Yesterday was going to be a working day. I’ve spent the last few months mainly having fun and just enjoying the wood but it was time to get busy with some felling – thinning out. I wasn’t looking forward to it but the window in time is short, Spring will be here always sooner then you think. Felling and using a chainsaw is a dangerous business even for professionals let alone an amateur like me, so I always approach it with a healthy dose of fear.

I could have picked some easy ones to start with but the decision is a bit like eating a slice of apple pie. When I was a child, Mum used to make big apple pies and cut slices for us but I didn’t like the crust. Leaving it wasn’t an option back then, you simply didn’t waste food. So do you leave it till last allowing yourself the easy, full pleasure of the main part, with plenty of filling and sugary topped pastry, or do you get the worst, unenjoyable bit over first so you can relish the best bit. Well I always ate the crust first.

There’s a single tall oak tree in the middle of the sycamore plantation area (where I’m thinning) that needs more space to thrive. One of the sycamore trees that needed to come down near it is a large forked tree. I’ve been putting it off for a couple of years, it was never going to be an easy fell but yesterday’s decision was “crust first”. Another tricky one was next to the main ride so I started with that. It fell just where I wanted but, unfortunately and unavoidably, the top half landed in a neighbour’s plot and knocked over a small oak tree. I needed to cut up and remove all the tree straight away. That must have been at least half a ton of timber to carry and stack.

The big one next to the large oak was a real challenge. When assessing which way it would naturally fall, it wasn’t obvious. You look for a lean one way, look at the balance of large branches which might pull it in one direction. This one wasn’t obvious but I chose to aim it to the right of the oak. As I cut it, it didn’t move naturally (too well balanced) so used some wedges to start it’s fall. It went as wrong as was possible. It twisted and hit full on with the oak. After a few seconds of violent flapping and dead branches raining down, it settle bang in the middle of the oak. Normally with small trees, you can get a rope around it and with some serious sideways tugging, dislodge it but even with the help of my friendly neighbour, it wouldn’t budge.

This photo really doesn’t show you the scale of the problem. because of their lanky height, they don’t look all the large but the trunk is about 14 inches diameter and the height of them must be about 50 feet. It is safe for the moment so I just had to leave it. By this time my physical and mental energy was running out. I had successfully felled two more with no problems but now it was time to try to rescue the neighbour’s small oak I knocked over. It had half uprooted it so I figured I could re-erect it and prop it up and with a bit of luck, it will re-establish it’s roots in a year or two. My neighbour helped out again and hit the nail on the head when he said, “It’s ironic, we spend ages taking trees down and now we are having to put one back up!”

Sorry I don’t have many interesting photos or much else to tell. These are the ones that came down easy, the middle of the apple pie! See you next time, hopefully with the big tree safely down.

Yesterday’s plan was to stay late in the woods and cook in the dark. In terms of bushcrafting and camping, I’m trying to push my boundaries a little and learn more. Covid has robbed me of many things and my confidence to go camping in the woods is one of them. So this year I didn’t get to do any. Last year I had been working up to doing an out of season camp and it’s still on my books to do one. There are a number of things that are very important to get right for it to be a success. It’s a very different ball game from Summer camping where it stays light till bedtime and it’s warm. I decided to test a few things out by going in cold weather and when the light fails early. Do I have the right clothing to stay warm when just sitting around for a few hours? Can I successfully cook a meal in the dark with a fire and a headlamp for light?

I arrived early as usual, just as it was getting light. As I drove up the ride an elegant Roe deer ambled along in front before heading off for cover. As soon as I donned my hat and boots I decided to take a slow walk around some of the rides, head out towards the top edge of the woods where it looks over farmland. Maybe more wildlife to spot. I didn’t see any there but was rewarded with a fabulous view of the full moon as it was setting and another Roe deer as I headed back.

