Another glorious weekend - but today I have mostly been peeling bark

After some seriously high winds this week we were pleased to see that the new roof had fared particularly well - only the ends of the bark rolls had flipped over, but were still very much attached and undamaged. So Ant's first job was to put some additional wire onto the ends of each roll to tie them down whilst I set to work staining the new decking to give it a slightly longer life and help it to blend into the woodland - plants are already starting to grow up through the slats in just two weeks - at this rate it will become a striped green and brown decking by the start of the summer.
There wasn't much wood preservative left, so I used what remained to give the shed a little touch up, before moving to help Ant build our new "bedroom" in the southern bluebell section. We will leave the "in-camp" beds in situ for when there is just the two of us staying, but we wanted to build something more permanent slightly further away; we didn't want people to feel uncomfortable making any noise or movement in the mornings with us still sleeping right in the middle of camp... who am I kidding?... we just want to give ourselves the best possible chance of a decent undisturbed lie-in when everyone descends on the place in a couple of weeks time - kids don't know the meaning of the word hangover.
So.... we needed new stakes, new ridge poles and new bed poles to make A-frame beds that would hopefully last us a good while - so Ant made his from Oak and mine are half Oak and half Alder - which we now know is a hardwood which is great for making furniture for damp conditions. In fact the pilings that the watery city of Venice is built on are apparently made from Alder wood. Which is great because we have loads of it!
We used a tarp each to provide the back windbreak walls which will eventually be replaced with a woven willow/hazel screening - but we must wait for the right time to harvest the materials to enable a steady supply. So far I have only found two young willows and so we don't want to decimate them until they are properly established - but rather harvest a few rods at a time and build the walls over a number of seasons. Tarp is fine for now - it will protect us from the wind and rain, it's just a little noisy - but I'm guessing no worse than my snoring.

We then spent a good few hours whittling away by the unlit campfire peeling bark from the remainder of the Oak ready for seasoning and chair making - Ant is going for a Viking throne and I am attempting a solid Nordic rocker. Of course I may just end up with a stool - but I'm looking forward to giving it a go.
We left the wood about 730pm just as the sun had dipped below the tree line and the midges were munching - really really really should have lit the campfire - definitely NOT making that mistake again.

yellow archangel

Come Sunday morning we were back bright and early and I took a good walk round to see which wildflowers had come into bloom in the last week or so since I last looked - we now have pink Herb Roberts to add to the mass of spring yellows and purples. It's so beautiful I was overwhelmed at one point... down by the ghyll, where we first started clearing almost a year ago, the flora has been completely revived. Removing the thick evergreen Rhododendron and allowing the light to reach the ground, combined with the foot traffic churning up the woodland floor has created an amazing carpet of flowers of all colours, shapes and sizes - I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. A little bit of effort goes such a long way in the wild woodland garden - the rewards are immense. I can't wait to see how the northern section recovers next year - because the Rhodie there was impenetrable.

So after my little emotional moment I had a word with myself and returned to the campfire, where I found Ant stripping the bark from his Oak bed poles and the other pieces he had reserved to make his throne. The sun was shining, the fire was lit and it wasn't long before the sausages were sizzling.
My sister had joined us for lunch and from her single seat by the fire managed to spot a very well camouflaged small frog to the side of her on the bank as well as our resident (as-yet un-named) bank vole that lives in the hole underneath the bird feeders.  Kenneth The Second came over to say hello and three Buzzards were circling directly over our heads for a while calling to each other - noisy buggers.
Spent a glorious afternoon in the sunshine, chatting, whittling, planning the next few projects and marveling at the birdsong - all the while generating huge piles of bark strippings and quite a few minor nicks with the knife. Happiness is only a woodland away.