I’ve been a little distracted of late and you will have noticed I’ve not been posting as much. Sadly my mother died suddenly just before Christmas and I’ve not had much time for posting on the blog as a result. Normal service will be resumed eventually and I will shortly post something appropriate, as if you ever received one of her hand crafted cards, you will know she was quite a talented caligrapher. Meanwhilst the seasons don’t wait and if I don’t get the birch cut soon it will be too late, particularly with the warm weather we’ve had.

On sunday we had a good sized group of Volunteers working on the commons and managed to clear through a patch of birch which yielded plenty of peasticks and few good beanpoles. I even managed to persuade our more enthusiastic burners not to burn them all.

We joined up with some of the Allotmenteers from the nearby Shottermill Ponds allotments so plenty of beanpoles and pea-sticks were taken away but there were still some left for me as well.

I particularly like this way of working on the heathland as it is a living landscape and this is the way it was created and has been managed as commonland for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Completely sustainable, it provides exercise and a sense of connection and continuity with the environment – and it might just have avoided the import of the odd bundle of bamboo or even worse, plastic poles. Not saved a shipload, or even a container load yet – but every little counts as they say!

Filed under: Coppice crafts, Greenwood work, Landscape & photograpy, Lynchmere, Sustainability ]]> http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/january-means-beanpoles-and-peasticks/feed/ 5 woodlandantics DSCF4372 DSCF4366 DSCF4377 http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/looking-back-with-twelve-at-eleven/ http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/looking-back-with-twelve-at-eleven/#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:52:41 +0000 woodlandantics http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/?p=5166 ]]> I’ve been a little distracted whilst trying to put together this view of the year just past, but it’s better late than never I hope. It’s always hard trying to select just twelve photos which together capture something of the year and it’s not a short process always taking me a lot more time than I imagined it would do. I think I’ve managed it in a small way for me, you will have to make your own minds up!

January means low sun angles through the leafless skeletons of the birch trees on the commons, never rising high, always a cold light and quick to fall below the hillside opposite whilst I am still cutting the young birch for poles, flower stakes, peasticks and besom brooms before the buds swell.

But February chills to the bone, and it was a bitter freezing winter which seemed it would surely go on for ever, perhaps we’d never even make it to the Spring. You need a fire (with baked potatoes) just to make it through the end of each day as the cold seems to seep up through my feet and into my bones.

But just when it seemed least likely Spring did arrive, and in the Gower on my annual beachcombing holiday it was scented with Coconut from the gorse flowers.

Working outside in April is rarely that much of a pleasure but as Spring got a grip, the days lengthened and the evenings spread themselves we had some wonderful sunsets – and not a drop of rain.

From a late start Spring was indeed Sprung rushing headlong into an early Summer with endless blue skies and talk of drought – yes this is still England I am talking about. By May and the Beltain celebration at Butser Ancient Farm, you could have been forgiven for thinking it had been warm and sunny all year. But Winters over the summer show season starts here.

Sadly the sunny weather was interrupted by the usual annual rainfall for the 21st  Bodgers ball (held at lower Brockhampton, Herefordshire) and again at the West Country (underwater) scythe festival at Muchelney, but the heat returned late in June, if only for the Wimpole Hall, Scything and Smallholders weekend near Cambridge. Andy Coleman is leading Ded on the brushcutter on a blazing hot afternoon on the lawns in front of Wimpole. The less said about my own shambolic performance the better!

Something of a building theme emerging in these photos and closer to home things have been afoot all year at Swan Barn Farm the base for the the National Trust team in Haslemere. A new cruck framed timber building emerges next to the barn. Built almost entirely with materials from the farm itself or a within a few miles it’s the vision of Dave Elliott the head warden and his team and the first cruck is raised guided by Ben Law.

By August the charcoal burning season is at it’s peak, the logs are good and dry (we hope) and the burns go fast and well, but in the back of my mind I know that time is passing and that this is the time to be starting to try and get ahead with both the charcoal and firewood before it’s too late.

