It’s almost three weeks since my last visit when I stayed overnight and I was ready for some woodland therapy. I find that after two or three weeks of absence, I start to lose a little of the strong connection I normally feel with it. I think this is simply down to memories fading. Normally I can recall my previous visit very clearly which allows me to revisit the woods in my imagination, something I often do at quiet times. I can remember small details well which helps with that personal bond that I feel for my woods, as opposed to any others. I guess it’s similar to the bonds you have with special people, ones you see regularly. Knowing the little quirks and characteristics of a person are part of what makes you feel closer to them rather than someone you only see once in a while.

At this time of year, three weeks rapid growth has made a big difference to how it looks. The photo above is close to where I park my car and usually base myself. The various tree saplings, nettles and brambles have really taken off and the path that takes me to the hazel copse and that I have used hundreds of times, is totally overgrown. I tried to wade through the shoulder high nettles but it was too much of a risk. A few metres in and I found a flattened area about 4m square right in the middle. A nice well hidden deer bed. I was going to cut the nettles back to reopen the path but I shall leave it for a while. This photo is close to it.

I had a few small jobs on my list – tidy the logshed and bring back some logs, chop and stack some of the ones I cut down in winter and generally potter around. I had a look at the owl box with the feral honey bees to see if they were still there. No sign but it was still early and maybe too cool for then to be out. At the end of the day I looked again and the entrance hole was heaving with bees. So pleased they are still around.

Late morning as I made coffee, I was disturbed by a loud barking sound coming from the area about fifty metres away. There was a crashing and thrashing sound in the undergrowth and I assumed a large dog had somehow come into my plot. Strange because that area is not close to any of the rides where people sometimes walk them. It came again and again and I realised this was not a dog but a deer, presumably calling for another. It was continually barking but moving down the woods. I grabbed my camera and set off on it’s trail but it was moving much faster than me and had left my plot but still barking. I tried mimicking the sound to see if I could draw it back but it just gave me a sore throat! I have never heard the call of a deer and was recently made aware that they are very loud and similar to a large dog. I am glad I heard it during the day and not in the middle of the night when camping. All I can say is that if I had, there would have been a trip to the dry cleaners with my sleeping bag the next day!

I had a walkabout with my camera and was pleased to see some new plants emerging in the sycamore clearing where there is now much more light and less competition. Not sure what this fern is yet but it’s different to the Male Fern in the photo below which is quite abundant and more upright than the previous one. I read that the presence of ferns indicates a healthy wood.

Also some new patches of Wood Sorrel have appeared. I love this plant and when I bought the woods five years ago, could not find any in my patch. I now have several, some of which have spread from a small piece I planted. It’s very satisfying to see how my efforts at woodland management are slowly increasing the diversity of the species present.

I heard a whistle and was pleased to see Alan, one of my woodland neighbour friends. We walked around to his place where he has made a clearing and built an amazing bodger’s workshop. I’d like to show you a photo of it but for his privacy and security, I don’t think it ethical. He has erected a huge tarp on an “A” frame wooden support. Beneath it he has made a fantastic workbench from hefty planks he has milled from his own felled larch trees. He has a DIY made wood stove, shave horse, pole lathe and charcoal forge just for starters. Envy? Yes indeed, as green as the forest itself. I really admire his imagination, skills and tenacity to build such an amazing workshop.

In the title I mentioned a new kid on the block. Well take a look at the video compilation in the link below. I have moved my trail camera back to a previous location that had provided some good animal footage. Be sure to watch closely around the 3.47 time.

Was the “Chimp” scared last night? Did he run riot with nightmares? No he fell fast asleep. I reassured him there was nothing to be scared of and drugged him with alcohol. Well a can of beer and a nip or two of whiskey does help him relax. As predicted I was awake early. In fact just as daylight started around 3.30am. I tossed and turned for an hour but sleep evaded me so up I got, rekindled the fire and made coffee.

I love this time of day when camping. There’s a relaxed, contentedness about it. Partly because after a hard days work at the woods and only a few hours sleep, my head feels somewhat “out of it” but also there’s another reason. Day one is usually laced with a little nervous excitement. The buzz of the mini adventure and the slight apprehension. Have I remembered to bring all essentials? Will my meal be a success? Will the evening spent alone in the woods be a pleasant one? And lastly, will night-time be peaceful or will the chimp run riot worried that intruders might enter my camp? An unlikely but not impossible occurrence. So day two means you are over the slight worries you might have had. You let go of apprehension and just look forward to another full day in your semi-wild haven.

