Yes it’s been a long time since my last visit. There’s a big road works going on and a contra-flow in place and the traffic build up during the week is horrendous. Not all that good at weekends but better, so I am restricting myself to them. But then the weather is also a deciding factor, had a lot of rain and wind plus other commitments. I went on Saturday to check it out but mainly to work. I knew the paths would be overgrown with bramble and in some parts nettles, so I took my antique scythe. It can’t cope with the really thick bramble runners so in parts it was a case of hacking it back with a machete – real cliche film stuff of hacking through the jungle. An hour of hacking and scything got me about 75 metres of clear path down to the hazel copse. One look at that and I almost fainted! Another day.

I had a walk around as usual just to see how things are and came across this hole. I’m sure it’s a badger looking for something to eat. I had a fresh one like this some years ago and it was full of wasps. Badgers are fearless of them, their thick fur coat cannot be penetrated by wasps. In the woods, wasps usually nest underground and the badgers dig them up for the juicy protein rich grubs.

After lunch I set-to clearing another path, the one that leads up into the sycamore plantation. The entrance to it has some lovely ferns growing and I decided to divert that part around them which is a thick tangled mess of very long brambles. The best solution for that was to hand pull them up by the roots. The rain has softened the soil so a good time to attempt it. An hour of heavy, sweaty work cleared only about a ten metre stretch but it was very satisfying even though I came away with numerous scratches. You can see how dense it is behind the cleared area. The ferns will love the extra space too.

Apart from filling same trugs with logs to take home, that was about it. Hoping to go again before too long. Just a few photos to finish.

Friday and the sun was out when I arrived in the morning for an overnight stay. The remit was just to have a nice woodcraft weekend and make something useful. I decided to make two axe-carving stumps on legs to be used when roughing out spoons, bowls etc. I chose two suitable large logs, one is larch and the other, not entirely sure, could be cherry but lacked the distinctive orange colour when it oxidises. They were nicely seasoned and I set to with the scotch eyed auger to drill three holes for the legs. For the larch one I used some dead but hard branches fallen from beech trees. I like the wonkiness of them. The other I used some nice straight hazel. I quickly shaped the ends to fit the holes using the shavehorse and drawknife ( I love using those, feels like a “proper” woodsman) and hammered them in. The axe isn’t my new carving axe which is not ready for use yet, but it’s the bushcrafters’ go-to axe, Gransfors Bruk small forest axe. It’s a nice all-rounder.

The ground where the camper is parked is a bit sloping to one side so I spent the rest of the afternoon wheel-barrowing the soil that was dug out for a pond, to build it up. Then for a bit of variety, started to axe out a blank for a spoon using the new stump. By then it was time for my evening meal. I foraged bushcraft style, to get suitable sticks for fire making and soon had it going nicely. I wanted to keep cooking simple and fried veggie sausage, egg and beans heated up in my army mug with an oven bottom cake – that’s a northern name for a round flat bread like a teacake, sometimes called a barm cake in Lancashire or a stottie in the north east.

Evening came and was spent reading Nan Shepherd’s Living Mountain followed by a walk around the larger woods then sipping wine by the fire listening to the evensong of blackcap, nuthatch, blackbird and song thrush until darkness came and I retired to bed.

Saturday – I slept well in my camper and rose to a lovely sunny morning again. No hard work planned for the day. I wanted to carry on with carving a spoon. It started out intended as a long-handled cooking spoon for a friend but several mistakes later, ended up as a small eating spoon. I didn’t quite finish it until I got home but here’s the part-finished piece. The dark part of the handle will be cut off later. I will post a photo of the finished spoon once it’s dried and oiled.

One of my woodland neighbours came around and we chatted and had a walkabout for a fair while. Then my next door woodland neighbours arrived too. So it was a nice sociable day as well as practical. The woods are fully clothed in fresh green growth now and it’s starting to get dark. In a few weeks it will be even darker and look like a different place. I had a great time, came back tired, smelly but refreshed. I shall be doing it again before too long. I’ll leave you with a few more photos.

