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.