After coffee and watching the birds on the feeders, I took a slow walk around the outer woods hoping to see some deer activity. Nope but it was a good feeling to be there among the birds and trees and plants so early in the morning and knowing you are probably the only human there. Here we have a young nuthatches that fledged recently from one of my nest boxes. The parents visited my feeders constantly, taking food to their young that were hiding from predators in nearby trees. Photo a bit fuzzy though.

Back to camp and time for brekkie. Another experiment form the little book on wilderness cooking. The idea is to take a slice of bread, cut a hole in the middle, pop it into your frypan and break an egg into the hole. When it starts to solidify, flip it over and cook the other side. Toasted bread with an egg in the middle. I added to that idea – fried potatoes, veggie sausage and baked beans to make a belly-busting cooked breakfast. I fried up the sausages and potatoes in the skillet first, then put them to one side on a brick to keep warm while I cooked the bread-egg.  When I accidentally knocked the plate off the brick I was glad the contents landed on some grass and not in the fire!  Was the egg-in bread idea worth repeating? Nah. Partly my fault, I took an end piece crust from a loaf, thinking it would be more substantial to hold the egg but it didn’t cook well enough and was rubbery. To be honest, why bother? Just fry the egg as normal. Anyway it’s all part of the fun of trying new things out.

One new thing I was trying was a plastic box I bought to hold all my cooking utensils and food. Previously I had been using an old ex-army rucksack for the utensils and a cool box for food. The rucksack was awkward to access and box was way too big for the small amount of food and a waste of space. I wanted to combine food and utensils into one container that worked well in a woodland setting. I’d looked at designs of wannigans – a purpose built wooden box that fits in the hull of a canoe for this purpose and thought about making one for camping. Being wooden, it would have been heavy, difficult to keep clean and I wanted it to be waterproof and reasonably critter-proof. I found this box on the internet. It’s called a Plano small military trunk. Not cheap for a plastic box but it’s well built and strong (you can sit or stand on it). It’s just an empty box in a subdued colour, with a good fitting lid and clasps to secure it but I’ve added a couple of cheap baskets to separate the food from the utensils. I’m pleased to say this experiment was a success. This is the smallest size but plenty big enough for me.

My other projects were to chop and stack some more logs and build a small brash hedge to screen the front area where I pitch my tent. The felled hawthorn branches would be ideal for starting the hedge, I can add more material to it later. Here it is so far. As well as disguising the tent when it’s up, it will add more habitat for wildlife and another visual feature.

A successful and rewarding camping trip but I was exhausted. I headed home smelling of woodsmoke and sweat (sounds like a good title for a book) and looking forward to a shower and a decent night’s sleep!

My first camping trip of the year – a one nighter. I arrived on Friday good and early, the prospect of two full days and a night at the woods was exciting. I had some projects in mind so plenty of time for work and play. The woods have really blossomed and the tree canopy has closed over making it a much darker place now. Plants and trees are looking lush with new growth and the birds incredibly active and vocal. After my usual walkabout and whilst putting out the bird food, I heard a loud crack nearby. Then another and another but no crashing sounds. Worryingly it was coming from the area where I park my car. It was a tall spindly hawthorn. A large branch near the top had split and fallen onto another splitting that too. Both were still hanging up there, dangling precariously and dangerously and issuing the occasional cracking sound. I tugged and pulled, hoping they would come away completely but no. They had to be made safe and I only had hand tools with me. Using my bow saw and wedges it came down ok but needed clearing away. This was a totally unexpected job but I’m glad it happened during the day. Imagine it happening at night when camping nearby, it would have been terrifying. There was no apparent reason for the branch breaking, no obvious rot. I guess it was just a combination of factors – the length of the gangly branch, the weight of the new leaves and maybe something like a squirrel on it just tipped the balance. That was half my morning gone already.

