Birthday Party Preparations

It's supposed to be spring and in a few days we are supposed to be having a bbq/camping weekend for my birthday, but there is still time for the snow to thaw and actually working in the wood when it's like this is very enjoyable, its just a bit of a trek to get there at the moment with the deep snow stopping any car access.

Once you are passed the deep drifts it's a walk along the top edge of the wood where its quite exposed and cold.

But once you have made it into the wood, its really sheltered and occasionally the sun even comes out!

We rigged up the snow flattened tarp and set about on moving the large wood pile that was standing on one of the only flat parts to the wood where we want to set up the party table.

At least the abundant laurel makes half decent stakes.

Dad turned up and helped with the start of the table construction, my chainsaw mill is still on order and wont arrive in time, so there will be no planks and we are going to have to go for a more rustic approach.

And the highlight of the day was lunch! Warin was testing out our planned cooking method, we think we may have 20-30 guests so we needed a fairly simple solution that we can scale up. The 'swinging cake cooling rack' approach seemed to work really well, so we think 30 odd simultaneous sea bass should be doable. The cake racks are from the local bargain shop and the fish will prob come from Birmingham fish market (they don't catch them there). 

The end result as you can see below was absolutely delicious!

Well done Warin!

seeing how fast I can add a new blog post using my new phone

I haven't been as good as I thought I would be at adding regular posts and this is one of the reasons I have purchased a nexus smartphone to see if it will speed up the process so I'm having a go at dictating the text straight into the phone and then switching to the camera to make a quick snap as follows

here you can see the area which we have been clearing has now expanded considerably. so this update took approximately 2 minutes to do and in general worked very wellbut I am having a bit of trouble with punctuation and may have to read up a little bit more on how to use the voice function stop full stopopen brackets see what I mean close brackets

Snowy Visit

We have made some progress with the wood and started poisoning the laurel stumps as I mentioned before and our clearing is looking much better once they have been cut to ground level. I will post some more photos of this as soon as the weather is a bit better.

Talking of the weather, we have had a very cold spell here in the UK and so we have been burning all of the logs I brought back to keep our house warm. I wanted to go and cut some more out of a dead chestnut tree we felled but when I arrived there was much more snow than I expected! So much in fact that I just didn't know where to start so just took a few pictures and came back home. So here are the snaps from similar viewpoints to the ones in the last post just with tons more white stuff.

You can see our camp fire log seats we made too, they look a bit like they have cushions on them now.

The track is pretty blocked with weighted down branches.

Mosaic Wood - It's official!

The paperwork's done, the solicitors bills have shocked and the keys are in my hands, so now I'm officially a wood owner. Which is nice as I don't have to sneak about like a poacher when I visit it now.

I wanted to post a quick update as follows:

After all my whinging about the rhododendron problem, it turns out that it's probably cherry laurel instead! but whatever it is we are battling it and have cleared a largish banked area as you can see here.

 We have left the stumps which we will cut off at ground level and treat with roundup pro biactive, I have been told this is the technique for killing rhododendron and I hope it is the same for laurel. If any suckers come through in the spring you then spray them with the same stuff using one of those back-pack and gun set-ups (a bit like a ghostbuster) whilst shouting 'take that suckers!'

On the next visit Dad is going to bring his chainsaw to fell a large dead chestnut tree which we are going to turn into log seats around the fire in the proposed camp area, this will provide a more comfortable area for any volunteer workers to chill out and eat hot dogs, actually probably more like thai green curry if my wife is there providing the food. So hopefully soon we will have our first big work party with lots of family and friends....that laurels really going to get it!

However, even with all the dense laurel everywhere the wood is already really fun, the fact that it's hard to explore means you find something new almost everytime you go. At first we though it was just sycamore and chestnut trees but we have since found, hazel, mountain ash, wild cherry, silver birch, beech and oak and the fact that you have to slash a path to get anywhere makes you feel like a jungle explorer. Here's one I cut this week to check out a few big trees I could see the tops of from the bank.

