Crab apple flower.
It’s over three weeks since I last went, so yesterday it looked so much greener with the spring growth bursting out all over. Sadly I missed the peak of the wood anemones but the bluebells are out full. The smell of the flowers pervaded the woods as I walked about. This is not a great photo of them, I didn’t realise that they are slightly out of focus but am including it just because I want to show them to you.
There were no job lists, it was just a day to chill out and chat with my pal. We did one small job which was to tidy up the old log pile so that I can dispense with one of the horrible green plastic tarps. I’m working my way to dispensing with them completely. My log store extension is full but I really need to build another for next winters felling so that I always have two years worth seasoning. They will be a year apart but then I will leapfrog their usage, as one gets emptied, it then gets refilled for two years time.
It was clear that there had been some very strong winds since my last visit. The top of a sickly horse chestnut tree appears to have broken off, fallen onto the ride and been cut and moved onto a pile by a neighbour. There’s a huge double limbed dead sycamore near to the area I park. The smaller limb has broken and fallen but for now hung up. You can see it is totally rotten and eaten by bugs inside. It won’t take much effort to knock it off the stump and hopefully fall to the floor. The larger trunk is giving me some concern. I don’t think it’s in danger of falling yet but ideally I would like it down. Because it has a severe lean and is dead and probably partly rotten, it will be quite dangerous to fell. There’s a strong chance it will “barber chair” if just felled in the usual way so I need to give it some thought and perhaps tackle it this winter.
The nettles are lovely and fresh now and ideal for picking to make nettle tea. You just take the top two pairs of leaves. I will dry them so they keep. It’s a very healthy drink and not unpleasant in any way. You can see some cleavers among the nettles and they are good edibles too when fresh.
The beech trees are my favourites at this time of year. The new leaves a sort of lime green and delicate looking.
The Male Ferns are emerging with their fiddle-head curly tops.
And there are a few fungi around too.
That’s all for now. One of the reasons that I haven’t been for a while is because I went to a three day event last weekend called The Northern Bowl. I stayed in my camper, all off grid with mixed weather, so it was a good learning curve for using it. The event was based on bowl carving and associated skills. You could pay for courses, some half day and some full. I intend to write a post here about the event, I think most of you will find it interesting.
