The woods at their best – possibly!

The weather has turned from wintry to warm and balmy in a few days and the trees and plants have responded. This time of year is my absolute favourite, when everything starts to burst forth in a riot of fresh green. The Wood Anemones are at their peak and the bluebells not far behind. Not all the trees are leafing up yet but the beech, hazel, elder, hawthorn and the cherry are providing a smattering of bright green.

First job was to fill a couple of trugs of logs for home. These are from the four year old pile I dismantled last visit and look grotty but they will burn fine. One of my neighbours had kindly allowed me to take down a couple of his small diameter larch to use for building projects. Larch is quite resilient to decay, unlike the sycamore that I have an excess of and which I have used in the past. It decays or gets eaten away after about two to three years. I drove round and selected two, fairly near the ride and felled them. All went well apart from the fact that the first one was already dead. At this time of year, the new leaves are only just bursting and because they are very tall, unless you take some binoculars, you can’t tell if they are alive or not. The only new growth is right at the very top. When it fell, the top several metres shattered. A pity because the the thinner upper part is the most useful for what I want it for. The rest wasn’t rotten though and will be useful. I cut them into manageable lengths and transported back to my place. Not a bad couple of hours work for an old bloke on his own!

The hard graft wasn’t finished though. I made a start chopping the fallen birch that I cut up a few weeks ago. It splits nicely and will make lovely firewood. I kept a few pieces for some craft work, which leads me to the next subject which I am excited about.

I have booked myself onto a four day event near Durham called the Northern Bowl Gathering. People will gather, mainly to work green wood into craft items. There will be several, experts giving demos and running short courses. Subjects will include pole lathe turning, bowl carving, shrink pots, blacksmithing and more. You can camp there and there will be food provided in the evening and the opportunity to sit around the fire, chat and maybe do a bit of whittling. I bottled out of the camping this time and booked myself a cheap hotel room! I can’t wait and will do a special blog edition of it when I get back.

I bought a new laptop last week and spent days trying to set it up and get my head around Windows 11. I’ve put off upgrading for a few years and was quite happy with Win 7 but it was time to bite the bullet. This post has been written using it so I hope it publishes OK.

I had a good walk around, just marveling at the beauty of a broadleaf woodland in spring. The freshness soon fades in a few weeks, so we have to take it in now. I’ll leave you with a few photo taken on my rounds.

Wood Sorrel.

Crab Apple flowers

Wood Anemones

Beech

The woods come alive and a fantastic treat

My sleep pattern means I usually wake around four to five a.m. I toss and turn with sporadic naps until I decide to get up around seven. Yesterday was one of those mornings when I wake early and no more sleep is on the horizon. It was five o’clock and I just decided to get up, get ready and go. So it was a very early start at the woods. My nature encounter on the journey was almost a disaster. A male mallard duck plodded aimlessly across the road oblivious to any danger. At first I thought it was a wood pigeon or crow and would fly off but no, it kept plodding. My instinct kicked in and I swerved, probably the wrong thing to do at fifty miles an hour but it was automatic. I didn’t hear a thump so I guess it lived to see another day. But it does need to get a bit more savvy with traffic.

I had a list of several small jobs to do and because I was extra early, had plenty of time to complete most and still had time to just sit or walk about and observe the woods as they come alive once again. The wood anemones are in full bloom and the perfume from them drifted around. I hadn’t realised they had one, so I got down and stuck my nose into them. It was gentle and subtle and somehow seemed old fashioned, like a scent that a lovely old lady from my childhood might have worn. It filled me with a sense of well being, a tonic in today’s world of stress.

I set about my first jobs – rearranging some of the contents of the shelter to make more available space, then took a coffee break using my new little twig-burning stove that was a Christmas present. It burns very efficiently with virtually no smoke. This one works best by loading it up with short twigs packed vertically and fairly tightly, rather then those that require constant feeding. It then burns hot with no attention for a good fifteen minutes, time enough to cook something.

As well as the anemones flourishing, the wild garlic is really lush, beech and hazel leaves are starting to open and in the copse area, lots of tiny blue dog violets. I spent some time cleaving and rough shaping a chunk of beech wood that my neighbours gave me a few weeks ago. I am hoping to make a couple of rustic stools. The wood was really tough to split but very nice to work on with the axe. I took it home to continue working on.

The silver birch that I felled after the wind blew it over was still lying where I had cut it into log sized pieces. It needed shifting ready to split for firewood. That was hard work, moving a whole tree by hand in the space of half an hour is no mean feat for an old guy like me. I sat down for a rest and my friendly robin hopped around the new wood pile, searching for little tit-bits. When it had done it joined me for a rest. It landed a few feet in front of me as if to keep me company and just chill for a while. It didn’t move for a good five or ten minutes, just looking at me and quietly chattering, just like a human pal might do. These experiences are truly special and lift the soul.

I had fulfilled most of my tasks and before heading home, decided to take one more slow walk to see what was emerging in the hazel copse and this was when the surprise happened. There is a large open area where you can see the sky and as I looked up I saw a buzzard above me. I heard another calling and it came to join it. Then another and another and eventually there were six wheeling around in the wind, performing fantastic acrobatic feats in the air. I guess they are courting and looking for a mate. They came lower, just above the tree tops, then the finale. Two swooped down above me and into the trees about fifty metres away almost landing, then taking off again like jet aircraft. I could hardly contain my excitement and what a fabulous way to end my lovely day at the woods.