From Field To Woodland

  Sometimes, rules are silly. There is a silly rule, that if you don't close a permissive path from time to time, people can claim access to the path for perpetuity.  I am not ready to grant permanent access just yet, so we closed the paths for the weekend. Once a year we have to close the paths. They become private again for a day or two and we must record this closure in order to play the silly game to defeat the silly rule.  The paths now reopen for another year.  Just to try and negate a little of the silliness, we did actually hold a lovely family event during the closure- a very lovely family picnic. At which there were beautiful things and beautiful people, in a beautiful place. 

While doing a bit of path mowing this week and pausing for a drink, my owl friend called round to look for some lunch - in the middle of the day. He hung around for quite some time while I watched, hovering, dropping to the ground for a few seconds and then moving on. I wondered if he had a nest of young - forcing him out during the day to keep them fed. Anyway, what a treat to see him.

 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...