The summer season has been busy with woodfairs, shows, work in the woods and scything reaching a climax in September as the end of term party season gets into full swing – plenty of work to do as well on polelathe and shavehorse – but a definite sense of the seasons shifting, heavy dews in the mornings and a chill in the evenings.

Which brings us inexorably to October and the apple harvest. Not mine this one sadly, these Kingston Blacks are waiting to go into the mill at the New Forest Cider Farm, Burley, though I did manage to press about a third of a tonne of apples myself this year.  Autumn is my favourite season with all the colours changing and all the senses of colour, smell, feel and texture all heightened by the inevitable end coming. A bitter sweet time of year, sweet with the harvest but bitter with chill of approaching winter.

Of course it wouldn’t be a true reflection upon the year without at least one landrover making it into the list and this year it’s got to be Puff (the magic landrover) who passed his MOT in April after a fairly extensive restoration. But with plenty of blue smoke billowing from the exhaust something had to be done and in November I finally managed to complete an engine rebuild thanks to Garry and Richard with plenty of boring, honing, torquing and bedding in to get him on the road in time for winter. Now got 100 miles on the clock, so running in should only last about another year!

We’re back in December with the sun lower in the sky catching on one of the leaded glass windows at the Weald & Downland Museum. I spent a lot of time with friends at the museum this year, demonstrating, teaching (drinking the cider – thanks Julian!) and helping out – it’s something of a spiritual home for me. I’m looking forward to spending more time there in the coming year and the reflection of the sun in the glass brings me back around the cycle to looking forwards towards the coming season. I wish you all the very best for 2o12.

Filed under: Landscape & photograpy, What's in the shed today? ]]> http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/looking-back-with-twelve-at-eleven/feed/ 1 woodlandantics DSCF2664 DSCF2990 DSCF4207 DSCF4706 DSCF5224 DSCF0690 DSCF5714 DSCF1846 DSCF2587 DSCF3546 DSCF4198 DSCF0059 http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/seasons-greetings-4/ http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/seasons-greetings-4/#comments Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:01:54 +0000 woodlandantics http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/?p=5162 ]]> No snow this year so I’m using a photo from last year. Or was it the year before? Anyway time to relax, sit back and enjoy the warmth of the log fire!  Won’t last long, there is plenty to be done round here so I might as well enjoy it whilst I can, and whilst I’ve got my grumpy old man hat on, remember, Christmas is for spending time with family, but I wish you all a good time in spite of that.

It does take at least a couple of weeks to finish a brew and mine take longer as they condition at a lower temperature than is usual, so I’m a little late with this reminder and I hope you were busy mashing and sparging a couple of weeks ago as was I.

The ‘mash’ is the mixture of grain heated in liquor (thats water to most of us) to extract the sugars which can be then be fermented.  For the Winter brew I’ve used  a pale malt (bottom of photo), crystal malt (right) and also some roasted barley(left).

One of the great things about making your own brews from scratch is that you can choose exactly the ingredients you would like and increasingly I take an interest in their provenance. Pale malted barley or ‘pale malt’ is the basis for all English ‘real ales’ and it comes in a range of varieties and types. I buy mine in 25kg sacks from the Warminster maltings, one of a very few traditional floor maltings still operating in England.  Malting starts by spraying the grain with water to make it germinate and then halting the germination by kiln drying or heating the barley. The malting process converts the starches in the barley into sugars which can then be extacted by ‘mashing’ the grains.

Normally I buy ‘maris otter’ which is the classic variety for brewing real ales, but recently I’ve been trying out the organic pale malt which is a spring barley variety called ‘Quench’.

The bulk of the grain in the mash is pale malt, approximately 3kg for a 5 gallon (yes I do always mix up imperial and SI units) brew but on its own the beer would lack flavour, body and colour so depending upon the character of the beer you are after you can add small amounts of other types of barley. I’ve added more crystal malted barley than I normally do just to increase the fullness of the flavour for the winter beer and I’ve also added just a little roasted barley to deepen the colour and add that slightly smokey, not to say burnt flavour, but I’ll balance that off with my winter secret weapon later on in the recipe.

