobs. A mixture of both is the key. It turned out to be a very interesting and pleasurable day.

I wanted to carry on building Champion (my shave horse) and needed some straight narrow logs to split down to make the arms for the frame part. I knew there was some more dead oak (same as I made the legs from) which might do. The outer is rotten but inside is sound. I set-to, splitting it using metal wedges. The resulting pieces looked OK but there was a lot of “wind” or twist which would make it difficult to work with.

I also knew of a small ash tree that had blown down in spring. I wanted to harvest the tree for projects anyway, so headed off to cut it up and split some. The pieces came out pretty straight so I’ll use that instead of the oak.

The woodland was very wet and big black slugs were everywhere. I came across a pair that were having a bit of “rumpy pumpy”. Slugs are pretty gross at the best of times but somehow they managed to out-gross themselves. Slugs possess both male and female organs and when mating, they fertilise each other. I watched for a few minutes and was surprised at how gentle and tender these creatures seemed to be, almost caressing each other in a sluggy, slow motion fashion. Owning my woods and getting close to nature has changed my perception of wildlife. We see some things as disgusting but really, that’s just superficial. Look beyond the outer appearance and there is beauty to be found. Even in slugs! Yeah OK that one’s going to take a bit of working on.

Whilst eating my sandwich, I heard a loud and constant chirping close by. A young wren hopped around me, oblivious to my presence. They don’t usually get so close, so it was a real pleasure to witness. A treecreeper crept up a tree (nice that some things are predictable in life). I played my birdsong app on my phone of another wren. It always works with these birds, they come out of the undergrowth looking for another bird. I took a walk around another area, at the far side of the wider woods. There, the trees are mainly evergreens – larch and Corsican pine. The feel is very different to mine which is deciduous. The pine trees are incredibly tall and there’s that lovely fresh smell. I heard two buzzards calling nearby. One was flying around but the other was stationery. I couldn’t see it but wondered if it was a young one still in the nest, about to fledge. I called back in my best buzzardy whistle-voice which seemed to invoke a response from it.

Returning to my plot, I stopped to sit in the hazel copse which is now very light and sunny. I sat quietly on the huge, felled, sycamore trunk just absorbing the beauty of the woods. A huge green dragonfly was slowly motoring around the copse, looking like an insect version of a sea-king helicopter. I read somewhere that if you sit still, they will often come to check you out. I was hoping so and it did, hovering several times a few feet in front of me before finally deciding I was too big to eat. I just love the way some animals and insects treat you as a fellow woodland creature. It makes me feel a part of nature and not apart from it.

Back to work on Champion. He/she needed to slim down a bit. I spent time with the axe, trimming the sides to a more comfortable and erganomic shape.

Finally, I got the chance to try out a cheap hammock that I bought a while ago. Sleeping in hammocks is a popular choice with wild campers. They are light to carry and quick to erect and some people swear they get their best night’s sleep in them. As a “side sleeper”, I doubt a hammock would work for me and I’ve never laid in one, so at £10 it was worth getting just to experiment with. My first attempt ended up with my bum touching the floor as the ropes stretched a little. I adjusted the height and clambered back in. It was easier and more stable than expected. I didn’t fall out once! Lying on my back, staring idly up at the trees was an incredibly relaxing experience, only marred slightly by the blood-hungry mossies that thought I was their dinner. I managed to envelope myself almost completely in the material. Better quality hammocks have mosquito nets to keep them out and I can see why some people love them for sleeping in but if you can’t sleep on your back, then forget it. I will use mine just to “hang out” in and enjoy some woodland R&R occasionally.

I finished the day doing some nettle pulling and spotted numerous cherry and hazel saplings, growing in an area that had previously been used for pheasant rearing and where there was virtually no undergrowth – encouraging signs. I headed home having had a fantastic day in my woods.

Forecast for today – fine in the morning showery in the afternoon. I arrived around 7.45 am pausing at the gate to watch a buzzard circling above and calling incessantly. The sun was shining – a good start. My list for the day included lighting a fire, cutting and burning the diseased ash saplings, starting work putting legs on the plank given to me for a shavehorse, trying out my cheapo hammock and cutting some green logs for making shrink pots. Quite a list so I decided to start straight away and make a fire. The ground was wet from recent rain and the new, virgin, stone fireplace was looking dreary. A large black slug was crawling across the hearth. That’s no place for a slug and not how you want to see your campfire. Funny how a fireplace looks so wrong when there’s no fire in it! I wanted to bring it to life for the first time and it would give me chance to burn the diseased ash saplings. I split a few dry logs into kindling and fire was soon warming and blackening the stones. I did remove the slug first in case you were wondering.

Once there was some hot embers, I cut the saplings, chopped them and stuck them on the fire. It looks wrong again doesn’t it, but it soon burnt through them. Cutting and burning them won’t stop the disease but it allows me to more easily see any new victims in the future.

I knew we were in for some rain in the afternoon, so it was a case of getting all the dry-day jobs done first. I cut a young sycamore tree down that was looking weather beaten and sawed some small logs from it to take home to make shrink pots. I think I described these in a previous posting. I’d like to make more.

My shelter has been looking sad recently. The plastic tarp that is the roof, was hanging down in places because little furry creatures have nibbled the jute twine that was securing it, presumably to make nests. I needed to fix it so that when the rain came, I could keep dry and use the time to do some woodworking.

By late morning there was a change in the weather. I brewed some coffee while the fire was still burning and retired to the shelter for lunch. The rain came down in torrents but after an hour it stopped. I took the opportunity to have a walk around and take some photos. This tree was damaged a few months ago in some gales. It’s a double-stemmed sycamore and one half is wedged firmly. I’m still trying to figure the best way to fell the tree to make it safe. It looks puny in the photo but it’s actually about 50-60 feet tall and the split is half way up!

Next job was to start work on the shave horse. I drilled three angled holes in the plank to take the legs. Two at the back and one at the front. Three legs is better than four on uneven ground. The skies darkened again and I knew more rain was coming. I lugged the heavy plank and some pieces of split oak down to the shelter. The oak was part of a dead tree that had blown down in the winter. The outer sapwood was rotten but the inner wood (the heartwood) of oak remains solid for years due to the high tannin content. Ideal for making the legs. They just needed a lot of axe work to trim off the rotten wood and taper the ends to fit the holes in the plank.

So what about the title of this post then? Well the rain came again, this time acompanied with some fantastic thunder. I sat in the dry chopping away at the oak legs while the rain hammered on the newly repaired tarp. I managed to trim the legs down and fit them to the plank. The shave horse was born. What sprang to mind bizarrely, was a song from an old American tv show from my childhood. It was called Champion the Wonderhorse and I could hear the title tune rattling around my head. Brilliant, from now on, the shavehorse will known as Champion the Thunderhorse. Apt too, that today was Yorkshire day and for those who understand the Yorkshire language, I’ll just say that today was “reet champion” and here’s the horse on his three legs just waiting for his saddle.