For a while I have been wanting to make a woodland chair. I saw the design on Youtube. It is made by lashing together poles to make two upside down V shapes. One has two more poles across making a sort of A shaped frame.  The V shaped one is passed through the gap in the horizontal poles  to lock them together and the two protruding pieces at the front have loose pieces balanced across them to form the seat. Get it? No, well a picture tells a thousand words so have a look at this sequence of photos. The poles have had the bark removed and laid out ready. The top insides need to be chamfered at an angle to form flat faces to fit each other, then lashed around the tops.

The upright piece has two poles lashed across the legs, the lower one on the front and the higher one on the back and spaced roughly the thickness of the poles apart. The other piece is passed beteen them, the point of it, forming the back leg.

Then logs are split and laid across the projecting pieces to form the seat.

It looks cool in it’s desert camo colours but is it any good? Not really! The thing pivots on it’s front legs like a seesaw when you go to sit on it. The back leg needs to be longer or pegged down so that it doesn’t do that and the backrest isn’t very comfortable and the seat moves around. Maybe that’s why you never see this design in furniture shops! Well it was fun making it and I might add a few mods later.

It was soon time to start making a fire and preparing for my evening meal. I bought a great little book on wild camp cooking and picked out a meal to try. A sort of simple, veggie curry. A pre-cooked jacket potato, a small onion and a few mushrooms are sliced and gently cooked in oil (or butter) until soft. Add a small tin of coconut milk, a stock cube and a couple of teaspoons of curry paste and continue gentle cooking for another 10 minutes. Meanwhile warm up a naan bread, or in this case a couple of pitta pockets (preferably not burnt on one side – oops) and serve together. Washed down with a beer, it tasted great and easy to modify with different ingredients. That one will go in my personal camping recipe book.

After doing my washing up, I had a nice walk around the larger woodland rides looking for wildlife and any signs of neighbours before settling in front of the fire. No neighbours but lots of birds. I read a little, drank a little and when darkness cloaked the woods, turned in for an early night. I had been awake since 4am and knew I would probably awake early tomorrow. Sleep came quickly but what would the night hold for me? It’s a natural environment but unnatural for us to be sleeping in it alone and in the past my subconscious has sometimes played nasty tricks on me, giving nightmares. I wasn’t afraid but was my subconsious “Chimp”?

Read The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters where he explores the workings of our subconscious. It’s the ancient part of our brain that is basically there to help us survive danger. He likens it to a chimp, excitable, quick to act and often fearful. It cant differentiate between real or perceived danger and is stronger than out conscious mind. As he says “You can’t arm wrestle a chimp”. When you hear about a road rage incident, it’s the “chimp” at work.

See day two to find out if my chimp behaved.

Just back from a fantastic holiday in St Ives Cornwall and already starting to feel the stress and strains of everyday living in this crazy society we live in. TV, the horrible daily News, impatient and rude car drivers and so on. So a day at the woods yesterday was just the ticket. Just so you know how beautiful and amazing St Ives is, here’s a couple of photos I took there. First the harbour and second Porthmeor beach just around the other side of the headland.

Back to the woods – I invited my pals along on the off-chance of some company and Phil was waiting at the gate as usual. The last visit two weeks ago involved scavenging some nice ash logs to season and use for woodwork projects for us both. We wanted to get a few more pieces and split them down and put them under cover so they could season.

The growth of ground cover plants and leaves on trees in two weeks is phenominal at this time of year.

First job though, a catch-up chat over a nice coffee and feeding the birds. They were waiting expectantly. There should be plenty of natural food for them now but many are rearing chicks and it was obvious they were glad of the extra and easy food supply. Next was a walkabout and to see what nesting activity was still ongoing. The blackbird nest of three eggs we discovered last visit, on top of the logpile, was empty. Plenty of time for them to have fledged and flown and judging by the numerous close-by sightings of blackbirds, I would say they had survived. A nestbox I made from a split log a few years ago was looking a bit worse for wear, with a visible hole near the bottom. What looked like a bluetit was seen entering the nest via that hole. It must be the poshest nest box in the woods, with a front and a back door!

I was pleased to see the box I made specifically for Nuthatches was being used by a pair. It’s slightly larger than the tit boxes with a bigger hole but last year it was used by a great tit. We watched Nuthatch parents in and out and could see the head of an almost fledged chick peering out.