It was Saturday the 20th and I’ve only just got around to writing this post. I missed out on this spring greenery last year due to my wife’s illness so I am making the most of it this time. Everything is bounding ahead with growth and it’s absolutely the best time of year for me. But it goes so fast, it’s nearing the end of May already. I didn’t have many jobs in mind so not an awful lot to write about.

If you remember a previous post, a rotten sycamore had gone over and was sitting on it’s stump. It looked like a hefty whack with a sledge hammer would dislodge it and make it safe, so that was my first task. Well that was an error of judgement. To be safe as possible, I tried first to pull it sideways with a rope at a safe distance. Nope, all I could do was wobble it slightly. A few hefty thumps with the sledgehammer said it’s going nowhere pal. So I started nibbling away with a hand saw at the part that was still attached. Several attempts at pulling and hammering again failed until finally with more sawing and pulling, it came off. Disappointingly it’s still hung up though but stable. It can stay there till winter now.

I had a good walkabout, the Hawthorn everywhere this year is laden with flowers. I only just found out the old adage “Ne’er cast a clout till May is out” actually refers to the Mayflower coming out and not the end of the month as most people thought. Pleased to see my old crab apple has set some fruit. Haven’t had much from it for a few years so hopefully it will be a good year for them.

I love wild garlic (aka ramsons). Such an aesthetically pleasing plant, big green strappy leaves and the flower, like a a firework explosion at night. I love this photo of a single flower against the dark background.

I collected some logs to take home, then just to pass time usefully, decided to trim down a a rather rotten oak log. The sapwood rots fairly easy but the darker heartwood will last for years outside. I know it will come in useful at some point as a post for something. It was hard work and not quite finished yet, even the sapwood was tough where it hadn’t yet rotted.

So that’s it for today, just a couple more photos of the day

Yesterday I just wanted to spend some quality time in the woods. It’s the absolute best time of the year for me. Everything fresh and bursting into life and I missed out on this last year. I’ve booked to go away for another wood craft themed course next weekend so it would have been three weeks between visits next time and I didn’t want to lose out again. I spent a good long time simply walking around with my camera, here are a few photos from the shoot. Below are the flowers of a young Rowan or Mountain Ash

An oak leaf just opened.

Wild garlic or Ramsons in flower. A few years ago I transplanted a small clump of these from another area in the woods to a few places where there were none at all and they have done really well, spreading and creating new clumps from the seeds. They are one of my favourite wild plants.

I had nothing much in mind job wise other than to bring logs home to start filling the store ready for next winter and suss out a few projects. I think I need to build another extension to the one at the woods to store next winter’s felling so I have two years worth continually being seasoned. I haven’t decided how or when yet. I did a few other maintenance jobs, some of the trees I planted a few years ago needed new stakes to support them. I took the rare occasion to leave my woods and walk around the nearby rides just to see what other developments were in flow. This shot is a nearby plot which is almost exclusively beech. The tall strong trunks create an almost cathedral like vibe.

On my way back I met some neighbours I hadn’t seen for a long time. It was great to have a good catch up. There’s not much else to tell so just a few more photos and I hope you have enjoyed seeing them.if there are woods near you, get out and enjoy the spring growth, it will soon morph into a darker and less vibrant looking place as the the canopy closes over for summer.

Loads of these big black slugs around after a night of rain. In the garden I would be concerned but in the woods they are part of the vital ecosystem of breaking down materials and recycling the nutrients.

I think this is one of the solitary bees

As promised, I am writing about the Northern Bowl meet that I attended two weeks ago. It’s an annual three-day weekend event close to Durham city, held on a smallholding co-operative called Abundant Earth. You can buy day tickets or one for the whole weekend and there is space available for tents and small campers. Various courses are run by individuals which you pay extra for. The theme is green wood bowl making and skills associated with it. Some of the courses were bowl turning on a pole lathe; bowl carving with axe and gouge; blacksmithing to make tools for turning and knives; spoon carving; chip carving and more. I arrived the afternoon before the event and set up my micro camper. A beautiful warm sunny day that wouldn’t last long. I was one of the first campers but that would change the next day and the site was crammed.

