Yesterday’s forecast was for a sunny day, so what more could I ask for a day at the woods? As I approached the area, the sun was just about to rise. I had a wide vista of the surrounding flat countryside. There was a thin bank of cloud near the horizon, underlit by the approaching sunrise. The colours reminded me of contents of a watercolour paintbox. The sky,  cadmium yellow fading to lemon then cerulean blue, the clouds wet into wet washed with burnt sienna and alizarin crimson. Wow what a start to the day. As I stepped out of the car into my woods, the sun was just visible though the dense wall of trees.

I started the day with an extra vigilant walk around, checking for windthrow after the gales earlier in the week. Nothing much at all other than the top of a tall sycamore having snapped off and now balancing precariously, ready to kill anything that stands too long under it and a rotten birch tree snapped off five feet from the ground. It wasn’t cold enough to need a fire but I lit one anyway just for the pleasure of it. I made a filter coffee and sat listening to the gentle crackle of some larch twigs on the fire and thinking how lucky I am to be here in this beautiful place. The horrors of the wider world are a million miles from my mind. As Van Morrison said at the end of Coney Island “Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time?”

The agenda for the day was simple, bring more logs home and start coppicing the hazel where I started two years ago. I’ve been really keen to get some done to expand the area of restoration before spring arrives. There are small catkins forming on them and we are half way through January already. I identified a few hazel clumps and started with the smallest. I like to cut them using hand rather than chainsaws. I enjoy the feeling of closeness to nature you get working this way. Cutting a tree down can feel brutal but by taking each hazel stem individually and carefully, working the Silky between the stems, you can savour the process and feel a great deal of satisfaction of a job well done and exonerated from any apparent brutality, paid for with your own physical energy. My method now, is to try to complete the whole process of cutting and clearing any brash away in one session, rather than leaving it for another day. I am still clearing up brash from two years ago when I first started and was keen to get as many stumps cut back before Spring.

The two photos are before and after of two small hazels. They are quite weak and may not come back with great vigour but they had a few small whippy rods which I have left and will try to layer by pegging down to get them to root and eventually make new plants. One of the larger hazel stools had an exceptionally tall and thick stem that didn’t look right for hazel. On cutting it down I realised it was a young oak. It’s growing out of the earth at the same place as the hazel. Oak will also coppice so I will be interested to see what happens this summer.

Another filter coffee and a jam doughnut kindly provided by my neighbour, rounded the morning off nicely. The afternoon was spent in the coppice and I managed to deal with five stumps in all. Dragging the brash and piling it into the deadhedge I built, aroused the interest of a robin. Throughout the day, it followed me here and there like a tiny avian supervisor. The opportunity of an easy worm-meal might have been the real reason. It was a welcome companion that just added a little more pleasure to the whole day. Can’t wait to get back  for another session. This one next.

Another fantastic weather day at the woods yesterday. I arrived at a crispy-frosty woodland just around sunrise. The bird feeders were empty and there were signs of squirrel activity, trying to prise the lid off the peanut feeder. I have it securely fixed with wire but that doesn’t stop them trying to bend the metal to get into the nuts. My remit for the day was to cut and chop some 2 year old logs that I just haven’t got around to yet. Clear up the brash where the hazel coppice is and maybe do some more coppicing. As usual I didn’t achieve all my aims. I concentrated on chopping the old logs which were damp and starting to rot. No good for the woodburner at home s0 I decided to store them in my two campfire shelters to be drying out for using there. It’s a nice luxury to have dry fuel stored and ready to use when having a campfire, rather than spending time foraging for it. Nothing much else to report except “The Visitor”

What was the surprise visitor? Ten out of ten if to said Harris Hawk. One of my neighbours was walking the ride with it. I knew he was a falconer and brought birds to the woods but hadn’t seen them here before. It was such a thrill to see this magnificent hunter flying free and landing in my trees. They are not native to the UK but originate from the USA and are at home in woodlands. I was lucky to have a couple of falconry days at centres and have flown two of these. One of the most exciting things I have ever done. We walked my woods and the hawk followed us from tree to tree, often unseen to my eyes. We headed towards the neighbour’s wood to see his Gyr Lanner falcon but stopped half way down the ride. The Harris Hawk was a good two hundred meters behind us when he put a rat’s head on his fist and called the bird. He appeared as if from nowhere and flew straight down the ride, landing gracefully on the falconer’s arm. A truly exciting exeperience.

