Starting to collect sticks together for some hurdle jobs and hedge stakes, I’ve been cutting sallow or goat willow, Salix caprea. Now I know some of you will scoff at my use of willow for hedge stakes. Actually I know some of you will get quite cross about it. Everyone knows that willow will grow if used in a hedge, so […]
I photographed this sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, last winter and have looked at the perfect sycamore shape on screen and on the farm, regularly through the summer, and found myself pondering about how trees become tree-shaped and how or even why a sycamore is sycamore-shaped whereas an English oak, Quecus robur tends to be oak-shaped. I know there’s loads of variation within […]
Last week we had a trip to Northamptonshire to visit Caroline Church and Hugh Ross who own, manage and live in Rawhaw Wood. Trading under the name Hazel Woodland Products, Hugh and Caroline, were kind enough to spare a couple of hours to show Jane, myself and our friends and makers of things, Martin and […]
After a great deal of frustration over the last two weeks, with a chainsaw that wouldn’t start, I finally got going with the last piece of hedge coppicing in our Countryside Stewardship Scheme, this morning. We cracked on despite a stiff breeze. At least the wind was coming from the west and would in theory […]
It may be a cliché, a British farmer discussing the weather, but it has been strangely hot this week. Actually it’s been beautiful – high 20s celsius, often with a breeze and not too humid. But now it’s October, the leaves are turning, it’s dark by 7pm and we’re still wearing T-shirts – strange […]
Creating a woodland is a slow old business. Since we planted Bottoms’ Corner, our small hazel wood, we’ve been watching every small development with a fair degree of excitement that we tend to keep to ourselves – we’ve found that most normal people don’t particularly see the joy in growing sticks. The first cut of […]