All of the grains are added to the brewing water or liquor and mashed at 66 degrees (C) for at least 90 minutes to convert as much of the starch to sugar which is then drawn off as the wort – in reality we’re making malt extract in this phase of the brew, but I get to control exactly how the malt is extracted.

Once the wort is draw off after about 90 minutes you are left with hot sticky grain in the mash tun (a plastic variety in my case) but there is still a lot of good malt sticking to the grains so they are rinsed or ‘sparged’ with near boiling water spraying from a rotating sparging arm which helps extract all of the malt that we can from the grain.

In the second phase of the brew the malt is boiled up and the hops are added. I’ve used Fuggles and East Kent Goldings, two very traditional English varieties in this brew. Depending upon the type of beer being brewed some other ingredients may also be added, sugars for example. Cheap homebrews will often just add white granulated sugars, but they don’t do the beer any favours. Brewers will often use more complicated sugars like malto-dextrose, known as ‘brewing sugar’ which is more like the invert sugars extracted from the grain but as this is a winter brew I’ll be adding my secret weapon – Soft Dark Brown Sugar. Yum!

Once the boiling is done the wort is poured off again through a hop strainer to leave the hops behind and left to cool before pitching in the yeast (I use Safale S04) and the fermentation begins. Perhaps the most magical part of a brew as it can be very hard to believe that this disgusting looking bin of brown crusty bubbling toxic liquid is about to transform itself into a perfect brew – but it really does!

I prefer to bottle my brews which adds an extra stage to the process but it does get around the need to drink 5 gallons in one go and makes it a little easier to give away to those brave enough to try it. Of course I do need to sample the brew regularly just to make sure its upto standard and I’m pleased to say that this one is.

I call this recipe Hammer Special Bitter or HSB and any confusion with ‘HSB’, originally brewed by Gales of Horndean before they were bought out by Fullers and the brewery promptly shut down is Entirely Intentional.

There is a lot of folklore around firewood. Not without reason either as in the days before central heating (whats that?), double glazing (must do something about that soon) and cavity wall insulation, having poor firewood could mean freezing to death or even burning your house down rather than sitting next to the fire in a cosy warm room.

The good news is that all wood burns. Even better, all wood delivers about the same heat energy per Kg. It’s just that some woods are less dense so  a 1 tonne pile of  birch will take up twice the volume of 1 tonne of oak, for example. If  you notice that you burn your way through more birch, willow or softwoods than oak then that’s the simple explanation, you need to burn roughly twice as many logs. Most other woods are somewhere in between in terms of density. Since most firewood is delivered in volume – it’s something to be aware of.

Of course it’s not quite that simple as any wood you care to burn will also contain moisture. Even the floors and doors in the house will contain some moisture which is dependent upon the atmospheric moisture content – the wood will adjust which is why things tend to shift through the year from summer to winter as it swells and contracts. When it’s cut wood has a moisture content somewhere between 30 and 60%. Some woods are wetter than others depending upon the season of cutting and the type of tree. Ash has a relatively low moisture content which combined with it’s medium density and a relative lack of tars probably accounts for it’s reputation as the best firewood of all.

Trying to burn water is going to reduce the efficiency of the combustion as heat is diverted to turning water to steam and the wood resists burning when its too wet so you have to increase the amount of air flowing into the fire and up the chimney which only further reduces heat flowing to where you want it. Steam in the flue combines with the unburnt wood products in the partially combusted smoke and can condense as creosote, with the danger of blocking the flue and causing a chimney fire.

Burning the driest wood you can get makes your fire most efficient, reduces the amount of wood you need to cut (or buy in) and store, saves you time and money and releases less emissions into the atmosphere. Most of all on a really cold night you’ll be cosier and warmer.