The feral bees in the owl box are still there and very active but I won’t be surprised if they swarm before long, as the colony increases and outgrows the box. I’ll continue monitoring it. Phil got stuck into some log splitting while I cleaved down the ash logs we had collected. They will later be used for stool legs and tool handles etc (if and when I get time to make some!) The woodsman (Phil) took a break for lunch and I couldn’t resist this iconic shot of the logs he had split and axe resting by which looks staged but wasn’t. It’s just as he left it.

We finished the day with a bit of forageing for materials to take to my daughter who is going to build a “bug hotel” for the nursery where she works. I can’t leave it here without a mention of an amazing bug hotel in the woods at The Lost Gardens of Heligan which we visited on holiday in Cornwall last week. I love what they built (photo below) and although the woods are in themselves a huge bug hotel, it gave me an itch to build a smaller version of it in my woods just as another point of interest. Will it happen –  who knows? Not me!

Another thoroughly enjoyable Spring day in the woods, once again we were reluctant to leave. I’m planning a one night, solo camp there soon!

Yesterday’s visit was mainly to collect some logs for future woodworking projects for my pal Phil and I. One of my woodland neighbours had cut several ash trees down and left them at the side of the main track. I know the guy will probably just leave them there to rot eventually. There were some good pieces that would split down to make legs for stools etc so I asked permission to take a few. So the day started with some log forageing.

I checked the blackbird nest that had the young chicks on my birthday visit. It was empty. They fledge around thirteen to fourteen days so hopefully they made it. The nest entrance was quite open so I piled more logs in front to conceal it better in case the blackbirds lay more eggs. Last year the second clutch didn’t make it, probably predated by a grey squirrel or larger bird like a Jay.

I had a few small jobs to do so I set Phil the task of taking a walk around to see which bird nest boxes were showing signs of activity. Most of them were. Phil has a good eye for observation and had also found another blackbird nest on top of a pile of logs covered by a tarp. There were four eggs in it.

He spotted another tiny nest between logs in some crates. It was one of the loveliest I have seen. Dried grass lined with soft white feathers. There were no eggs in it yet and we don’t know what species made it, possibly a wren. Hope there are eggs or chicks there next time I go which will be in about two weeks time. The photo is not very clear but this is it.

I received a new cooking pot for my birthday. I needed something bigger than the Zebra billy can I have been using. This is the 1.8L Pathfinder bush pot, a stainless steel pot based on the Mors Kochanski pot. (Mors is the grand daddy of bushcraft and designed a similar pot way back in time). I christened it by making cowboy coffee.

I wanted to try another recipe from my book The Wilderness Cookbook. It was pizzas cooked in a pan. The cast iron skillets would be great for this. I also wanted to do a bit of wild food identification and foraging with Phil. Some of it to go on the pizzas and some for a small salad. We found most of it along the edges of my tracks – wild garlic, jack by the hedge, wood sorrel, dandelion, wood bittercress and chickweed. Phil had prepared a dressing for the salad but in retrospect, I would have preferred to eat it without, the balsamic vinegar drowned out the subtle flavours.

We prepared the sauce topping in the new bush pot which consisted of chopped onion, wild garlic leaves and tomatoes, sweated down first, then added passata, tomato puree, dried italian herbs, salt and pepper. Meanwhile we had mixed up a packet of pizza dough and cooked it both sides in the skillets. Finally we added our sauce, grated edam cheese and wild garlic flowers to the top, cooked it a while longer till the cheese melted. Delicious.

Once again the day flew by and after we cleared up, sorted the logs and had a nature walk, it was time to go.

This post is a bit belated, I have been waiting for photos from my daughter and been busy with other things too. Look at this beech tree it’s fantastic, one of my favourites in the woods. Well it was my birthday recently and my close family wanted to see the woods in it’s spring glory, so it seemed a nice idea to spend the day with them there. Following on from my last post’s theme of connection with nature and the woods, I wanted to give them a taste of that by having a campfire and cooking. I planned a risotto, cooked in my dutch oven pot along with salmon steaks and a sort of banana split for afters. I set them to, gathering firewood and let some of them have a go at using a flint and steel to ignite it. We soon had a nice fire going and the kettle on.

I showed them the blackbird nest which now had three chicks , then a tour of my woods.

