Tuesday 27 May 2008

Here Comes Summer


Beltane weekend saw the bluebells in full splendour, a fantastic sight not just for themselves but also for the backdrop they form to the greening of the woodland. The ferns are growing with a lushness that you only get in this early part of summer; and this plus the other young growth makes the woodland almost glow with fresh greenness. There are a lot more violets in flower now too along with bugle adding colour to the wayleave – although they are in danger of getting shaded out by the encroaching birch saplings, so we need to do some more clearing in that area. We haven’t seen any owls yet, but we did find an owl pellet which we teased apart to find a mouse’s skull. Later in the month we saw a couple of Orange Tip moth caterpillars as well as some ‘little green jobs’ that we didn’t identify.

A contact we made at the WoodFair last year came and collected a pick-up load of logs for firewood; but this turned out to be more ‘interesting’ than anticipated. Long story short, we were lucky our neighbourly woodland owners were around with their Landy which was needed to pull the pick-up out of the soft sandy muddy rut it was stuck in.

As building a bender for the loo was so simple (and reasonably elegant too) we have made another one to provide somewhere sheltered to leave our fold-up chairs, table and anything else that we want to keep out of the rain but isn’t so valuable that it needs locking up. As the main work season disappears behind us it is now more relaxed in the wood and a visit later in May saw us building a rope swing, chilling out in hammocks, sitting in the tree camp drumming and daydreaming about what we could do next. Work consisted of pulling/digging up a small patch of Rhododendron, chopping a few logs and bracken bashing in the clearing (we are leaving other patches of bracken standing).