There are more ways of cutting, splitting, stacking, seasoning and storing firewood than I could possibly cover in a short post that is already getting too long. But if you have the inclination you can find an old post of mine looking at firewood stacks in Southern Germany here – Firewood stacks of Mahringen pt II.

If you don’t happen to have a spare barn to act as a logstore then it’s no problem to stack the wood outside. The key to drying wood outside is to make the most of the sunshine (as I was reminded recently it dries wood for free and with no carbon emissions) and allow the air to circulate through the stack. I have pallets on the top of this stack to provide an air gap between the wood and the ground sheet which is protecting it from the rain, as well as a raft of old posts on the bottom to improve the drainage.

When you come to burn it, if your firewood is not as dry as you’d like then you can do some simple things to help. Make sure you bring firewood into the house before you want to burn it – preferably stack it by the fire for a day or two if you can do so safely. The smaller you chop the wood the quicker it will dry before you burn it – and the more efficiently it will burn once it’s on the fire.

You’ll find that the lower density woods are easier to dry out in a hurry so if you do have to burn wetter wood than you’d like you’ll find chopping up Ash, Birch, Willow etc into small sticks and drying on top of the stove before burning is a better bet than trying to burn green Oak.

To keep a fire working at optimum efficiency you should be continually adding small pieces of firewood to it. But generally that’s a bit like hard work and we all prefer to put a big log on now and then through the evening. If your fire is just for effect then that’s fine but if you are relying on it to heat the room, house or your water then big logs are bad, and big wet logs are the worst.

The combustion is most efficient when just the right amount of air is mixed with the fuel to burn up all of the fuel with the minimum amount of heat escaping through the flue with the water and carbon dioxide. An open fire is normally quite inefficient compared with a stove as it normall draws too much air into the fire and much of the heat is lost into the chimney and more warm air is drawn out of the room. But not all stoves are very efficient and some open fires can be almost as efficient as a stove.

In our living room we have a ‘Jetmaster’ open fire and even though I’ve been using it for 18years I’ve only recently learned that a part of the reason for it’s metal fire box construction is that it has a convector heater built in as room air is drawn under the firebox and up through a void at the back, coming back out through radiating fins at the top of the firebox and into the room as hot air! This, together with the variable damper, can raise the overall efficiency of the fire to 50% – which is exceptionally good for an open fireplace, though nowhere near the 72% of our woodburning stove.

I trust you are all enjoying the warmth of your labours in front of your fires right now!

Filed under: Environment, Sustainability ]]> http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/firewood-thoughts/feed/ 2 woodlandantics DSCF6323-1 DSCF6275 DSCF2111 http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/put-a-lid-on-it/ http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/put-a-lid-on-it/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:17:14 +0000 woodlandantics http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/?p=5101 ]]>

After plenty of prevarication I got around to putting lids on the small birch pots I’d been commissioned to make. To my surprise I quite enjoyed making the pots and I can see that I might do some more soon but I’ve never put a lid on before. I spent plenty of time failing to make progress before plunging in and turning them the most obvious way just like the pots, but it went well thanks to plenty of good hints from very talented friends Richard Law (aka Flyingshavings) and Steve Tomlin.

I was quite concerned about getting a good fit with the rebate onto the rim of the pot but in the event a pair of calipers is all thats necessary and then a couple of trial fits – just don’t get carried away right at the end!

Then you’ll get a snug fit.

One down, one to go. It’s a fairly laborious task  and the price will be high because of that  so I don’t forsee going into mass production but I think a couple of these on my stand next year would be a good addition to my range with plenty of uses. These two pots are intended for a GO board set being made by Natalie and I was delighted to hear that the board itself is milled from local birch so she also asked me to make a set of turned feet for the board.

Knowing nothing about GO before I started could have been a problem, but the wonder of Google Image soon solved the problem and I turned the feet one after another on the same spindle to make it easier to match the profile and length.

