A great day at the office yesterday. Sunny, warm, more like summer than the middle of February. I arrived at 7.30 and the sun was just climbing over the horizon, sending warm golden light flooding into the woods. I filled the bird feeders and in seconds they were swooping down. Grabbed this nice shot of a nuthatch. The songs and twitterings of the birds told me that spring is just around the corner as they vie for a partner and mark their territory. I heard a tawny owl and a great spotted woodpecker in the distance, a thrush sang it’s ever-changing song and all felt good in this little part of the world. I checked the trail camera which was mainly squirrels, just an odd shot of a fox, hare and Muntjac deer. Still great to see them around though.

The bluebells are really pushing through, dog’s mercury here and there and a few nettles are emerging from their winter hibernation. My plan was to fell as many small sycamore in the plantation area as I could. I don’t like crushing the plants more than necessary and I will be finishing felling operations soon. My last visit and chats with the Woodland Trust officer highlighted the need for much more deadwood in that area. So I intended to fell some weak sickly trees and leave most of then as they fell and allow then to slowly rot down. Deadwood is incredibly important for the ecology of woodlands. As they decay, fungi, mosses, lichens and insects etc move in which also provides food for other wildlife. I managed to drop fourteen trees and am pleased to say my felling skills must be improving. All but three came straight down where I planned and the ones that didn’t were only slightly snagged and took little effort to release.

The ground looks quite manicured right now because I brushcut the brambles down last autumn in order to be able to work without tripping over them. This will be transformed very soon, the wood anemones will carpet the floor with green and white joined by the bluebells. Later when summer arrives the ferns and bramble will sprout and much of the dead trees will be hidden.

I recently bought a new (old) camping stove. It’s a Soviet era copy of a well known Swedish model – the Optimus 8R. I found that butane gas powered stoves don’t work well in the cold weather. These run on white gas (American term) which is basically refined petrol and don’t suffer from cold weather. I think it’s such a cool looking bit of kit and it all packs away into it’s little tin. It needed some work on it to get it working properly, so wanted to try it out by having a brew and cooking some lunch with it. Here’s my stove kit. The little bottle, I bought at a car boot sale and holds methylated spirit (now called denatured alcohol) which is used to heat the burner to vapourise the white gas in the tank. The small conatainer next to it is an old “vesta” match case and the little leather pouch I made myself.

Here it is in action for my mid-morning coffee. It boiled the water in minutes.

The meal planned was my own concoction. Some dried gnocchi balls which first needed boiling for a few minutes. I mixed a thick sauce using dried, packeted mushroom soup, added some black olives to the gnocchi and poured the sauce over it. It doesn’t look the most aesthetically pleasing meal but it tasted fine.

The trees I felled needed a bit of organising, some had fallen on my paths so I had to cut them into movable sizes. I cut out some easy to split logs for firewood and made deadwood piles with some of the knobly pieces. Something will find homes among them before long.

Yesterdays visit was specifically to meet the new woodland Trust Outreach officer who had heard about our woods and my work there and wanted to meet me and any other owners to see what we had been up to. He was due to arrive mid morning bu I was bright and early at 7.30 to get a few jobs done too. First job to try to get the robin to feed off my hand again. No problem, it filled it’s belly then sat on a nearby twig and sang it’s little heart out. The weather was great and there was a definite feel of Spring to it, the birds being very vocal. The hazel catkins are looking beautiful, hanging like yellow lamb’s tails. These are the male flowers, the female ones are tiny red things you hardly notice. pollination is mainly by the wind carrying clouds of pollen from the males on the off-chance that they will land on a female flower somewhere. Isn’t nature amazing.

Next job was to re-secure the bent hawthorn branch that I had created an arch with by my table. It had been flattened by the fallen tree last week. I’ve propped it up with a Y-shaped pole and lashed it to another tree for stability. At the end of it, I re-fitted a stake to tie it to. Looking good again.

I finished the compost toilet wall which looks like a small fortress now. I shall enhance it with some brash at some point. I retrieved my trailcam but there was very little on it other than squirrels. I headed off to the gate to meet my visitor Jonathan.

