From Field To Woodland

 Having purchased twelve railway sleepers four years ago "for making things" and so far, having used only two (for gateposts) and sold two, they were really getting in the way and given "benches" were one of the original plans for them, I felt I had better crack on.  I had one sleeper cut into three bits (to make legs) years ago, after that it was just the headache of getting them on site, notching bits out of the top sleeper so it sat nicely and them concreting them in.  Given it is tricky moving a sleeper around on your own, I was very lucky to have my friend Mr Peaches to assist me for the final install. And he did a great job.  There is now a nice spot to sit and enjoy the view. Or rest on the way up the hill.  Productivity always declines when the Sky Dog is on site.

 On arrival back from a lovely Cornish holiday, I popped up to see what was going on at the field/woodland. The grass growth has thankfully slowed and tree growth is going at a fair pace. Sadly,  so is deer damage. A number of (apparently totally random) attacks on specific trees almost entirely voiding them of bark - while remarkably not killing the poor trees (mostly).  Anyway, inspection complete, I set off back to the car, over the stile at the top of the field, and after a brief wobble, and a second "test the stile with a more deliberate wobble", I snapped the stile. One of the vertical posts was totally rotted through. Thankfully it didn't hurt a walker when it broke - it failed while I was testing its strength. I am thankful I was there. My plans to mow the grass and spray the trees this week were hastily re-arranged and a few days of timber-work began.  I decided to use thicker timber on the new model, a sleeper in fact, figuring it will hopefully outlive me....

 So, September 2nd was a bit of a milestone for the project. We both named the field, and also officially opened the permissive paths. It was a big deal for me - so I made a big deal of it - and invited some family and friends to come and make a day of it with a picnic.  The weather was hugely kind and my friends/neighbours/family were also hugely kind. The sun showed up and so did lots of lovely people. We even had family here from Australia.  We did a little picnic-ing , a little wine drinking, a lot of chatting and a bit of tree planting.  I had , in recent weeks dug in and installed some signage (see previous blog entry) to mark the new paths and confirm the field naming. It was the first time most visitors had seen them so it was nice that we could do all of this on one sunny day.  My parents performed the ribbon cut and officially named the wood and opened the paths.  So it was great to have moved onto to a new phase in the projects life - it feels as...

  So, in what seems like a decent milestone, the project now has an "official" name.  I give you, "Tallywhacker Wood". A name suggested by a swimmy friend Kate, I think it rolls of the tongue rather well. No fnar. Absolutely no fnar.  As soon as it was suggested by Kate (after asking a group of friends for suggestions) it stuck, and it was, I think, meant to be. So that is that, job done.  As for the signage, well that is ongoing. I constructed a signage board which I am happy with, and went with a home printed/laminated A4 sheet and some A6 images for the fence post signing. This I was also happy with, until I visited again 3 weeks later and found all the colour is fading extremely rapidly from the home inkjet printing and in another 3 weeks I suspect it will be invisible.  A local printer has suggested using the same material as is used on outdoor printed banners. I am going to try this, hopefully the resolution is high enough and it should at least be fade re...

It has been a long time since there was a blog article, so to try and increase update frequency a little, delegation has taken place. This article has been written by the head of The Fencing & Boundaries Committee , Ron.   All tree planting guides tell you to protect your trees from wildlife. Be it deer or rabbits or squirrels- though nobody mentions farm animals.   One option is to exterminate the “pest” but we were not prepared to do that to wild creatures when this is partly a wildlife project.   Fully fencing off a site is very expensive , tree guards a little cheaper. Given we don’t have anything to worry about that might “escape” the field, it was decided that we would take our chances and leave the boundary as it was and use tree guards where it was sensible. The deer were only infrequent  visitors (I have never actually seen one yet) and the bunnies would mostly be thwarted by guards. Nobody mentioned farm animals though.   In general this strategy h...

 One of the key reasons this project even exists, is the mitigation of climate change. Sequestering carbon in tree form is happening in the field day by day, in some small way, that should negate a bit of the impact my life has had on the planet. In 20 years time, the trees will collectively soak up many tons of carbon each year until they reach maturity. So the project should have a tiny, but real impact on climate change. I have known since the start of the project, that climate change may also have a direct impact my project. And perhaps not a tiny one. Most tree planting experts recommend ensuring at least some of your trees will cope with a warmer and less predictable climate  - to ensure all of your trees are not wiped out by a single extreme weather event. I am planting a range of species for this reason.  I hadn't expected the weather to cause so many problems so soon though. By March 2021, I was becoming increasingly concerned about the dryness of the soil in the...