No more branches, making a brew and sharing the loo with a nut eater.

Pop’s wood is accelerating into leaf with all the trees now generating their summer canopies. The beech and oak are usually the last in the process but are now just beginning to show signs of full leaf growth. The wood now has darker patches where the trees shade out the full daylight; views are shortened as the lower branches fill out and shield the wood making it very private.

The hedgerow is faring better than I had expected. During his visit in February Justin from the Forestry Commission took one look at it and said that it didn’t stand a chance against the deer and rabbits. Maybe I am being a bit too optimistic, or it is too soon to make an assessment, but there are only a few plants that have died so far and my regular resetting of the support sticks and the spiral tubes seems to be protecting the rest so far. Maybe once the plants poke their heads/foliage above the tubes then the deer will show more interest. My intention in the autumn is to replace those plants that have died with some spare hawthorn plants from the original hedge planting exercise that I dug into and earth clamp in the compound, this means that they are contemporary in terms of size etc with the existing hedge and should fit in well.

The huge turkey oak that got blown over in Storm Doris has proved very time consuming to process into firewood. However, the video clip above shows that I am now down to the single trunk having processed all the side and main branches; some of the stacked firewood is shown in the background. The diameter of the trunk is about 3′ and my chain saw only has an 18″ blade so I will have to nibble my way through it in small sections probably working from the base upwards this time to avoid the huge gnarly junction at the bowl of the tree. This is like a huge clenched fist and is where all the branches, well, branched out from and is pictured below.

One of the best parts of the day in the wood is sitting down at lunchtime and making a cup of tea or a brew. To boil the water I have a little stove called a “Biolite”, this has a small fan that blows air into the fire that results in the small pieces of wood being burnt completely and fiercely. This makes the stove is super efficient when compared with say an open campfire with a kettle suspended above the flames. The stove is compact/portable and has the additional benefit of having a USB port which, when the stove gets up to temperature, enables me to recharge my mobile – amazing! The picture below shows the small amount of wood that is needed to reheat a tin of soup and boil enough water for a mug of tea.

The video below has the comforting sound of the kettle boiling but also shows how the flames are swirled into a hot spiral by the air being blown int the combustion chamber.

Earlier this week whilst sat on the Tim Burr “Thunder Box” – an earth closet in the wood – I noticed a pile of hazel nuts tucked in at the base of the door. Closer inspection revealed the tiny teeth marks of a dormouse. So I have been sharing the loo with a dormouse, probably not at the same time as I think that we have been using the space for entirely different purposes.

More from Pop’s wood next week.