I hope you all had a nice Christmas. After sitting around, eating, drinking and being lazy for the last few days, I was keen to get back to the woods and burn off some calories. Yesterday started out very frosty but the drive was a good one. Despite a fog warning, there was none and I arrived as the sun was rising and all was still. A hard frost covered everything and it was good to walk around and just take in the beauty of the woods.

I love the woods in winter, no biting insects and easy to stay cool when working. You can see the actual structure easily and where certain features lie in relation to each other. The place looks so much smaller though. As the New Year approaches, it reminds me how quickly time goes and that I need to get a move on with my plans. The sap will start rising again in a few months and I panic slightly as I know there are far more jobs than I can handle in the time left. More sycamore thinning and hazel coppicing to do before Spring. My main objectives were to extend the dead hedge I started a few weeks ago which will take the brash from the last felling and tidy up the ground. It might seem like a low priority when there is so much felling to do but it will make clearing up afterwards easier. The hedge building took up most of my day as it is very labour intensive. First I needed to find suitable poles for the stakes and bash them into the ground. Then it’s a case of dragging the brash from here and there and rough weaving it between the posts. Here’s a shot of the posts ready for the brash. Not much to see yet.

But then several hours later, it became this. I can add to it as I do further fellings.

I stopped for a coffee break and a robin soon came to investigate the new works. No doubt, sussing out that there might be some insects disturbed and a ready meal to be had. I put some dried mealworms on my chopping block to encourage it and hid behind a tree with camera ready at full zoom. Robin cautiously approached and gave me the opportunity for some lovely shots. Appropriatley festive eh?

As promised here’s some photos of some of the items I made from my woods. The greenery came from foraging by the river near where I live. I can assure there is no Leylandii in my woods.

So just to say a Happy Christmas to you all and thanks for the kind comments many of you have made about the blog. I’m looking forward to another fantastic year in the woods in 2017.

Another lovely sunny morning for a day in the woods yesterday. Jobs for the day were to finish chopping and stacking the pile I started last week, clear some brash and build up the dead hedge and hopefully burn some brambles I had pulled and piled up a few weeks ago. I was a bit “miffed” on my initial walkabout to discover something has been playing on my log pile.

Partly my own fault because I didn’t build it well enough. Not enough cross pieces to give it stability. So my first hour was spent repairing it before chopping and stacking the rest. It should be stable now but I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when it happened. What type of animal did it? I doubt it was a squirrel, too light. I don’t think deer would be interested so how about a fox or maybe a badger (surprisingly good climbers)? I can imagine a cartoon scenario with the animal rapidly trying to advance up a pile of rolling logs, like a treadmill and getting nowhere, accompanied by a suitable loony toon. Here’s the new rebuilt pile.

My new neighbour friends were there and had asked if I would mind cutting in half, an old railway sleeper they had found, to make a couple of benches. The newly sharpened chainsaw blade went through the beefy sleeper like butter. My other neighbour friends arrived too and we lit their oil-drum brazier so I could burn the dead bramble piles. I took the opportunity to clear up some dead brash that’s been lying around and tripping me up. Whilst clearing the piles I discovered a lovely ball of dried grass. Sorry Mr (or Mrs) woodmouse, I just demolished your home. I hate it when that happens but it’s unavoidable. I helped the neighbours fell a couple of their cherry trees and they gave me some small logs to make something with (probably spoons). The wood has a lovely orangey colour to it and displays fantastic rings when sliced. They would make nice drinks coasters.

Two years ago, I found one of the beech trees virtually ring barked by a squirrel. There were a few narrow strips of bark left and I covered the wound with some plastic sheet to protect it from further damage. The sheet had come loose and when I removed it, I was given a nice surprise. Remarkably, it has started to heal itself with some new bark growth. I know trees have this ability to grow around a cut branch when it’s close to the trunk but I didn’t think this one would survive long enough to make this amount of repair. Isn’t nature amazing?

These tiny fungi were growing in some moss on an oak tree.

It will be after Christmas before I can go again, so here’s wishing all my readers a Happy Christmas. I might add a short post with some photos of the decorations I built from materials gathered from the woods. So pop back in a few days and see what you think.