It was my first long camping trip in the van and it was all off grid. A chance to test my resources and get to know the van better. It was a clear cold night and I felt it. Note to self – buy a better sleeping bag. I woke early and as usual needed the loo. There were two long-drop compost toilets (the little sheds behind the van). The first one looked the poshest – uh uh. There was a hole in the floor over a pit which you were meant to squat over. Not possible with my achy old bones, I was praying the other one had a seat and fortunately it did. Phew, panic over.

I’d booked a half day course with a lovely young lady called Nadine. We were shown how to make a wooden case sheath to hold the blade of special knives. Mine was to be a challenge as she had not made this type before, it was a spoon shaped carving gouge. The box is made up of a base with a shape carved out for the blade and a lid which pivots to close it and then locked in place with a pin. I then had the option to carve a relief design on the lid. We ran out of time to totally finish it so I did some work back home to include painting the leaf carving.

If you had booked a course you were entitled to a lovely home cooked meal in the evening. I was aware that everyone was carrying hand made bowls for their food and that my plastic white and pink flowery one in the camper just wouldn’t look the part. There was a small shop where demonstrators could display their products for sale so I invested in a lovely one made by a guy from Israel made from loquat wood. It’s a tree originating in the far east with fruit similar to a medlar.

These were some of the products for sale. The bottom right one is the one I bought.

There was a communal fire under a huge tarp where folks could sit, drink and at times make music. An opportunity to chat and make a few new friends.

Saturday morning arrived after a rainy night which continued wet on and off through the day. I had a full day booked with Nadine again to hand carve a bowl. It was a long and exhausting day on my arthritic bones. The bowl didn’t quite get finished again, it’s a big challenge to complete one in the time given. I have done more work on it since but I am now waiting for it to dry to finish it off. It has to be done slowly or it might split. This is it roughly finished at the end of the day but it will look tons better in a few weeks. The wood is cherry. Nadine was a great tutor and a lovely person too.

Sunday and the weather was good again. I had a short course booked in the morning – chip carving. It’s a method of taking small (usually triangular) pieces of wood out with a small sharp knife to create decorative patterns. We were given a sample piece of lime wood with various patterns drawn on to practice. At first looked impossibly difficult to do neatly but by the end I felt reasonably competent. A new skill and an enjoyable one.

It was a great weekend and I’ll leave you with a few random images.

Crab apple flower.

It’s over three weeks since I last went, so yesterday it looked so much greener with the spring growth bursting out all over. Sadly I missed the peak of the wood anemones but the bluebells are out full. The smell of the flowers pervaded the woods as I walked about. This is not a great photo of them, I didn’t realise that they are slightly out of focus but am including it just because I want to show them to you.

There were no job lists, it was just a day to chill out and chat with my pal. We did one small job which was to tidy up the old log pile so that I can dispense with one of the horrible green plastic tarps. I’m working my way to dispensing with them completely. My log store extension is full but I really need to build another for next winters felling so that I always have two years worth seasoning. They will be a year apart but then I will leapfrog their usage, as one gets emptied, it then gets refilled for two years time.

It was clear that there had been some very strong winds since my last visit. The top of a sickly horse chestnut tree appears to have broken off, fallen onto the ride and been cut and moved onto a pile by a neighbour. There’s a huge double limbed dead sycamore near to the area I park. The smaller limb has broken and fallen but for now hung up. You can see it is totally rotten and eaten by bugs inside. It won’t take much effort to knock it off the stump and hopefully fall to the floor. The larger trunk is giving me some concern. I don’t think it’s in danger of falling yet but ideally I would like it down. Because it has a severe lean and is dead and probably partly rotten, it will be quite dangerous to fell. There’s a strong chance it will “barber chair” if just felled in the usual way so I need to give it some thought and perhaps tackle it this winter.

The nettles are lovely and fresh now and ideal for picking to make nettle tea. You just take the top two pairs of leaves. I will dry them so they keep. It’s a very healthy drink and not unpleasant in any way. You can see some cleavers among the nettles and they are good edibles too when fresh.