Back at basecamp and time for a brew. Before I even put any food out, the small birds started flying into the surrounding trees in anticipation. I took the hint and filled the feeders and just sat enjoying the fire and my coffee, watching the birds and was in my element. I did the few necessary jobs I’d planned – get logs for home, inspect and empty the bird nest boxes then it was time for lunch. I had an experiment to do. I love my cast iron skillets, they are perfect for cooking over a fire but they are bulky and heavy. I’m planning to do a few mini bushcraft adventures back home – a longish walk in the woods, moors or riverside with a bit of cooking included. I will take a small camping stove and frying pan.

Most lightweight camping pans are either aluminium, titanium or stainless steel and unless you get Teflon coated ones, the food will burn and stick. I don’t like coated pans when cooking over high heat so was looking for an alternative. I hit on the idea of using carbon steel which when seasoned, becomes non-stick just like the cast iron pans. I found it impossible to find a small frying pan with foldable handle but after a lot of research, found some carbon steel pizza dishes used in the catering trade. Could this work for me? I have a detachable handle that grips the rim so it seemed ideal. I bought a six inch diameter one and seasoned it in the oven.

I planned to fry veggie sausage and egg for lunch. If anything is going to stick, an egg will especially if you break the yolk! Time for the test – perfect. In time with more use, the patina will increase and improve even more. You just need to avoid washing in detergent and oil it after use to prevent it rusting. Oh and bye the way, I like the yolk broken!

By three o’clock the light was starting to fade. I figured the key to a successful dark evening in the woods was preparation. Put away all unneeded equipment and bring down to camp what you will need. Keep things together as much as you can so you don’t lose stuff. Have a small stack of logs by the fire and chop a few smaller ones for creating flames. You need hot embers for slow cooking and flames for boiling. I planned a simple veggie pasta so I chopped the onion, garlic, red pepper and courgette ready for cooking later in the new pan. I have to be honest and say the meal wasn’t great. I was trying to keep it minimal but it was a bit bland, even with the Pasta sauce I brought and dash of chilli powder it was till lacking something – cheese I reckon. Some flaked parmesan or fried halloumi would have made the difference. I’m no chef so these things are not always obvious to me until afterwards. But the whole point of these experiences is to try things out and see what works and what doesn’t. I also realised I was expecting too much of the little pan, it took a long time to fry down all the vegetables but it will be perfect for the small meals I intend to cook on my walks.

After the meal and the gear was tidied away, what else is there to do on your own in the middle of a pitch black woodland? Well have a walk with your torch of course. Although it was tricky operating my smartphone camera whilst illuminating a tree, the results were quite interesting and a little bit spooky looking. I’ll leave you with a few of the better ones.

Just over half way through our second lockdown and I was ready for a woodland visit. I didn’t feel I was breaking any rules or risking infection by spending a day in the woods on my own and I had some trees to plant. Some kind neighbours donated some saplings they had grown from nuts but had nowhere to plant them. There were three oaks and three walnuts and the conditions are just right now for planting up.

I wanted to spend most of the day just “playing” there which was one of my reasons for buying the woods; to practice bushcraft skills, camping and engaging with a wild place, where I’m at liberty to gather resources and light a fire. To learn some of what our ancient ancestors knew as part of their daily lifestyle. I have found that once you step into the world of bushcraft and like many other hobbies, you acquire more and more kit. Partly because you feel you need it in order to operate your hobby, partly to upgrade older kit and many other reasons, not least of all – because we like new toys! I’m guilty as charged.

Sometimes this leads to losing the plot a little. We have kit lying around in cupboards, unused for months and often we forget just how to use it to full effect. Recently I have been systematically going through all my drawers and cupboards at home and rediscovering many nice items that I had abandoned or forgotten about. I have numerous other hobbies, all with associated kit. I am making an effort to get them out, use them, re-evaluate their usefulness and maybe dispose of the less useful or lower quality items.

So with that in mind, I wanted to do four basic bushcraft activities – fire lighting with flint and steel, making charred punk wood tinder, food foraging and setting up a tarp shelter. Sometimes it’s nice to have a fire but I might have a list of jobs to do and don’t want to spend too much time on it, taking a few shortcuts to get it started.