For some years now, the thought of Christmas has left me flat. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old sod (probably am already). Since the children have grown up and all my elders have passed away, the excitement has gone out of it. The shops seem to start selling their Christmas crap earlier every year. One of our local charity shops converted all their stock, to Christmas stuff way back in September. TV adverts are relentless and why they hell do we want a sofa for Christmas? So by the time Christmas Day actually arrives, I’m sick to the back teeth of it. So why am I banging on about this here? Well this year I decided to bring a little of the true spirit back and make some hand-crafted gifts and decorations from materials gleaned from my woods. I love making things and being creative and there is something very special about a gift that someone has made themselves. So the last visit on Sunday was to find some materials to make some decorations. Good old Google Images was the source of my inspiration. One idea was to make a wreath base from honeysuckle vines as they are very flexible and I have quite a bit growing up trees, that are nicely twisted. Another idea involves the use of some thin straight sticks and I have plenty of hazel that will fit that bill. I spent an enjoyable hour foraging for the stuff which also gave me time to get to know my woods better.

The first job however, was to set up camp at the shelter and light a fire. Remember last week I found the fox skull had been moved and placed on a tree stump? I had put it back in it’s usual place but this week it had completely gone. I searched the immediate area and no joy. I’m imagining a smug squirrel sat in it’s drey with a fox skull hanging on it’s wall. Maybe that’s their idea of a Christmas decoration. Anyway, whilst on my true Christmas revival journey I had bought some chestnuts to roast on my open fire. Jack Frost wasn’t nipping at my nose but the fire was still welcome anyway. My lunch was going to be chestnuts, figs, dates (notice the Christmas theme) and fried haloumi and a banana (OK not so festive). I put my cast iron skillet on hot embers and cooked the chestnuts  in it for about 15 minutes which seemed about right. I’d forgotten how difficult it is to get the little buggers out of the shells. You end up with sharp bits of it poking down the back of your thumbnail and then there’s still a tough skin to try to get off before you can eat them. So that’s a bit of tradition that’s not going to be repeated.

I spent the rest of the day sawing up logs from recently felled trees and chatting to neighbours. Time to get busy with the decorations now so if they turn out any good, I’ll post some photos next time.

I had a nasty stomach bug that completely knocked me out mid week but still wanted a day in the woods. Still feeling washed out, I decided to take advantage and just get some respite and basically have a “play day” rather than do any heavy work. Weather was looking good too.

At my shelter I have a fox skull on one of the supporting spars as a souvenir. It had been moved and sat neatly in the middle of the tree stump I use as a chopping block. There’s no way it could have blown there and it amused me to think that some small creature had taken it there to investigate (most likely a squirrel). I often find these small signs of activity where the little ones have been playing in my absence. Reminds me of the childrens’ tv program The Flowerpot Men where they come to life and get up to mini-mischief once the gardener has left.

The shelter roof is a plastic tarp and starting to sag, holding water. I’ll eventually replace it with something more substantial but decided to try fix it. As I messed about with it, a robin landed on the side window opposite me, checking me out. When I eventually moved to the other side, it flew to the other window to have another look. It’s a simple act but one that gives me a great feeling of warmth and comfort. Most other wildlife are fearful of us and will flee when they see us. In a garden, it’s not unusual for robins to share their company but woodland birds are not familiar with humans, so it surprised me. It’s nice to know they trust us enough to get close. It’s the second time one has appeared when I was at the shelter, so I want to encouarge future visits. I moved one of the feeders to this location to encourage more birdy visits and plan to take some dried mealworms to offer robin should he/she return next time. It would be fantastic to get it feeding off my hand.

Time for a fire and a brew.

The pot hanger I’m using can be a bit fiddly and precarious. You stand the risk of knocking the pot off and dousing the fire. I do have the lovely adjustable irons that my blacksmith mate made but don’t want to leave them out permanently. I wanted to do some bushcaft things during my play-day so decided to make a more stable pot hanging system. Simple but effective and looks nicely rustic. I made some hooks from wire I had found lurking in undergrowth and a hazel branch. This will give me the option of hanging more than one utensil over the fire.

