Today dawned overcast, grey and cold. I sat with my morning coffee contemplating the pros and cons of heading out to the woods over going down to the workshop (which has a space heater), I looked out of the window and I realised it was snowing. Not "proper" snow, but little frozen flecks and another point to put into the "cons" column...
After 10 minutes of checking emails and finishing my coffee I decided to head to the woods after all. As it turns out, this was a good call! Once into the trees it was sheltered from the wind and a pretty pleasant working environment.
Armed with the chainsaw, axe and billhook I headed up to the proposed "easy access" top gate and started to work my way into the small beech and birch trees that have populated the old plantation area it was fairly heavy going clearing the old brambles and other brash, thinning out the trees along the "pathway" after about 3 hours, I had a decent width clear from the gate into the ancient woodland area that we will be using as the main camp.
All the trees that had to be felled are going to be stripped down and used for building staves in the camp. Things like the CampKahzi and a wood store will be constructed without using nails/screws etc. and will utilise as much of the felled timber as possible!
As the afternoon wore on I paused for a cup of coffee, from the obligatory thermos flask and shared a lovely moment with a little Sika deer that was obviously coming along to see what was being done to "her"woods...
The following few hours passed in a haze of brambles and brash and just as I was loosing the light in the trees I had the bottom access path cleared too.
After a long period of enforced inactivity thanks to the snow and ice it's really good to be back out in the woods and things are definitely moving on a pace for the coming season!
