Yesterday was just what I needed, a day of doing rather than thinking. Being connected to the earth and the healing energy of the woodlands. It’s got a lot of work to do to mend my shattered life but it will be one of my main supports. It was surprisingly quiet, few birds came to the feeders but I guess there is such an abundance of insects and seeds that they don’t particularly need my food. I was sorry to see that my usual friendly robin that hangs around was absent. I’m hoping it might just be too busy with egg sitting or feeding chicks.

I was keen to carry on with processing the larch logs by splitting some and removing the bark ,hence the mention of stripping in the title. Sorry to disappoint if you thought it was something else! I rigged up a temporary support to lean them on to make the bark stripping more comfortable, doing it standing rather than bent over.

Various people have said splitting larch is almost impossible because of all the side branches that cause knots inside. I had a go out of curiosity last time and I found it is possible. It doesn’t cleave very clean but they are pretty straight grained unlike my hazel and sycamore which have a twist or “wind” in them.

I met some of my lovely neighbours and we had a walk around their plot, mainly to see their badger sett. It looks like it is abandoned now but there were lots of bones and feathers scattered around and I wondered if a fox might have subsequently used it to rear cubs. Not sure when my next visit will be but I’m looking forward to it and many more.