Making fire with flint and steel is akin to magic. It doesn’t look possible but here’s the science behind it. You have a piece of hardened high carbon steel and a sharp piece of flint. Both are cold and inert, and don’t appear to have fire in them. By striking the steel against the flint, you create a minute spark for a fraction of second, basically concentrating energy from your body by friction, so the latent fire is actually in your body. Using a piece of charred cloth (cotton) held on the flint, you catch one of those sparks and it will start the cloth smouldering. The process of turning that into a full fire you can cook on still seems remote but that’s where your fire making knowledge and skills need to be honed. It’s too lengthy a subject to go into in depth here but that’s what I wanted to practice. To find in a wet Autumn woodland, the right materials and to process them and work them into a fire is not easy but that’s exactly what I did. It’s hugely satisfying.

After a nice coffee, the next skill to practice was making charred punk wood. I talked about using charred cotton material to “take a spark” but cotton is manufactured, so if we want to go even more fundamental, we can make a product from easily found natural material – punk wood. It’s dead wood that has partially rotted to become soft and spongy. It will be damp or even soaking wet, which was what I found. To turn it into char, you put it in an airtight tin with a tiny hole in it and leave it in the fire for a while. The heat will firstly drive out all the water, then because you are excluding oxygen, the wood will turn into a very fragile (but easily ignited) charcoal. You can use either flint and steel or a ferro rod to throw a shower of sparks onto it to start your ember. Here’s the before and after photos of the punk wood.

Next skill – food foraging. OK then, I didn’t intend finding a full meal, just an exercise to find something I knew was safe to eat to supplement the tin of soup and Dairylea cheese sandwich I had brought! Not exactly Bear Grylls standard but nevertheless, satisfying and interesting to see what could be found in a limited environment in Autumn. I found some really fresh Wood Bittercress. It tastes fantastic, very much like the sprouted mustard cress you buy in supermarkets and put in egg sarnies. So a quick rinse and shake and it’s good to go. Here’s my lunch. Great!

My last exercise was to try out two small tarps. One is a DD Magic Carpet XL. It’s only 2.2 x 1.4 metres and marketed as a small emergency wind/rain shelter or a groundsheet for picnics etc. The other is one I made from an ex military IPK which was just a sheet of strong material for emergency survival and is slightly bigger. It had no hem or tie-outs so I added them myself using my vintage Singer sewing machine. I’ve never really used them much so it was time to dig them out and have a play. I intend to use them on walks as emergency cover or windbreaks when making a brew so I need to be proficient at erecting them quickly. I wanted to practice knots for anchoring the ridgeline and see what was the optimum height for them as a lean-to configuration. Look up Truckers knot, it’s a fantastic tensioning knot. Also I wanted to try out a Plough Point config. which only requires one tree for support. It was fun and informative. Here’s some photos of how they look. What a fantastic day in the woods.

Here we go again – national Covid lockdown for a month looming. So it was with this depressing news and the possible prospect of another four years of Trump as President, that I decided to get another visit in yesterday, so soon after the last one. I don’t see how visiting my woods would pose any risk of spreading or catching the virus but the rules say we should stay at home unless absolutely necessary. It depends what that definition consists of. Personally, visiting my woods is necessary for my mental health but the authorities might view that differently. Anyway I wanted to get a visit in before lockdown, just to play and be in the woods and forget it all for a day. To wallow and saturate myself in all that lovely woodlandy-ness.

I was awake at 5am with no extra sleep imminent, so I got ready and left home for an earlier than usual start.

I wanted to embrace the raw experience of being there and making it my safe, natural home for the day. What can be more empowering and warming to the body and (more importantly) soul, than lighting a fire? Collecting your fuel, adding the magic of a tiny flame and seeing it grow. The sound of the crackle and the smell of woodsmoke never fails to please. It’s elemental and resonates with our ancient hunter-gatherer instincts. It offers safety and comfort from the harshness of the world and isn’t that just what we all need right now? Add to that a black, smokey kettle and the promise of a warming brew while watching the little birds on the feeders and who can fail to feel better.

Eventually I decided to do a few easy jobs. Load up with logs to take home for the woodburner and split a green sycamore log that I recently felled, to take home for use on my pole lathe. I cleaned out some of the many leaves that had filled my pond. I love this photo of the sky and overhead trees reflected on the water.

