Great weather to be outside and working in Pops Wood. I have busy on a combination of tasks this week namely making charcoal and continuing to move the shipping container up through the wood.
The process of making charcoal is now getting fairly slick and I can manage to empty out the previous charge, load up the retort with new fresh wood and get it fired up within about half and hour. That leaves me time to sort through, weigh and package the charcoal and then set to and prepare the wood ready to recharge the retort the next time. It is still an time consuming process where I have to be on hand to ensure that the fire is stoked up and fired up in order to heat the retort up quickly and set off the whole charring process. However, once the main wood gas phase has started there is about an hour when the whole thing becomes self sustaining and I am free to have my lunch, do the crossword and (once I have woken up from a quick nap!) get on with some other jobs.
With the weather hotting up the horse flies have been out and about. These are sneaky little blighters and biters.
Whereas most flies buzz around you and announce their presence, invariably the first you know of the horse fly is when you feel its bite on your leg or arm. Their approach seems to be fatally flawed in that as soon as you feel the bite you have time to find the offender and squash it flat, very few of them seem to get away. I guess it works well on other animals other than humans that are less able to swat them as they feed. Apparently its only the female flies that bite and they do this to obtain sufficient protein from the blood to be able to reproduce. The male eats nectar only and whilst the female also eats nectar it needs the blood supplement to become productive. They are attracted by the smell, warmth of the skin and carbon dioxide that is breathed out, so working away in the wood getting a sweat on and breathing heavily make me a perfect target!
Once the charcoal retort has finished I have been carying on moving the shipping container. Whilst this is very slow progress it is one that I can do single handed and because it is slow, and doesn’t involve anything other than my manual effort, it is a very controlled approach.
Here is a time lapse of Josh and I a couple of weekends ago getting into the swing of using the winch and wooden runners.
One of the obstacles to negotiate has been a small ridge made up of flints rather like the base of a wall. here are some still shots of the box coming over this hump.
Its amazing what people throw away. Here is a curious example….
A ceramic pot of real turtle soup. Here is an extract from The Museum of London site.
Turtle meat became fashionable in the 19th century and was usually imported from the West Indies. According to Law’s Grocer’s Manual (1898) the meat was popular at City of London aldermanic feasts and the Lord Mayor’s annual dinner at the Guildhall.
John Lusty Ltd was a manufacturer specialising in turtle meat. Based on Parnham Street in Limehouse, the firm was established in the mid nineteenth century by John Lusty, a ‘marine store dealer’. In the twentieth century the company advertised itself as a contractor to the Admiralty, the War Office and the Royal Family. In the early 1940s the firm had premises at 3 New Compton Street in the West End.
John Lusty Ltd was still manufacturing at Parnham Street in the early 1970s and was famous for its turtle soup. The brand is presently owned by the Leicester-based company Fosters Traditional Foods Ltd. This company took the commercial decision to cease making turtle soup about five years ago owing to public concerns over the conservation of turtles.
How bizarre! What on earth was it doing in Pops Wood?
More next time……
Tim Burr 