Will post another update again soon! Thanks for reading, Tom

Kempsey Kite Club - Near Worcester - New Members Wanted!

Today was the official first day of Kempsey Kite Club, which is based on Teal Turf Farm near Worcester. I wasn't kiting due to a back strain but I will be soon, and I wanted to go along and show my support and become a signed up member.

At £14 per month it's a real bargain for unlimited use of such a fantastic site and they really want new members to help make the project viable long into the future. With such a great second hand kite market on places such as ebay this extreme sport can be a bit of a bargain compared to others such as snowboarding or paragliding, you could prob get started for £200 if you chose carefully and others are always willing to let you try out their kites too. Although latest new kit and a 'quiver' of kites for different winds sure can add up!

I'm pretty sure if you wanted to come along for a taster you could post on their facebook page and you would be welcome http://www.facebook.com/groups/294964893946838/

Here's a couple of snaps I took of people whizzing up and down

and if you get really good it can lead onto crazy stuff like this, video shot at the club by Ben Davies

Kempsey Kite Club Session from Ben Davies on Vimeo.

Let me know if anyone wants to come along with me to try it out, cheers, Tom

Learning to Paraglide - Day 1

As I mentioned in my introductory post to the blog, I paid for my intro paragliding day some time ok and then didn't bother to get on with it, so with my new found enthusiasm I checked their weather forecast and booked in a day.

When the morning came the weather looked foggy but as I drove to over the border and on into the welsh valleys it started to clear. I met the instructor Steve from Axis Paragliding and his assistant Ellis in Merthyr Tydfil's Asda carpark and then we headed up to the top of a gentle nursery slope (above)

Day 1 consists of : Learning how to fall and roll in-case you ever have a heavy landing, an intro to the equipment and how to check it over, pre-flight checks, an intro to the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, some theory of weather and suitable flying sites. Hopefully once a bit of this has sunk in you are onto the actual paragliding action!

This latter part of the day begins with trying to run on the flat with the paraglider being inflated and rising above you in a kind of mock launch. Progressing to doing this on a downhill slope where you might get the odd 'hop' off the ground. To where with a hopeful head-on breeze and some serious running effort you should experience your first actual first flight! See the video below to see how it went!

The day costs £150 and overall I can't recommend this experience enough, it's an incredible sensation when you feel the paraglider first take your weight and you actually start to 'fly'. I think I'm going to get hooked on this new sport and am trying to book my second day already, I just can't wait to soar! To become trained up so you can fly on your own takes about 8 days. If anyone wants to come with me from the Worcester area to give it ago you are welcome to a lift.

First visit to Tom's Wood

We had a great day today because I took Mum and Dad to show them the wood I'm about to purchase. As soon as we were there we just couldn't help ourselves but get stuck in on a great day of clearing and letting some light back in.

It has a big Rhodadendrum infestation problem but we think its a war we can win. And the rewards will be 4 acres of clear woodland with filled with just the native broad-leaf trees, many of which are huge and over 100 years old.

I plan to record this clearing process here on my blog and start to cover many other woodland activities and crafts as soon as I can.

Hopefully we will have some volunteer work party days as soon as I properly own it, so if anyone's interested in a great day clearing and bonfires in the woods in return for camp fire cooked food then stay tuned! After this it will be rope-swings, camping, woodland crafts and anything else we can think of as I want as many people as possible to enjoy my wood too.

Me and Dad get the fire started to see if green Rhodadendrum burns. As there are tons of it to clear, this fact could be a deal breaker

Great news! It burns very easily and I can now see many of these bonfires in the future.

Luckily there is one clearing in the middle of the 4 acres as you can see above, I have no idea why the Rhodadendrum haven't managed to take over this space, you can see how dense it is in the background. Anyway this clearing is now our base and you can see Mum and Dad found an old coppiced tree stump in it to eat their lunch.  

A few of the very large sweet chestnut are dead or dying from a worrying disease, I guess this could be my first problem as a new woodland owner that I need to find out more about, this one will come down soon to hopefully stop it spreading to the others, it will still make great firewood logs for my woodburner at home if nothing else.