Lunch was a veggie burger and fried egg cooked on the fire, then it was time to do some metal detecting. It doesn’t take long before something registers and time to get digging. There’s a little flutter of excitement wondering what it will be. I know the likelihood is it will either be a spent 12 bore cartridge, a screw or nail, a piece of wire etc and not a six hundred year old hammered coin or gold ring. Nevertheless there’s always a possibility and there’s often something a bit odd. Here are my finds. The big bar had me puzzled as I tried to pinpoint it before digging. No wonder, it’s about fifteen inches long!

I spent a good part of my day just looking and being in the moment and it really did the trick of easing my anxiety. I’ll leave you with a few more photos of the remaining Autumn colours. Next visit it will probably have gone. Take care.

The clocks went back an hour last weekend, heralding dark mornings and dark drives home again for the next six months. It always feels like it will be an eternity before spring starts to brighten our lives again. If that wasn’t enough to dampen our spirits, it looks like we might be heading for another general lockdown again. During these trying times, my levels of anxiety have really ramped up and visits to the woods have been a welcome relief. I hope I shall still be able to visit.

I’ve been planning to extend my shelter area to incorporate a blacksmithing section using a big plastic tarp. It’s not my ideal solution as it will look intrusive but I already have the tarp and long branches for supports, so I might as well have a crack at it. If I don’t like it, all I have lost is my time and effort. Yesterday’s visit was to start building and experimenting . The idea is to lash poles to the alongside the shelter to anchor the tarp. Two sides are easy enough, using existing trees but I’m not entirely sure how the other two will work. I got the two long support poles up and spent a long time trying the tarp to see how it would fit. It took up the most part of the day and at the end of it, there was little to show for my efforts and I felt a bit downhearted. I had hoped to have the tarp up. It really needs some more eyelets fitting to it to anchor it securel. I ran out of inspiration and energy to work out how I am going to support the other to sides. It looks like I will have a month to think about it if we go into lockdown again. Hmm is that a positive or a negative element?

The woods are very Autumnal now, many trees are bare or will be soon. My favourite trees are Beech. They are so elegant with their smooth trunks and relatively slender branches. In Spring, the new leaves are a beautiful lime green but Autumn is the time when they really look their best. As the leaves turn colour, you will see many different hues all at the same time, yellows, rusts and some still pale green ones. I have some nice specimens, here’s a few photos.

That’s about all I can tell you this time. The pandemic situation is worrying, scary and we live in very uncertain times. It’s hard to feel positive about life and I know many of you will feel the same way. Once again, my advice is to engage with nature as much as you can. It’s an amazing awe-inspiring place to be and for the time you are there, you can forget the craziness. Best wishes to you all.

A dark drizzly morning on my way to meet a good friend at my woods yesterday but it soon cleared up and turned into a mild sunny day. Occasionally a gust of wind blew up, sending autumn leaves showering down, quite magical. It’s very noticeable how much the daylight hours are shortening now though. This weekend we will turn the clocks back an hour. It’s a significant marker in the year for me and one that tends to fill me with some sadness. I don’t like the dark mornings – and nights especially. It signifies the end of the growing season and a long haul ahead before nature springs back to life. At this time with the rising levels of Covid19, it’s even more depressing.

But we have to try to find some strength and positivity in our lives. Owning these woods is a definite life saver for me. I’ve said it many times, spending time in nature is the best medicine for mental health as well as physical. I never fail to appreciate what I have as a small woodland owner. I feel very privileged because I can spend quality time there without restrictions. I can light a fire, camp, build useful features to enhance the woods or just wander around undisturbed, observing and taking photos. Not many people have this facility but you can still get huge benefits from just visiting your local woodlands and spending time there, ensconced in nature.

My pal feels exactly the same way about it and so I had invited him along to spend the day with me. I had a couple of small jobs to tackle but mainly I wanted to just enjoy the woods and do some fungi foraging together. I don’t think there are many edible species there but we found plenty of other small varieties to look at and try to identify.