Earlier in the week I went to a Woodland Trust, volunteers induction day. I really love what the charity does. Basically they are committed to saving our ancient woodland in the UK. We only have 2% cover of ancient woodland left, the least in Europe. They sometimes buy up woodlands to protect them from developers and have been helping small landowners like me, with free advice on improving and restoring our old woods to a more semi-natural state. I wanted to give a little back and get involved. I saw a new opportunity as a Fixed Point Photographer. Basically you take photos from the very same position four times a year, recording areas that are being retored, in order to monitor the progress. It’s “right up my street” as we say here. It requires a GPS sateliite tracking device to get accurate map co-ordinates and at the meeting I was loaned one to be having a play with. I took it to the woods and walked the boundaries and paths. You can record your walk and set “waypoints” at specific places which will keep those co-ords. You can edit and name them so that later you know what they represent. I took advantage of the opportunity and recorded various features. I have wanted to make an accurate map of the woods but without a device like this, it’s very difficult to position the features correctly. So this might be a fun project during the winter evenings.

I had a lovely day which flew by as usual. I achieved a few interesting objectives that were a refreshing change from felling and chopping. Thanks for reading.

Yesterday’s visit was a tribute to Elsie – my mum. We went to spread her ashes around the ten trees she had bought me for the woods. So this post is not about woodlands but a tribute to a person who was a true hero and without her, you wouldn’t be reading this blog. If she was a tree, she would be an oak. Strong and resilient and long lived. She made it to the grand age of 93 but it wasn’t an easy life. Like an old oak, she weathered many storms and bore the battle scars but despite that, stood strong.

WW2 was hanging over the country when she decided to leave her steady job as a bookeeper and do her bit for Britain. She signed up as a WAAF and played an important role, plotting aircraft for Bomber Command and helping us win the Battle of Britain. She raised her family, tending to her husband Lawson, who had suffered with malaria and stress related illnesses after his role as a radio operator in the 8th Army (another hero in my book, having survived the ravages of living in the Western Desert and escaping the enemy at Dunkirk.)  At the same time she held down several part time jobs and supported her sickly father, another old soldier, a gunner who had been gassed in WW1. Not an easy life for a young woman with two young children.

She suffered most of her adult life with a painful physical condition but rarely moaned or complained. In her late life she developed macular degeneration which robbed her of most of her eyesight and the hobbies she loved so much. When I bought the woods, she took a real interest in it and loved to hear me describing what it was like, the jobs I’d done, the birds I’d seen etc. She joined the Woodland Trust and donated money for trees for various projects they were running. She bought me ten large saplings which I planted two years ago. There are two wild cherry trees which I suggested might be dedicated to her and dad. When talking about the woods, she would often ask “How’s Elsie and Lawson doing?” She had a lovely silly sense of humour.

She loved her family, was always there for people when they needed some support and loved a get-together for a meal. Her life ended a year ago, as painful and difficult as it had ever been, with a degenerating heart condition and several mini strokes. She had no specific wishes for her ashes and after much considration, I decided the most fitting place was with the trees she had bought. After spreading the ashes, we headed to the nearby inn for a lovely meal. I know she would have 100% approved and hopefully those trees will live as long as she did.

I picked a nice day again in between some really wet weather. The sun shone and it stayed dry all day. I had a long list of jobs to tackle but knew that achieving even half of them was wishful thinking. The two main jobs were building a new brash hedge near my logshed and thinning some sycamore around a tall oak tree. At the north of my woods is a plantation of sycamore which should have been thinned out years ago. They are about 50 years old now and tall but many are thin and sickly. My long term aim is to thin them and also create areas where other species can be introduced in order to start the process of converting it back to a more natural looking habitat. Somewhere in the middle is a solitary oak and I was advised to “halo thin” around it to “release the crown”. As the young trees grow in close proximity to each other, they jostle for light and space and eventually form a crown of branches and leaves. If you look at a mature plantation when in leaf, you’ll see that those crowns seem to fit together rather like a jigsaw. They each take up as much space as they can find before encroaching on  a neighbour. At that point, growth seems to slow down. So where you have a tree that you want to favour and promote more growth, you can thin those around it to provide a sort of halo of space and light around it’s crown. So this is what I wanted to do.

You can see how the crown looks small in comparison to it’s height. This is how all the trees look due to the close planting and lack of thinning. By giving it a little more space above, the crown should fill out and the stem should put on more girth. Of course the other trees nearby are going to try to do the same. I took down four small trees for starters but I reckon there are three bigger ones that may need to come down too in order to reduce competition. It set me thinking that it might be a good plan to take more down in that area, making this a focus for underplanting with some hazel.

