h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Fair warning - to anyone subbed to these journals, I signed up to the h2g2 NaJoPoMo thing (A87709062) which means a journal a day for 30 days. It might be a way to get back into h2g2ing. As of yesterday The Waterhole is back in true blue classic goo paint, it had gone a bit yellowish over the last few years. New h2g2, new paint, new start, no pondweed and I hope lots of snowflakes.

That's the mixed metas done, here's the load of logs http://public.fotki.com/h2g2Waz/for-sharing-with-friends/blokeintheroad/sundays-logpile.html - Sunday's woodpile. Half a day's work, eight man-hours. It was tiring, surprisingly satisfying and there's lots and lots more to do. This was the start of making a scalloped clearing on the track to get more sunlight down to the woodland floor. Hopefully, hopefully there's a seed bank of flowers and grasses just waiting to burst through in spring. The wood is beautiful but neglected. The hazel under-storey is getting old and leggy, shaded out by the high oaks and between the shade and the excess of deer there's no regeneration happening. Bluebells cover half the floor in spring, there are a couple of patches of bracken and some very nice ferns and foxgloves but there isn't very much of anything else growing at ground level at all. If the hazel stools aren't cut soon to get regrowth, they'll die. The tall oaks are a good 100 years old, some of them more I think. There needs to be a replacement generation of oaks, sweet chestnuts, wild cherry and ash on its way up.

So the idea is two scalloped clearings along the track, widened verges for some herbaceous growth, coppicing the hazel on a nine year cycle, cutting one ninth of the woodland area each year for nine years, and keeping the deer away from each coppiced coop for the three years needed for the new hazel to get away. And a pond.
The results should be a healthier wood, more plants, more birds, more moths, more fungi, more butterflies and a roaring stove back home.

Proper coppicing should start this weekend – it will be so good to get this underway.

*waves to Waz*

That's an impressive woodpile.

Hi Waz! Congrats on the woodpile, and good luck with the journals! I'll read them all and won't mind, don't worry!

NaJaPoMo update.

A year on! Twelve months takes no time these days. Proper coppicing of coop A was properly finished by its 31st March deadline and proper coppicing of coop B started three weeks ago. Coop B is full of distracting fungi. Like Witches’ Butter, Warty Puffballs and Amethyst Deceivers - amber jellyish, warty and amethyst respectively. Despite the fungal distraction, the rutting deer bellowing all around, and the baying pack of fox-hounds that rampaged past on Monday, two new log piles' worth of hazel, alder, willow and birch have been cut down to beaver-gnawing level.

Reading last years’ journal, I’d forgotten the two planned scallops on a widened track. They’re unnecessary as there will always be large newly coppiced patches in the wood. That first scallop is now the clearing for the tent/hut/shelter/shack. It doesn’t look much, but I’m immensely proud of its chimney. Can’t remember what it’s called but it’s a silicon collar set on an aluminium plate that protects the tarpaulin roof from the stove pipe. It’s due to the wonder of the world wide web that its existence was discovered and due to the wonder of ebay that the existence of portable stoves was discovered and is therefore due to the wonder of both that a hard day’s work in the wood can now include the wonder of hot coffee, baked potatoes, sausages and beans.