I think these gorgeous fungi are Porcelain Fungi.

The first job was to move a pile of logs that were stacked by the side of my shelter. I’m planning to extend the shelter to create a work area for blacksmithing and the log pile was in the way. We soon had it sorted and the area is looking good and ready to start building. It will be a simple affair, a large clear tarp with one edge fastened to a spar above the shelter, then somehow drawn out towards the camera position and supported with more log poles and ropes. It’s still a bit experimental and may not be the final plan.

After lunch it was time for fungi foraging. Didn’t need to go far to find a host of different ones growing around a brash hedge I built a few years ago. It really brings home the benefits to the woods, not only providing shelter and nesting sites for small birds, mice, frogs and toads; as the wood rots it provides nourishment for the fungi which break down and feed the earth. Here’s a few photos of what we found, I haven’t had time to ID them all though. This one grows on dead wood, is tiny and called Candlesnuff and Stag’s Horn fungi.

I think these are called Stump Puffball and are edible when young.

No idea what these are. Small, flat and wavy growing in a crevice of a rotting trunk.

And these are just growing profusely around old wood debris. I think they are Glistening Inkcap

Finally this is the one I found last week on a dead birch. Could it be Oyster Mushroom? I hope so and look forward to some more.

It was a great day and we started making plans for more mini adventures. So far I have missed out on camping due to lockdown restrictions and lack of motivation but a few late evening stays to sit around a camp fire in the dark and cook a meal would be good. A visit to my pal’s woods to do some woodwork craft is also a possibility. Take care all of you.

Yesterday’s weather looked a bit “iffy” but as it is two weeks since my last visit and there were jobs to be done, I decided to go anyway. As it happened, it stayed dry. It had a real feel of Autumn about it and as you will see, various fungi are emerging. The ones above are referred to as Turkey Tails though there are many variations of actual types.

I had a few jobs in mind, first was to cut a couple of slices off a hefty sycamore trunk that I felled last winter. It was a badly damaged and unsafe tree and I’d left it untouched as it is too useful to just be cut up for firewood. One of the slices will be used to stand my anvil on that I recently bought.

I spent most of the morning shifting logs to the ride edge, ready for removal. Heavy, tiring work for an ageing body but very satisfying. I took a welcome break to have a walkabout and see what was new. I got quite excited when I spotted this Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria) growing under a Birch tree. It’s the first time I have found any in my woods and there were four of them. They are highly toxic and can cause hallucinations if ingested. These are the mushrooms often associated with the Faeries in childrens’ stories.

One of my woodland neighbours called by. He’s a keen bushcrafter and nature lover and we had a good long catch-up and tour of my woods. Naturally the subject of Covid was discussed at length but we both agreed that having our woods was the best medicine for our mental well-being. It was on our wanderings that he spotted this next beautiful fungi. I haven’t ID’d it yet. It was growing on a dead Silver Birch.

As I had brought my chainsaw, I wanted to break the ice with this season’s sycamore thinning. There is still quite a lot of work to be done in getting this part of my woods to a state that I am happy with. I am acutely aware that my age is a restriction on how much I can achieve in the time I have and level of fitness. So I need to crack on with it over the next few years. The season for felling seems to whizz by and I always think to myself, I should start earlier. I picked a small diameter one, which as is often the case, got hung up in another tree. I bit of hammering and pulling soon released it and I quickly cut it into manageable lengths. The day was getting late to do any more and to be honest – I was knackered!

It was a satisfying day and before long we will see the Autumn fully kicking in. Some trees are starting to turn colour and fall and a few are already bare (the Ash). There is still lots of greenery though and even new growth on the ground where I strimmed back the bramble. I’m quite looking forward to seeing some real winter conditions this year but global warming will probably prevent that.