A young and very enthusiastic guy who comes from an ecological background. We had a good long walkabout in my plot and he offered snippets of advice and approving comments as we went along. He was very knowledgeable about plant and bird species pointing out and identifying things I didn’t know. He enthused about my brash hedges and hazel coppicing and suggested installing a few dormice nest boxes to test if there are any present in the woods. They like to dig a small burrow below hazel trees to hibernate in. That would be fantastic if there are any. During the afternoon we wwlaked some of the rides and I took him to meet two other woodland owners for a chat them with too. It was a very pleasant and educational day. I’m buzzing with ideas now.

The weather forecast for yesterday looked unpromising – wet morning and pretty windy. I’d arranged for my two mates to help with some felling and it was looking like it wouldn’t be suitable for it but we decided to go anyway and see what we could do. Sadly one of my pals wasn’t well enough and was truly missed. Get well soon Si. I was awake way too early so arrived around 7.30am. As is often the case there, the weather wasn’t half as bad as predicted. Just a small shower and some gusty winds but it didn’t hinder us.

One of my neighbours had warned me that my leaner Hawthorn had blown down even further, so that was going to need dropping fully to make it safe. First though, we tried to get a robin to take food from my friend’s hand. It seemed very wary, maybe it was due to a stranger’s presence or the fact that there were two of us in the vicinity. It approached several times and almost landed. I had wanted to give Phil the gift of a wild bird feeding from his hand but unfortunately not this time.

The Hawthorn was hanging on by a thread, it’s roots torn up. It was lying on a small bent branch from another tree that I had anchored to make a decorative arch and I was hoping it wouldn’t break. A fireplace and my table were also in danger. Some top branches were also helping to hold it up. Eventually we decided to get a rope around it and pull sideways. It dropped easily and fortunately didn’t break anything. The tree was dead and the roots had rotted.

We cut it up roughly and stacked most of it. It’s a very hard timber so it will make some good mallets. Next up was to recover the trailcam and see what was on it. Here’s the link to the edited compilation. An interesting few seconds right at the end.

The rain started and we headed to the shelter for a brew. I have fixed the old paraffin camping stove and it worked a treat, boiling the kettle in about seven minutes. We sat in our cosy man-cave, drinking coffee, reflecting on life and enjoying the view and being in the moment. These are the times that are worth savouring and provide happy memories for the future.

Onto some more serious graft, felling more small sycamore. The bluebell leaves are really pushing through now and the sap is oozing out of the stumps we cut a few weeks ago. So I have been wanting to do some more thinning out before spring gets into gear. I got off to a good start with three down in succession, falling just where I wanted and without hang-ups. Next one was the smallest, only about five inches diameter at the base and looked like a dead cinch to drop. These are the deceptively difficult ones to deal with. It was already in contact with another tree at the crown which was just enough to keep it sitting bolt upright, even though I had almost completely severed it with the felling cut. A rope around it and sideways pull eventually dislodged it. Another two were felled making a total of six. I cut them into long poles for the compost toilet walls and some shorter ones for processing into firewood later. Phil worked like a mule, lugging them away from the area. It’s looking much better now in that quarter of the plantation. There will be much more thinning needed in the next few years but for now I am pretty satisfied. I might be able to drop a few more before spring too.

Phil picked out a couple of knobbly logs to take home. They reminded us of scary aliens or trolls and we fantasized about how we would feel if we saw these creatures running around the woods while we were camping. He topped one off with some wood shavings for a hairpiece. Reminded me of Beaker in the Muppets. Actually, laid on it’s side it also resembled a small alligator and we considered putting glass marbles in the sockets for eyes.

Lastly we continued building the front wall of the composting toilet using the long logs we had cut. It’s just short of a couple more pieces to bring it up to the desired height.

The afternoon had turned brighter and as we packed up to go, we stopped to admire the woods, as the setting sun glanced sideways with it’s golden hue lighting up the trees. Tired and satisfied with our hard work and loving being in the woods, we both felt reluctant to leave. We imagined setting up tents, lighting a campfire, cooking something and sitting around relaxing with some laughter and banter. Not to be this time but maybe it won’t be long. An early spring camp-over is one of my hoped for plans this year.