The beech trees are my favourites at this time of year. The new leaves a sort of lime green and delicate looking.

The Male Ferns are emerging with their fiddle-head curly tops.

And there are a few fungi around too.

That’s all for now. One of the reasons that I haven’t been for a while is because I went to a three day event last weekend called The Northern Bowl. I stayed in my camper, all off grid with mixed weather, so it was a good learning curve for using it. The event was based on bowl carving and associated skills. You could pay for courses, some half day and some full. I intend to write a post here about the event, I think most of you will find it interesting.

I am booked to go on a weekend bowl carving course in a couple of weeks which includes camping space. So I really needed to break the ice and try out the camper. I’ve been driving it around as my day vehicle for months, had a little play with the cooking facilities but so far but haven’t slept in it or tried some of the facilities. That was the primary reason for going on Tuesday. The forecast was good but not so good for Wednesday.

I arrived late morning and parked up, using the ramps for the first time to level it. I put the pop-top up which allows me to stand inside and it becomes a really useful storage space. It’s got several moveable sturdy panels which can be laid down to create another two sleeping spaces but I used it to store the sleeping bag and memory foam mattress and a few other things until bedtime. I had a few jobs in mind and the first was just to cut up some more logs, split and stack which has almost filled the new log store.

I had a good walkabout and heard the distinctive call of a buzzard. Looking through the tree tops I spotted it circling over next doors plot. Then another and another and I think maybe there were four altogether. As it’s nesting time, I guess they were looking for a mate and courting buzzard style. I tried to get a photo but it’s very difficult as yu need to zoom in but that makes it harder to follow, then the camera’s auto focusing tends to lock onto the trees rather than the bird. This was the best I could manage. See if you can spot it – top left third in the frame.

There are lot’s of flowers out now – celandine

Wood sorrel

Wood anemone in profusion

I did a few more jobs, replacing rotten stakes that were supporting some netting around saplings and removing some tree guards that were no longer necessary.These are jobs I would normally keep putting off but the luxury of two days there meant I could deal with them.

I wanted to imagine I was on a basic campsite and live in the van for two days to get used to it, so no campfire cooking. However, I did want to light a fire for comfort in the evening so I went foraging for suitable materials and put them aside for later. I wanted to do it “properly” – bushcraft style, using natural found materials and flint and steel. Dried grass, honeysuckle bark and dead dry bracken leaves for the “bird’s nest” tinder and assorted thicknesses of dead twigs for the kindling. Teatime came and I’d planned a simple one – using the Ridge Monkey sandwich maker (which is very versatile and can be used as two small fry pans or a mini oven when closed up and put on the camper’s gas ring) I cooked fish fingers, vegetable fingers and in a separate pan, heated some baked beans.

Time to light a fire and just relax around it. Here it is just getting going. Nothing says more than a fire when camping.

I sat and enjoyed the lovely evening with a couple of glasses of wine and a good (and appropriate) book Rewild by Nick Baker. It’s about retraining yourself to be at one with nature and develop observational skills and modes of behaviour to help you get more out of your natural surroundings.

The light was mostly gone by eight pm. I sat awhile longer then decided to decamp to the van, read some more, drank more wine then set up the bed and climbed into my duvet by ten pm. Sleep eluded me for a long time. I was comfortable and warm but my mind was on alert as it does when sleeping in an unusual environment. I eventually fell asleep but woke several times in the night, each time taking forever to get off again.

Eventually dawn came, I made a coffee and sat in bed looking out the window into my beautiful piece of woodland. Somewhere close was a Spotted woodpecker hammering away announcing his presence. Eventually I packed the bedding away and got out for a stroll, returning for some cornflakes, a banana and coffee. The weather was dull and rain forecast for the afternoon. So I took the opportunity to do a few more jobs. By late morning it started drizzling. I returned to the van, had another brew, ate some fruit tea loaf and read more of the book. It was so good to be able to escape the rain and sit in comfort, something you can’t do in a small tent. I really enjoyed the luxury.