Yesterday was going to be a day for getting things done. It was cool and quite windy, a definite feeling of the approaching Autumn was evident. I got straight into some heavy work. The new “toy” is a vintage anvil I bought from a neighbour. Regular readers might remember I’ve had a few blacksmithing sessions with one of my good friends and it literally fired me up to acquire some basic equipment and set up a work station in the woods. I have no room at home for it and my neighbours wouldn’t be too happy anyway! I have most of the tools needed but was short of an anvil. You can use other big flat lumps of metal but I really wanted a proper vintage anvil. Purpose made for the job and such a cool, iconic shape. Sadly, many of these things end up as garden ornaments which seems like sacrilege to me.

The opportunity arrived and I bagged myself a very nice small to medium sized one, almost perfect for me. Well it is perfect apart from the fact that it is a lot heavier than I expected. The size to weight ratio is deceptive. This anvil weighs in at 120 pounds (approx 55 Kg) and I can barely lift it, so getting it out of the car and moving it to a safe place on my own needed some clever methodology. I took a tip from the building of Stonehenge and the pyramids, using logs and a plank as rollers. Here it is sat on a stump so I could clean and oil it. I will make a bigger stump to mount it on permanently. I’m liking the sight of an anvil in my woods already and quite excited at the prospect of making some nice forged items.

Here it is after a clean up with a wire brush and a rub down with engine oil to prevent it rusting. It’s in good condition for an old anvil, just a few small chips on the shoulders but a very flat top face. Total length is about 56 cm.

I’m planning to extend my shelter with a tarp to make a working area for it. The shelter was originally dual purpose – a place to get out of the rain and a green woodworking place. I can’t decide whether to use it for the blacksmithing now and put the shave horse and other items under the extension or the reverse, so I spent some time measuring up the shelter, drawing a plan and just sussing it all out. Still haven’t decided, this is how the shelter area looks at the moment.  I’m favouring adding the extension to the left where the logs are now. The tree can be used as an anchor point but another option would be to extend it at the front but that would be more visible from the main ride (track) in the wider woods.

The other back-breaking job was to move a large number of logs that were seasoning in various areas, up to the ride edge ready for removal. Many trips with a wheelbarrow and the pile is looking good. I’m feeling the results of that in my muscles this morning but it’s a satisfying kind of tiredeness. I hate the idea of working out in a gym along with a bunch of sweaty blokes but lugging heavy logs around a wood achieves a similar workout and is way more enjoyable.

I had a couple of hours left of the day just to enjoy it and took a long walk around and sat and watched the birds on my feeders. From total silence and no sign of life to a hive of activity is heart warming as they fly in an out. Top of the pecking order are the nuthatches. The various tits scatter when they land but return quickly as soon as the nuthatches leave.

I’ll leave you with a photo of a cool looking insect. I believe it’s a Common Green Shieldbug.

 

Seems a long time since last visit – it was two weeks, though the last post was about 4 weeks ago. Nothing much to report on the last one. Well on Saturday I arrived early, took my usual walkabout and it was eerily silent, hardly a bird to be heard or seen. In fact I started to feel somewhat lonely. The pandemic has given me a lot of anxiety and fears for the future and often leaves me with a feeling of isolation. Not uncommon among many folks and nothing much we can do about that. Visits to the woods really helps me but I didn’t get the usual feeling of euphoria when I first arrived.

I had decided to do some more improvements on my camping area and sat for a while on the bench. I put some bird food out but no visitors came – they are usually there within minutes. So I left and carried on with my work in other areas, made a coffee and returned to sit while I drank it. At first there were no signs that birds had been to eat any food and I started to feel they had deserted my patch, maybe because I had stopped feeding through the summer. A tiny Coal Tit arrived, took a seed and flew off. Then slowly more birds came – Bluetits, Great Tits, several Nuthatches and Robins. My heart lifted and lightened. A squirrel walked down a small tree just a few metres away with a huge acorn in it’s mouth. It paused, checked me out and carried on it’s way. A flock of Long Tailed tits flew in and out of a nearby Elder tree. A tiny Tree Creeper was, well, creeping up a tree! Suddenly the area was full of life and animal activity. It was like a scene from a Disney cartoon. I no longer felt lonely and I felt blessed to have their company.