As with the Pots the feet are my interpretation of what was needed rather than a copy of a commercial product as I am working with the raw material that is to hand in the woodland. So thanks for the challenge Natalie and for adding another use for Birch wood to my extensive list!

I am certainly not a fungi expert but I can’t resist taking a good look and at this time of year there are loads of fungi to choose from. So if anyone has any identifications to offer please feel free to comment.  But yes,  you are right this is just an excuse to post some colourful pictures of the Lynchmere Commons.

Here a Fly Agaric has just appeared from it’s bed of moss. At least I think it’s a Fly Agaric as they are common in the birch woods, but there is no sign of a veil on this one, so I may be leading you astray already. Just shows how difficult it is to follow the identification books.

Very few of the woodland fungi are edible and you really do need to know what you are doing to pick them as a mistake can be highly dangerous. The Fly Agaric is well known for it’s toxic and hallucinogenic properties. It’s one of the Amanita family which include our most toxic fungi so one to beware of.

With a heavy dew the cobwebs glisten in the low angle sun light which seems to give everything deeper colour at this time of year.

These fungi were nestled on the old stump of a birch tree. They look quite similar to Honey Fungus, but then again…maybe not quite.

This one is suspiciously white and clean. I have to say that I don’t know what it is, but as the most toxic fungi in the UK, the Destroying Angel, is also white and clean I tend to leave anything similar well alone even though it’s very likely an innocent pretender (it’s deadly cousin the Death Cap is also similar in appearance though with a greenish tinge to the cap).

The Birch trees are now in their winter plummage and it’s already time to be thinking about harvesting the next crop of bean poles, pea sticks and broom heads.

No idea what these are and even after a quick look through a book I am non the wiser.

Likewise these very small, almost blue ones were just by a beech tree. Even though I couldn’t identify them I did find a Bay Boletus which we took home for tea, but forgot to photograph! Very similar to the Cep or Penny Bun which are also in the Boletus family the Bay Boletus has yellow pores instead of gills which stain blue when touched

Must be about time for a gratuitous Landrover photograph. Surely that’s far too shiny to be one of my Landrovers? Yes we took Puff out for a leisurely Sunday afternoon run as a part of the running in the new engine. The aim is to treat the engine very gently until all of the moving parts have had time to wear in.

I’ve been working on some small pots this week and after some thought (but not too much) decided to turn them like goblets, using fat blanks and hollowing from the ends. As it’s all end grain turning it’s a bit like hard work – and therefore not much to my liking. Really need to keep the tools sharp. At least it’s good practice for goblets.

These are turned using quite fresh Birch and I quite like the way that they have come out. They are supposed to have lids, but I’ve not really thought that through yet. Any suggestions?

Do you like the view from my new office?  It was nice and quiet until someone opened the lid and let me out. If I’ve been a bit quiet recently it’s not for lack of things to post on, more a lack of time to post. The restoration of my 1961 SII landrover Puff hit a milestone earlier this year when he passed the MOT Test with flying colours but it soon became obvious, to anyone following at least, by the smelly pall of blue smoke that the engine needed some serious work.

But one thing leads to another and a quick swap of heads was always a bit optimistic and an afternoon job stetched out for weeks and then months as a replacement engine was found (about 20feet in front of our door, strange that!) which then also turned out to need reconditioning. Ho hum. But the engine is rebuilt and ready to go in so time to paint the office ready for it’s new occupant.

So after having the cylinders bored out, the crank ground and the block skimmed and all new parts fitted the engine really is as good as new. Better than new probably. No the experience hasn’t turned my hair white, this is my friend and landrover guru Richard fitting the new engine.

Today we finally managed to find the time to fire it up. Once we managed to connect everything up the right way around that is. The pistons were a tight fit into their cylinders and it takes a bit of turning over but after quite a lot of turning over to move the oil around it fired up straight away and ran smoothly and amazingly quietly for a landrover engine.

Now we know it works we can finish the the rebuild and prepare it for running in. It’s very rare these days to see a vehicle with a sign saying  ‘Running in – Please Pass’  and I think I shall make one up just for fun.