Lunch was a simple affair of a tuna and vegetable mini meal in a tin. Why complicate things? The rain eased off a little and I headed out again to tackle a job I really wanted to do. I had spotted two small Cherry laurel trees growing. These are non native and very invasive. They were planted as game cover all over the country by the Victorians. Now they are despised by foresters and it’s best to remove them if possible. I set about trying to uproot them. They are tenacious even when small. I wasn’t going to be beaten by them and eventually ragged them out and piled them on some old logs to die off. It’s dangerous to burn them as they give off poisonous gas – cyanide.

I decided to cut the day short and headed off early afternoon. I had accomplished my mission and learnt a lot, gaining confidence to do more camping with the van. I made notes of a few things I need to get and some tweaks to the way I did things but generally it was a huge success.

It was a lovely warm spring day at the woods yesterday. Hard to believe a week ago we had snow. The first flowers of spring are opening, these are blackthorn, the flowers emerge before any leaves. You will see lots of these spiky shrubby trees around the fields and hedges full of snowy white blossom. Wood Anemones are also starting to open.

I put bird food out, then some neighbours arrived. We chatted and before I knew it, half the morning was gone and no work done. Nice just to enjoy some company and in such a lovely setting too. The main jobs were to bring home logs, chop and stack a few more but priority was to go around all the nest boxes, examine and empty them of last years material and record which ones had been used. Most of them appear to have and some had lots of tiny fresh droppings, meaning some birds were just using them to shelter at night and why not! One was completely destroyed by wood-boring insects so I need to make one or two new ones.

Wild garlic or Ramsons are looking lush and fresh. I love this plant, not because of it’s culinary uses but because of it’s lovely shiny green leaves and the smell when you walk through it. I took a tin of mushroom soup for lunch and the thought passed through my mind to add some Ransoms but decided it might overpower the flavour of the mushrooms. Wish I’d been less cautious now and tried it. I want to do some food foraging this year and actually try things. I’m a bit guilty of learning things then not bothering to put that knowledge into action.

My pond was looking very un-pond-like. The beech trees around have filled it with dead leaves. I used to try to clear them out but for the last couple of years haven’t bothered. As far as being a pond goes, it’s not worked out. All the oxygenator plants died due to lack of light but it’s useful as a drinking and bathing place for wildlife. I spent a while hand scooping piles of leaves out, still loads in there but it looks a bit healthier now, previously all you could see was wet leaves, now there is a surface to be seen. The smell of the rotting leaves is nasty.

That’s all for this week, hopefully I will be camping over before long and looking forward to that.

Yesterday was another day of hard work. I want to get the felled trees off the ground before the bluebells and anemones burst forth. Spring is definitely on it’s way, some leaves are opening now, this is hazel.

This is Dog’s Mercury emerging, the Wood Anemones aren’t showing yet but the bluebells have been poking through since January but they will get overtaken by the anemones when it comes to flowering time.

There was still a tree and a half to cut up with the chainsaw and I just managed it on a tankful of fuel. The next arduous task was to load them into a wheelbarrow and move them about fifty metres back to the logpile for splitting and stacking – about eight trips.

Time for a coffee break and to watch the birds on the feeders. Below is a Nuthatch

A Coal Tit just departing with a seed to find a safe place to eat.

A Bluetit taking a seed.

Back to work, chopping and stacking the logs. People comment on how neat my log pile is. That is just a by-product of building a stable pile when it’s high. If you don’t, then you find it collapsed one day because a squirrel has run over it. It’s a bit like dry stone walling. I take my time, picking up three or four logs then assessing how best to place each one. I build like Jenga trying to make sure the middle log is narrower than the two outside ones so the next layer doesn’t rock and if possible, slightly tilted inward or backward. It is a very mindful activity too and a sort of work of art. Instead of a tiring chore, it becomes a pleasure and concludes with a satisfied feeling that you have filled your store for a winter’s worth of warmth and created something pleasant to the eye.

Hopefully my next visit will finish the chopping and stacking and I can move on to some other tasks, like cleaning out the bird nest boxes, they will want to move in soon. I’ll leave you with a this photo of woodland loveliness.