I set off in the dark and rain yesterday but as often happens, the weather had cleared en route. Last Saturday I attended a fungi foraging event organised by the Woodland Trust in one of their woods. It’s a subject that overwhelms me by the sheer number of varieties, yet I’d love to be able to safely identify a few of the edible ones. And as the instructor said, “First you should learn the lethal ones”.

The event also included a cook-up and tasting session of the ones we had gathered. It was interesting and informative and I think I can ID half a dozen accurately. I have never seen anything that looked edible in my woods but it has fired me up to have a really good look and see just what I could find, edible or not. This beautiful and stunning fungi was growing just inside the main gate to the woods and I believe it is a Magpie Inkcap – not edible (not more than once anyway!)

I spent a good time looking around mine and immediately found these, not seen them there before and still haven’t fully ID’d them yet but they look like Clitocybe Nebularis also known as Clouded Agaric

I also found these small fungi dotted around but no idea what they are. If there are any expert fungi folks reading this and know what they are please leave a comment.

Having set my trail camera at the pond last time, I was keen to see what was on it. There were over 400 clips and that is taking some wading through. I can say that wildlife is very much enjoying the facility. The main customers are Grey Squirrels, Wood Pigeons and various small birds. Night time shots did not come out well but several pairs of small shiny eyes were seen which look like Woodmice. Once I’ve had time to sort and edit them I shall post a compilation video. It’s satisfying to see how my work on the pond is paying off. I have finished it now apart from perhaps adding a few plants around and some oxygenating weed in it. This is how it’s looking. The mossy rocks make it look quite well established.

Remember my award for this blog? The second box arrived and I was so excited to find it contained a storm kettle. Sometimes called ghillie kettles or Kelly kettles, they were developed by Irish fishermen who wanted a simple device for boiling water, that would work in windy weather and use easily found materials fro fuel i.e. twigs. It’s basically  a double walled hollow tube. There’s a dish to contain the fire and the kettle sits on top. It acts like a chimney drawing up the flames. The water sits inside the double wall and is heated quickly. So I had to try it out didn’t I? I have to be honest and say my first session with it was not a huge success and I started wondering if I should just use my camp stove. But also being honest, it was due to my lack of experience and stupidity. So, first tip, don’t fill the water right to the spout. When it boils it will spill out and potentially extinguish the fire. In this case it didn’t but I was lucky. Secondly you need good dry sticks and plenty of initial tinder/kindling to get the fire going quickly. Having a small area of fire in the base means not a lot of heat to ignite the little sticks you drop down the funnel. Note to myself – get your act together next time you numpty!

The night before, I had been watching a video of someone making a basket from strips of hazel. They looked really attractive and as I have plenty of nice hazel rods, it made me want to have a go at making one. I would love to be able to use some of my trees for crafts and this would be ideal. I cut a couple of nice straight rods. You cut a nick in the bark and top layer then bend the rod which causes the top fibres to split away from the rod. You keep working your way along, bending and lifting until you have a long strip of flat, thin, flexible but strong material which is used for the weaving part of the basket. You can get 4-6 pieces from one rod and the remaining piece is cut and trimmed to make the hoop around the top of the basket and the longitudinal ribs. It’s not a quick or easy process but quite satisfying and for first attempts I got fairly good results. Here’s a photo of the strips and remaining rods.

The afternoon came bringing with it some rain, so I retired to my shelter to do this work.  The sound of the rain on the tree canopy and my shelter roof was calming and I just sat for a while taking in the beauty and peacefulness of the woods. The sun poked through now and then, illuminating the wet leaves and for a while, all seemed well and I was in my heaven. I didn’t want to leave. As Van Morrison says at the end of Coney Island

“I look at the side of your face as the sunlight comes
Streaming through the window in the autumn sunshine
And all the time going to Coney Island I’m thinking,
Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time.”