Time to start the meal. I’ve said before that I’m not a good cook and cooking in the woods over a fire is a lot more challenging than at home in the kitchen. But it’s a lot more fun and my repertoire and confidence is increasing, having done quite a bit of campfire cookery now. The cast iron dutch oven is a fantastic piece of kit for a fire. I sweated down some onions, celery and garlic then added the rice. I’d made up some stock which was gradually fed into the mix and near the end added some peas and parmesan cheese. Two cast iron skillets were used to fry the salmon steaks. Miraculously it all came together at the same time and tasted great.

Dessert was the banana split thing. I got the recipe from an excellent little book I bought recently The wilderness Cookbook by Phoebe Smith. You slice the banana skin down one side, open it and stuff it with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. Wrap it in foil and cook in the hot embers for about 8 minutes. Add a few more marshmallows and some squirty cream and you have a delicious but very naughty dessert. Sorry no photos of that.

After lunch we took a walk around the outer rides to see what other parts of the woods looked like. I’ve never seen so many of the neighbours in on one day and we stopped and chatted to most of them. The afternoon was soon gone and time to pack up and leave. A memorable birthday and one hard to improve on.

We are having some unusually hot weather, entirely opposite to just a week ago. I arrived yesterday and reversed my car down to my parking spot and sat for a few minutes. A robin arrived first landing on a nearby branch, then surprisingly a wren, clinging to a hawthorn trunk and looking through the windscreen at me. The connection with nature had begun already. I had no major jobs to do other than take my seasonal Woodland Trust fixed point photographs. This is absolutely the best time of year to see and be in the woods in my opinion. Woodland life in all it’s forms is starting to emerge and it’s fresh and vibrant but not overpowering. Birds are most vocal and busy finding mates, building nests and laying eggs. Trees are blossoming and it’s light and airy but in just a few weeks, it will darken as the canopy leafs over. Insects will start munching the leaves and diseases will start making inroads into healthy new tissues.  So we have to savour this time, it will be another year before it’s repeated again but woodland time seems to move so fast in Spring. So it was to be a day of taking as much in as possible, being observant and leisurely and grateful for the opportunity to witness this amazing annual resurgence of life in the woods.

I fed the birds, checked the trail camera and took a slow walk around. The blackbird nest at the back of my logshed now has three eggs. The bird was off the nest and I gently touched the eggs with the back of my hand. Another connection with nature. Three developing lives inside those thin eggshells, warm from the bird that was nurturing them. I took some of the W.T. photos, chatted to my good neighbours (more connections) then headed off down a ride for more photography. A startled hare nearby legged it, disappearing into the woods. Another connection and I wanted to say to it “Don’t be frightened of me, I will never harm you” but why should it see me as any different than a predator?

The day was warming up and I checked the feral bees in the owl box. They were all over the entrance hole, in and out, some fanning to circulate fresh cooling air. The colony looks quite big now. I placed a dish full of stones and water nearby for them. Bees maintain a constant temperature in the hive and they need water to help cool it. The stones allow them to land safely without risk of drowning. It’s rewarding to know you can help a little.

Butterflies were abundant in the sunny glade, I spotted Peacocks, Brimstones, Speckled Browns and Orange Tip species. Hoverflies and other flying things were abundant but as yet, not many mosquitoes. A pair of ladybirds were frantically mating and a small flock of long tailed tits were drinking from an old car tyre that had been cut in half to form a hollow doughnut which I top up with spare water. They reminded me that it needed cleaning and refilling. Other creatures will gain refreshment from it too. More connections.

Lunch was an experiment. Tagliatelle, in mushroom cuppa soup with fresh mushrooms, onion, wild garlic leaves and nettle tips. Yes you read that right – nettles. I cooked it all up on my vintage Russian camp stove. It was good, the garlic leaves and nettles didn’t add much flavour but they are rich with trace elements and vitamins I guess. I nearly dropped the whole plate on the ground when I tried to relight the stove a few minutes later without re-priming. I thought it would still be hot enough to vapourise the fuel but no, it sort of exploded in flames. What an idiot but lesson learnt!

