The weather yesterday was forecast to be cold and sunny and it was. Another day at my “office” was  planned. My blacksmith mate Simon had offered to help me clear the remaining felled trees and we arrived nice and early. We spent an hour walking the woods then spotted a large bird of prey in a neighbouring plot. Too lightly coloured for a buzzard, looked like the young Harris Hawk one of the other neighbours is training up, so we headed over. He was talking to the guy who owns that plot and after introductions we were invited in to see his tower. It must be 30-40 feet high and built from small diameter dead trees from his wood. People ask why he has built it and he says, “Because I can”. The view from the top was fantastic, I love seeing things from a high point.

We headed back and armed with chainsaw and muscle, started cutting and stacking the logs. Having a helper really speeds the job up. We paused at one point to admire a buzzard effortlessly gliding on the thermals above us. Two of them had been checking out the Harris Hawk earlier.

Simon spotted an interesting shaped sycamore log but we felt it needed a pair of undies for decency’s sake. Could this be the start of some woodland sculpture? I should call it “The Lady of the Woods”

We had another neighbourly visit, I’ll just say from A. & J. for anonymity. They were just out for a walk with family. Now these folks have just finished building their fantastic “bodger’s hut” and I took Simon around to see it. It’s built from planks of larch made from the tree that once stood there and anchored to it’s rooted stump! How holistic is that? Am I envious? Yep.

We finished clearing the logs apart from one large chunk which I might cut and cleave to make some greenwood stools. It was a satisfying day shared with some great company. The area I felled is looking pretty tidy now,  just a bit of brash to clear and the spring flowers – bluebells and wood anemones and the small oaks saplings will be able to enjoy plenty of light. It gives me more space to introduce some other tree species such as cherry, silver birch, hazel etc.

I’m  a bit late posting this, having been away for a few days but there’s not a lot to tell you, so it will be short and to the point. More for the record rather than anthing else. My visit last saturday was with some welcome help from fellow woodland owner Phil. Main objective to try to clear more of the felled trees before spring. Between us we erected a horizontal pole to stack thinner branches against that might be used for building projects, then cut and stacked at least half the remainng trunks. We moved some of the long poles down to the shelter where I will use them to make a new roof before long. The area here is looking more interesting now, as if there’s some real work going on!

One of the other neighbours – a fellow bushcrafter called by, always good to have a catch up and we had a walk around to yet another neighbour who has built a fantastic bodgers hut. It looks like a log cabin with an open front and is made from the larch that he felled and cut into planks. If I get his permission I’ll post a photo. hoping to go again on sunday. See you soon.

It’s raining, snowing and sleeting here at home and I’m thinking about my woods. I guess I should have posted this early in the new year but I didn’t and time slips by so fast. So here are some thoughts on what I’d like to do this year. Obviously I shall carry on with the usual maintenance of clearing some bramble, cutting, splitting and stacking of felled trees.

I need to rebuild my shelter. The roof was made using plastic tarp which after two years has several holes, dips and bulges full of stinky water and the woodland creatures have gnawed through much of the rope that is binding it together. I have my shave-horse stored there and would like to make this area a bit of a bodger site for green woodworking. Ideally I’d like to build a pole lathe too. The shelter will be taller and more waterproof.

I can’t wait for some milder weather to go camping again. I’d like to do much more this year and would love to have my two bushcraft mates Si and Phil for a one-nighter. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years and this year we need to make it happen. I’d like to do a bit of small scale blacksmithing and have most of the tools needed but there’s always more pressing things to spend my time on. Maybe the stop-over with my mates could also be a blacksmithing one?

I bought a trail camera a couple of years ago, so I could capture some wildlife when I’m not around. I’ve struggled to get good results when trying it out which is the main reason I haven’t used it much. I need to get to grips with it and put it up somewhere. I have seen very little in the way of animals while I’ve been there. I’ve seen birds obviously, plus toads, frogs, squirrels, wood mice, shrews and a hare. I know there are foxes, badgers, roe and muntjac deer, hedgehogs but never seen them.

I want to transplant some clumps of ground plants into the sycamore area to increase the diversity and interest levels there. Apart from bramble and male ferns, bluebells and wood anemones (in spring) there isn’t much else in the area. The edges of the newly cleared coup (opening) would be a good  starting point. I’m thinking dogs mercury, sedges, wild garlic and wood sorrel which I have in other parts of the wood. I need to be doing this soon.

A small pond has been in my plans too. The woods are very well drained so not ideal for ponds but there’s one area that seems to get a bit wet and boggy, maybe I shall get around to digging it out and inserting a pond liner.

A more thorough inventory of ground cover species would be great to do. Also another walk-though with a video camera would be interesting, to compare it with the one I did when I bought the woods. Trouble it indentifying them can be difficut and time consuming. Do you see a pattern emerging here. Time or lack of it. I need to go and live in my woods.

I picked the right day to go yesterday. After a lot of dark wet days, it was frosty, crisp and sunny and the woods looked stunning in the low angled light. There are two plots still unsold in the wider woods and I decided to have a mooch around and see what was in them. Both plots are interesting with lots of large hazel stools ready for coppicing. One plot has the remains of a small quarry and in periods of heavy rain, becomes a small pond. If I was thirty years younger with pots of money, I’d buy that one as well.

The frozen conditions must make it hard for the birds to find food, so I stocked up the peanut feeder and broke up a fatball and spread it on a stump so they could enjoy an easy and calorific breakfast (our equivalent would be an English breakfast at Wetherpoons). The birds seem to know what I’m doing because within seconds, they are tucking in.

I advertised on our local Freecycle group for spare wood to make birdboxes and somebody kindly donated a brand new one, so I next job was to put it up ready for spring. One of the main tasks of the day, was to take the photos needed for my Woodland Trust volunteer project – fixed point photography. Lighting was very low making for interesting images but hard to avoid lens glare. There are six different locations. It was really enjoyable to walk about and see how things have changed since last year and it filled the rest of the morning nicely.

I am very keen to start clearing up the felled trees, so the afternoon was spent chainsawing some of them into manageable sizes and stacking them. I can process them at leisure later on but spring is not far away and I don’t want them hindering the growth of bluebells and wood anemones. The blubells are already a few inches high. Here’s about a fifth of work done, I probably moved at least a ton of timber by hand. Apart from some slightly achy muscles I feel pretty good and that was one heck of a workout. Lots more still to do though.

Finally I just sat and watched the birds again as they silently flitted about. It never fails to bring a warm glow to my soul, especially when a robin comes to seek you out and see what you are up to.