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| The "Trident Tree" on the East side |
Due to a bit of a late night last night, and various unrelated injuries shared amongst us, we all agreed to have a lazy one today and chill out at the wood rather than work, so we woke the fire up after a few months soggy slumber and soon realised just how much we'd missed the comforting crackle and the smell of burning wood (if not the smoke). It wasn't long before the kettle was on and sausages were sizzling.
We took a good walk around the East side to see just where we might tackle the clearance and work out where the high priority sections of stream need to be. Some really beautiful parts over there, at least they will be when we can get to them. We followed deer paths criss-crossing the woodland and had a few hairy moments getting up and down the ghyll - one in particular had me and Tracey in giggles, with my hand on her arse whilst she scrambled for grip sliding down the mud banks. We thought it safer to return to the Yardarm for sausage sarnies and a cup of tea instead.
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| "The Beast!" - My new best friend. |
Feeling revived, Ant set to work digging out his per-visit-quota of roots in the Alder carr, which spurred me on to cut back a few more stragglers on the bank.... Tracey joined in and before we knew it our non-working plan was in the bin and another pile of cut brash was forming. Flee took this as sign to get the industrial chipper fired up; "The Beast" has been stood idle and empty of fuel for about 5 years now and so we were expecting it to be a little stubborn to start, but after some gentle words and a bit of patience, it was roaring and ready for action.
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Firebricks ready to make the clay oven base
and newly chipped rhodie mulch lining
the working area |
One chipper tank of fuel lasted, we think, about an hour and allowed us to chip an entire pile of cut brash, producing 3 wheelbarrows full of mulching material. We used the material to line the worst of the steps and part of the kitchen area where we will soon be stood to build the clay oven. The challenge is to build something big enough for a 14"pizza or enough potatoes for a decent Sunday roast for everyone. We have about 50 storage heater bricks to use on it and so we are aiming for a base 5 x 4 bricks, and two bricks deep, My task this week is to research the build, come up with the right sizing to fit the base and produce a materials list. The clay will be dug from Rais of course, but the wood-wool, hay or straw will need to be sourced for the insulating layer as well the sharp sand for mixing with the clay and also for making the sand dome mould initially. I'm looking forward to the end result of course, but I have to say puddling clay, barefoot in these temperatures is not something I'm keen to get started on.