I took a few more small trees down in other areas, among them were two small and sickly oaks. My next job was to start the new brash hedge. I want it to be fairly long lived, as it is going to be at the side and rear of my logshed. So the posts for it, need to be of something that won’t rot quickly. I have loads of sycamore branches but that doesn’t last long in the ground. The oak does and I decided to try to split the two pieces to make four posts, using an axe and wedges. I’ve done it before with some ash and it was really hard work. Surprisingly the oak split very easily.

I love making brash hedges, they are so satisfying. Firstly it’s a way of using up the waste branches after felling, rather than burning it. Secondly is becomes a haven for all sorts of wildlife – fungi, insects, birds and small mammals and thirdly it is a natural looking feature that adds interest to the woods. I know there are mice and toads hiding in and around my logshed, so this will provide extra shelter that won’t be disturbed when I’m working. I’m hoping it will bring more birds to that area too, that I can enjoy when taking a break. I started by piling some biggish, rotten logs and branches for the base, hiding a few old terracotta plant pots among them. They could be potential nesting or hibernating quarters for toads and mice. On top of that is the more twiggy brash from nearby fellings. The hedge is only part built yet but this is what it’s looking like. As I was building it, an inquisitive robin landed on it to check it out, almost impatient to to start using it. As the line goes in Field of Dreams, “build it and they will come“.

I’m really getting in plenty of visits at the moment, partly because I want to push on with lots of jobs before spring. My list for yesterday arrived around 2.30 am when I awoke to hear five scallies talking loudly outside and smoking a spliff. I’d gone to bed thinking about what I was going to do at the woods, so my brain just continued with the internal conversation. “Take the chainsaw, finish cutting, chopping and stacking last winter’s felling. Sned the new ones (cut off the side branches) and start making a new brash hedge around the log store, dig a pit and fill with logs and rubble to make a wildlife sanctuary and fix some squirrel protection plates to my birdboxes. By the time I got back to sleep I could have done at least one of those jobs for real!

It was a glorious morning and as I arrived there were two cars just heading up the ride into the woods. I recognised one as a neighbour I hadn’t seen for a while, so first job was to head over to their plot to say hello and catch up. Back at mine I made the first job to light a fire for coffee and to get some nice embers ready for cooking a whole mackerel I was having for lunch. A friendly robin appeared on a nearby branch. There was no doubt it had come to see what I was up to. I love that, when a bird seeks you out, rather than flies off thinking it is in danger. It suggests a sense of trust which to me is precious. The dappled sun coming through the remaining autumn leaves and the comfort of a new, smokey wood fire is hard to beat. The other car at the ride, I discovered was another neighbour who called around and we had a good long chat about woodland ownership and a bit of a walkabout. He makes some fantastic wildlife videos of his woods and camping trips.

During the spring, some of my bird nest boxes had been attacked by the greys trying to get to the eggs and chicks. They had gnawed at the holes to enlarge them, so I have bought some metal plates that fit over the hole and hopefully, prevent it in future.

squirrel damaged nest box

It was a good opportunity to open the boxes, repair them and clear out any debris and see which had been used. Out of seven boxes, only two looked as if birds had successfully bred. Two remained unoccupied and three had been started and abandoned – a bit disappointing. By now it was already time to start cooking the fish which I simply wrapped in foil and put on a grid over the embers. I’m a rubbish chef but it came out nice and went well with my red Thai curry flavoured instant noodles. A very messy but tasty meal. The fish scraps went on the fire to dispose of.

After lunch I set-to with the chainsaw, attacking the last remaining pile of old logs. I had hoped to clear them off as it’s getting boring now but nope, still a few to go at. I did the snedding and felled a small wonky oak tree. I checked out the mouse nest that has been under an upturned metal bin for about a year. It looked abandoned, so I decided it was time to reclaim my bin for more practical purposes.The days are very short now so there was only time left to load a few more logs to bring home, tidy up and head off home. Next time I’m hoping to start building the brash hedge. This will partly enclose the area around the back and sides of my logshed. It will partly hide the shed for aesthetic purposes and provide shelter and nesting places for wildlife and hopefully allow me to see more of it too. Till next time, bye for now.