I got going with the metal detector and found some odd things. Some small, woody, nut-like objects were registering. Puzzled, I pulled one apart to find a flattened air gun pellet. I’m guessing they hit a log which later rotted away, leaving a coating of the wood around the pellet. Nearby was a tiny feather from a Jay. This has to be one of the most beautiful feathers I have seen (teaspoon just for scale). I wouldn’t have found if I hadn’t been detecting!

The next nearby signal got me excited. As I brushed the top soil away, a large flat metal object appeared which was firmly embedded in the earth. Looked like a container of some kind. Maybe someone had buried it to hide something valuable? My mind was going crazy at the thought. I eagerly dug around and pulled it out it to reveal what looked like a baking pan! All that was in it was soil and a large worm. I put two and two together. It had been fixed on a stump and used as target practice, hence the nearby pellets.

Other finds included some old tree straps with brass buckles, an electrical earthing clamp, a nail, a nut, some shotgun cases and something tiny as yet unidentified. Nothing of any monetary interest but interesting to see what’s lurking below the surface. One day eh?

It’s that time of year when fungi are emerging again. This one is unusual in it’s length of stem, no idea yet what it is. Can’t wait for my next visit now.

 

 

It’s been a wet, dull, depressing week of weather at home, I was ready for another woodland therapy session. There must have been some high winds at the woods, there were lots of acorns and other woodland fruits scattered around. It is extremely rare for me to find acorns even though I do have quite a few oak trees. They just don’t seem to produce many and probably what they do produce, get eaten by the squirrels and mice before I get to them. I gathered a good crop and intend to germinate some to grown on and plant up eventually. The woods were eerily quiet, hardly a bird to be heard or seen. I put some food out for them and still didn’t see any. Not even my friendly robin.

I planned to have a camp fire. It’s one of those wholesome, soul reviving things I love to do. There’s magic and comfort in making and using a fire. It’s built into our ancestral memories and somehow just makes me feel so good. Get the mini kettle on and make a nice filter coffee, sit back and the simplicity of life in the woods.

I wanted to do some more metal detecting so had about an hour at it but didn’t find anything much at all. Slightly disappointing but there will be days like that. I had a few jobs in mind, putting up the bat box and two new bird boxes I made earlier this year. The bat box is placed near the one I erected last year. A quick look up the gap with a torch revealed a nest of earwigs living in it and no signs of bat activity. The new one is closer to the edge of the glade and hopefully might attract more bat attention.

Lunchtime soon came and it was back to the fire to heat up a can of vegetable curry. No need for flames for this exercise, just sit the army canteen on the hot embers for five minutes. Not exactly challenging cuisine but again it was just nice to use the fire in a primitive way and it was delicious!

For a while now I have been thinking about changing my camp area slightly to make it more convenient. Mainly so that a tarp can be strung up over the bench and table if the weather turns wet when staying overnight. There weren’t many trees close enough to attach a ridge line to, but behind where the bench used to be, is a young Bird Cherry tree which I planted a few years ago. It has grown remarkably fast and is now strong enough to support a ridge line. It’s just an experiment at the moment. I moved the bench out and at ninety degrees to the old position. It’s still conveniently facing the fire and the view up the entrance path which I like. I strung up the line to see if it ran close enough and will try out the tarp on another occasion. The table might need turning sideways and moving up next to the bench as well. We’ll see but it looks promising. It gives me easy access to the tree for the ridgeline and also a place to hang my rucksack up out of the way.

I cleaned up the utensils and was about to do a bit more detecting when it started raining. I wasn’t expecting any so it was a blow. I hurriedly gathered all my equipment and threw it into the back of the car and sat inside for half an hour until it eased. The break came and I put the other two boxes up. They were to replace two old ones that were falling to bits. There was no sign that birds had used them this year, just various insects and a massive Leopard Slug! Hopefully the new ones will be a more attractive accommodation for them next spring.

Once again my intended metal detecting was thwarted when the rain started once more. Rain in the woods can be enjoyable, listening to the gentle patter on the leaves etc. if you allow yourself to go with it. But it does make any sort of work or activity uncomfortable and difficult. So after half an hour of just sheltering and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere, I decided to call it a day and head home early.