I shall post a more detailed look at the rebuild in a post soon but this has been a red letter day. I went off to split some fire wood just to celebrate. Many thanks to Richard and Gary without whom I’d still be scatching my head and wondering where to start.

Filed under: Landrover, What's in the shed today? ]]> http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/landrover-firing-up-puff/feed/ 3 woodlandantics DSCF6262 DSCF6268 DSCF6272 http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/a-walk-with-trees-in-the-wye-valley/ http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/a-walk-with-trees-in-the-wye-valley/#comments Sun, 13 Nov 2011 23:01:15 +0000 woodlandantics http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/?p=5063 ]]> This has to be the best time of year for walking in the woods. The display of colours from the Beech trees is magnificent this year and nowhere better than the Forest of Dean where we’ve been for a few days up on the edge of the Wye Valley, but I’m afraid my photos don’t really do the colours justice. Mind you the weather didn’t really cooperate, though warm it’s been dull and dank if not pouring with rain most of the time.

As well as walking through the Forest we explored a few paths up and around the River Wye, through the Gloucestershire countryside and came quite unexpectedly upon an old orchard where management has clearly been on the sparse side for many years. Several of the trees were quite overgrown with Mistletoe – though maybe it’s actually a Mistletoe orchard?

Away from the Forest the footpaths seemed quite thin on the ground and never quite linked up but we did find some great old hedges with lovely ancient oak trees.

This one has grown a monster burr, you can see from the gate in the photo that the burr is a few feet in diameter and it actually reaches most of the way around behind the trunk.

Back in the forest I was (as usual) astounded to see so much lop and top left lying around felling sites, and not just softwood but hardwood as well. On this site several beech trees had just been cut up and left where they were felled. I know I’ll be told that it’s all in aid of biodiversity and the bugs like it, but I mean!  In today’s times of austerity we’re all having to tighten our belts and how many bedrooms does a bug really need?  This is a renewable energy source just wasted and I’m sure that the biodiversity of the site would actually benefit from the removal of some of the excess brash and still leave plenty of spare bedrooms for the bugs!

I suspect it’s all caused by the relentless intensification of forestry during the latter half of the 20th century, very much the same as with agriculture. The more wood you produce the lower the price goes and the more wood you need to produce to keep making money. So you get a bigger loan, buy bigger machines with more computers and GPS that work all day and night to keep paying off the loan and it’s no longer cost effective to remove the brash or even some of the trees.

But it doesn’t have to be like that especially with the price of firewood on the rise. Woodsmen like me keep operating costs down by working for themselves, avoiding loans and using a minimum of equipment. There are plenty of volunteer groups, charcoal burners or firewood operators in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire who’d be more than happy to clear up sites like this after the contractors leave and reduce our fossil fuel imports and carbon footprint at the same time. I think we ought to be putting pressure on the FC to reintroduce licences for collecting brash and firewood.

Back on the river the sun crept through for just a few minutes. Bizarrely, in view of my previous rant, a small team of tree surgeons were carefully deadwooding some of the river bank willows (lest they fall on the tweed hat of a fly fisherman perhaps?) and then removing all of the wood from the site with a 4×4 and a trailer – from the sublime to the ridiculous?  No bugs welcome on this river bank then?

On the way back I couldn’t resist stopping at a hedgerow full of fat juicy sloes! Normally we only get to pick a few small ones, hard as bullets but these were big soft juicy gobstopper size sloes just demanding to be soaked in Vodkin.

Just a few minutes picking yielded enough for a few litres of Sloe Vodkin and as I write they are in the jars already after a quick session in the freezer just to finish off the softening up process. The jars are Labelled ‘Hole in the Wall’ as we found them on the walk back from a tiny hamlet labelled ‘Hole in the Wall’ on the map, just above Ross-on-Wye.

As we neared the end the sun rushed rapidly down below the horizon, another classic Walk with Trees in the Wye Valley and the Forest of Dean.