I hope you can at least partly understand what I am trying to convey. I know some people who read this will need no explanation because they are lucky enough to be switched on to nature and totally “get it”. Our busy, overdeveloped world has driven a barrier between us and our fellow lifeforms who live alongside us and rely on the natural resources this planet has to offer. It’s easy to forget that we too are a link in the chain that allows us all to live and thrive and that all these lifeforms –  trees, plants, insects, fungi, animals, etc are equally important and have equal rights to be here. We seem to be at the top of the food chain and in many ways have the most influence on shaping this planet. I don’t need to remind you how much of a mess we have made here too. Just watch the news and the documentaries about wildlife and man’s impact on it.

To me and many others, it is depressing. So when I spend a day in the woods, I escape from all those worries. I am ensconced in as much natural, non-artificial life as is possible in the developed world today. I enter the woods as an equal to everything that lives there. No, in fact I place them above me. My respect and love for them is hard to convey but it’s not a “head” thing, it’s a heart thing and it’s a deep feeling that, if you can “get it”, is one of the best. To start to get it, just sit or walk slowly in the woods, or anywhere else where nature is abundant and there is little human presence. Turn up the volume on your senses. Take an interest in the lives that are all around you sharing the same space and time as you. Listen to the birds, notice the different calls and if you can see them, try to identify which is making a particular sound. Try to memorize it. In future, when you hear that sound you will know without seeing it. It’s heartwarming and like recognising a friend across the street by the way they walk or dress. Look at the plants and flowers. What do they smell like? Notice the shape of the leaves. Carefully lift a stone or log and see what tiny creatures have it as a home, then carefully replace it. Do these things and you will make that connection I speak of. You will start to realise that we are part of nature and not apart from it. You will develop an empathy and appreciation for it and your own life will be enriched. For a while your mind will clear of all the rubbish that normally churns around and you will plug into that energy and it will lift and inspire you.

Yesterday looked like it would be a day on my own at the woods. I had a few non-important jobs in my head but there had been a suggestion that my two pals Simon and Phil might join me for a Tripod day. We refer to our threesome friendship as the Tripod because we have all suffered stress-related mental health issues and still have our ups and downs. We have a common bond with our humour, interests and life experiences and support each other and like a tripod, three legs are very stable. Well Simon couldn’t make it due to other commitments so there was some doubt as to whether Phil would come again after spending his recent three visits to make his shavehorse. Days on my own there are great but having like minded people to share it with are also very good. Yesterday morning I felt that some company would have been preferable, so it was a pleasant surprise to see Phil’s car parked by the entrance when I arrived.

The Wood Anemones are amazing right now. This small clearing has benefited them in particular but they are abundant in most other areas of my plot. We both agreed it would be good to get a few jobs done but take some time out to just experience the woodland and it’s healing powers. I knew Phil would enjoy some personal time to explore a bit so suggested he take a walk around the greater woods, see what he could find, listen to the birds etc. whilst I did a few jobs. So I sent him off for a walkabout while I fed the birds, loaded the car with some logs for the woodburner at home and checked the trail camera. There were 149 shots on it but the majority showed no animals. There were a few interesting clips – the Muntjac deer are still around, a male Roe Deer and what appears to be a pair of Hares. I wondered if previous shots were just one individual but is seems like there are two, so it would be nice to think they might breed.

I haven’t had a fire at the woods since last summer and I know how much Phil (and me too) enjoy the sight and smell of a camp fire with the kettle gently steaming away ready for a brew. So down at the shelter I lit one ready for Phil’s return. We would be spending some time there tidying up and building a log pile so a fire is good company and adds atmosphere. I am slowly developing this site now as a place to hang out more and as a workshop for woodworking and some blacksmithing. It’s starting to take on some character.

The small birds are incredibly abundant and vocal right now. I checked the old blackbird nest at the back of my logshed that had produced four young last year and there is a new egg in it. There was no sign of the parent so has it laid one egg and abandoned it, or just started laying and was out foraging? I’ll know next time I visit.

It was another fantastic day in the woods and again we felt like we just wanted to stay on for the night but we hadn’t brought and camping gear. I left Phil at the camp area where the bird feeders are to enjoy the peace, sounds and sights of the birds while I took a few photos and reset the trail camera. I’ll leave you with a few photos.

It was another beautiful, sunny and mild day at the woods yesterday. I had invited my pal Phil again to finish the shavehorse we have been building for his woods. Amazing how much the new spring growth has come on since last week. These are a patch of wood anemones in full flower and here’s the first bluebells to be seen. The floor will be ablaze with them in a week or two.

