Ah the bluebell – that beauty of our ancient woodlands, that brilliant woodland welcomer of spring. They are flowering right now in our tiny bit of ancient woodland and they look gorgeous in the fragile April sunshine. So welcome in a sea of vivid green, after months of grey and damp. As we all know, […]
Cutting willow isn’t something to be done in bad weather if it’s not essential; we try to avoid it anyway. It’s physically demanding and is miserable in the rain but hey, we’ve got hats!The worst of it is not being willing to take a vehicle over the ground to pick up all that’s been cut […]
A couple of big orders have more or less cleared us out of pea sticks. Great for us but I fear there may be disappointed customers ahead. I’m not sure if there’s been media mention of hazel in the garden recently, but interest in locally produced materials seems to be definitely on the up. I called Hugh Ross at Rawhaw Wood to […]
One of the pleasures of doing this job (and there are several), is meeting our customers. It may be that an interest in sticks makes people laid back and interesting or that we often sell sticks to basket makers and gardeners, and that they are particularly friendly. I’m sure there’s a connection. Yesterday I delivered lots of large […]
We bought a new thing recently and gave it its first outing last week. It’s a German power scythe in a rather fetching green/orange livery; loaded with horse power, armed with 6 gears and a mightily long cutting bar. We had hired and borrowed smaller machines in the past which worked well enough to suggest this would be the […]
It’s hard to ask for help. Pride, perhaps mixed with the certain knowledge that the help we might request is for work that is hard, cold and pretty dull. On many occasions over the last few years however, visitors have suggested we tell them when we need a hand; but we’ve not been good at asking.This year we did and things turned out […]
Despite the blooming cold weather and very un-British snow sitting on the ground for a week, we have made a lot of progress cutting willow over the last couple of days. Armed with a new (well second-hand), power scythe, bought from a lovely bloke in Bury St. Edmonds, cutting has speeded up compared with previous years.The wind picked […]
I got into the swing of hazel over Christmas and have cut a bit now. I like to cut a little, process it, then cut more; that way, by alternating activity, I avoid spending too much time doing either (and the associated muscle pain), but more important it avoids creating a cat’s-cradle of fallen stems that’s a pain to unravel.I’ve […]
We’re doing a bit of experimental work making willow ‘fascines ‘ for a potential client in Cambridgeshire. This is an interesting diversion and work so far suggests that we will be able do the business using a mix of living sallow, Salix caprea, and a couple of our plantation-grown willows (species and varieties yet to […]
I woke up early this morning, thinking to get some paper work done before getting out to use all the light the day can muster. Of course I forgot the weather. It’s raining hard and the forecast suggests that it could continue through to the end of Christmas Eve. I did know this but had […]