Monday 2 April 2007

Going up in the world

Saturday 31st March 2007



It’s a lovely sunny day and the wood is now much greener; the bluebells’ shoots are more full and lush; honeysuckle is in leaf and some of the trees’ leaf buds are opening. In the gill by the seasonal stream the wood anemones are in flower. We see a fritillary butterfly on the wayleave and a peacock butterfly joins us later to sun itself in the clearing. After previous visits spent concentrating on developing the clearing and other more practical aspects of the wood, it was good to spend some time taking things a bit easier. ‘Proper’ work was burning the smaller branches and wood from previous weeks clearing, more creative was starting on Tom’s tree camp. This is not going to be some ultra smart neat and tidy ‘shed in a tree’ style tree house. It’s starting off with a simple platform, which in time will no doubt be expanded with extra platforms at different levels, walls, roof and maybe even a walkway to other trees – well, that’s daydreaming anyway, we’ll see what the future brings. For now, we have a platform with a floor of split chestnut and that’s a good solid start.