The birds were incredibly active, we spotted a Blackcap and heard the chiffchaff again, both summer visitors to the UK. Three Great Tits were squabbling over one of my nest boxes and Nuthatches called and zoomed about all day sporting their go-faster ear stripes. We spotted a bright yellow Brimstone butterfly in a clearing and knew the woodland had woken up from it’s Winter slumber. We both felt good to be alive and able to enjoy it.

We soon got to business at the shelter workshop to finish Phil’s shavehorse. The last phase was to make the swinging frame, drill the hole through the side of body, add a work platform and assemble it. The first slice (or scalping) of the log that made the body is covered in bark on one side and flat on the other. I was given this piece too and decided to make two rustic shelves for the inside of the shelter, held in place by simple dowels and some string to secure it. Whilst Phil was busy on his project, I plodded on to fit them. They will be very useful when I am cooking in there or just to pop small tools on, mug of coffee, camera etc while working.

I checked the bee colony in the Owl box and they were very busy indeed and in much greater numbers then when I first spotted them. They will be enjoying the abundance of flowers opening now – the anemones, bluebells, wild cherry, blackthorn, primroses and so on. Standing below the makeshift hive, watching them come and go and hearing the buzz around me as they passed by was uplifting. Nature all around me in myriad forms, a feast for all the senses.

Phil just needs to add a few small tweaks to the the shavehorse. After posing for the celebratory photo, he dismantled it and loaded it into his car to take to his woods when he goes next. He’s named it Ladybird after watching one crawling over it last week. We have fulfilled one of his modest ambitions, to have his own shavehorse and I am delighted to have helped him reach it. I hope he has many happy hours using it to make some useful things. I’ve really enjoyed the project, sharing the woods and workspace. We have laughed and chatted, putting the world to rights (at least in our heads) and just enjoyed the peaceful, healing atmosphere of the woods. Little by little, the shelter is coming to life too as we use it and leave our wood shavings as evidence of our presence. Reluctant to end the day, we packed up and headed off.

It was a beautiful early spring morning when I arrived at the woods yesterday. I had planned another shavehorse building session with my mate Phil and as usual he was already there at the side of the road, mug of tea in hand quietly observing nature as the car-coccooned workers passed by, oblivious to the subtleties of nature we were about to enjoy. Two grey herons flew overhead and pair of kestrels that had been perching above us, took to the wing. Already we were getting our fix of nature. A guaranteed remedy for the ills of the world that we are bombarded with every day.

A few days ago, Storm Gareth hit the UK and I had a message from one of the local woodland owners that one of my ash trees had blown over and was blocking the ride. Kindly, he spent some time clearing it sufficiently to restore access. I needed to make it safe and tidy it up some more. The inside of the tree was rotten at the base and had snapped off, taking with it a nice hawthorn and some hazel clumps. I left Phil at the shelter/workshop to work on his shavehorse while I dealt with the tree. The hawthorn was flat to the ground but the roots still half attached to the earth. Hopefully it will be able to sustain itself and send new growth upward. If it does, it will be an interesting feature.

I set about cutting the fallen trunk into moveable pieces. The remaining rotten stump will be left as a feature and for nature to claim as homes and food for the myriad life-forms that will inhabit it. Some of the good pieces will be useful material for woodworking projects. Re-purposing materials is something I try to employ.

Time for a break and Phil made us a nice fresh coffee in his cafetiere and we ate some of his Christmas cake while enjoying the mild woodland morning, listening to the birds, and watching a pair of buzzards effortlessly circling about us. We agreed “What could be better than this right now”?

Spring is definitely here. The birds are very vocal and earlier we heard a Chiffchaff, a tiny summer visitor that flies here from the Mediterranean area. Earlier I checked my trail camera which I’d left in a new location. It proved to be a good spot as you can see from this compilation of shots. I forgot to put it back in place so I’ll have a couple of weeks to wait for the next instalment.

I had a walk around and noticed the first wood anemone flowers and blackthorn blossom form the saplings I planted three years ago.

Phil made good progress on his shavehorse, shaping the sides and preparing the swinging frame that will be the crucial element for clamping your workpiece. We had a great day with the usual mix of nature spotting, woodland work and of course some belly laughs. Here’s Phil again, in his element.