Raised the level of the pond another 18 inches or so

downstream view of Flee's stonework

took 1h15m to fill the next section!

Dam construction continues whilst Tracey cleared the junction of the stream, east of secret bridge; a truly nasty job since the junction was thick with bramble-tangled-Rhodie.  Sunday we continued up along the banks of the northern spur hoping to reach the deer crossing but not quite making it that far.
Bluebells are up, but not quite out yet. Still a little early, but there does seem to be many more than were around last year.
The bracken is also heading up but much thinner than previous years. We will wait another few weeks before hand-pulling again, as it snaps too easily if still young and tender. Reassuring to know the method is working though.

Tarting up for the spring season

Ant's done is back in at the moment, so Good Friday he decided to wander the wood with his metal detector to try to keep active, but not do anything strenuous... his first find, within 20 minutes was what we think is an old coin, slightly larger than an old penny but difficult to tell what it is as it's so crusted in crud. The metal detector says it's non-ferrous and after some serious scrubbing with brasso, metal polish and a mixture of salt and vinegar we decided it was not going to get any easier to identify and gave up.
Whilst he was detecting, I set about clearing a new path from the back of the hive down to the secret (now not-so-secret) steps, stopping only to make a scorpion sculpture out of unearthed deer bones which I completely forgot to take a photo of.
Spent a long while collecting all the fallen sticks and twigs from the ground around the area before moving down into camp and doing the same, filling 4 barrow loads of dead-fall for the fire pile.
Saturday saw more sunshine, so we were back again - more dead-fall tidying, more metal detecting and Simon was still digging out Rhodie roots. The place is looking lovely and green - leaves starting to unfurl and the grass is creeping further and further into the wood from the wayleave.

The bracken is of course starting to show again, but in nowhere near the quantity that it was last year - hand pulling is definitely working.
I took the spade to the steps leading out of camp to safety them up a bit and Simon got the strimmer on the grass bench and fire area. I smeared the last of the clay onto Cassius to repair a few cracks and swept the Yardarm - it's all set for the big Beltane camp now.

Yellow skunk cabbage and purple toothwort

Purple toothwort

After another enjoyable owners brunch 'n' brew in lovely spring sunshine I decided it was high time I had a bit of a nosey at the neighbours woods, and since most of them were around, it seemed like the perfect day for it.

Yellow skunk cabbage

Started with the furthest away, Wend wood, and a beautiful walk along the stream with Becky and Jude to see the escapees from Nymans gardens; first up was the purple toothwort, a parasitic plant that attaches itself to the roots of willows, Alders and other damp woodland trees, and soon to follow was the impressive yellow skunk cabbage - in full glorious flower (and not-so-glorious scent), also a lover of damp woodlands and waterside spots, it's looks very much like our native Arum lily, just much bigger, bolder and altogether showy.
It was apparently brought to our lands over 100 years ago and is likely to have been carried more recently from Nymans or washed downstream from High Beeches to settle on the banks all along Wend's borders. However it arrived, it's definitely made itself at home and is a real stunner in this season.
We wandered back along to Fallow wood where Jules and Paul were busy erecting a deer fence to protect some newly planted fruit trees and gave them cause to take a break and put the kettle on. We were chilling in the sunshine when Thelma and Peter came ambling down to join us. Thelma kindly took us over to see Magister wood where they string hammocks and camp out overlooking a large pond.
Everyone's portion of Blackfold wood is so different and it was really nice to see what everyone is doing and how they are progressing.

Mobile phone photography mild rant #1

I absolutely adore my Nikon and long zoom lenses that lose me hours in the hide at the weekends, but I also adore playing with the incredibly impressive built-in camera in my Samsung S6 mobile phone. So easy, so small, so handy, and really good for fitting in tight spaces and reaching a different viewpoint where my Nikon cannot (well not without trampling a dozen or more bluebells anyway). Yet I am struggling with it when it comes to the actual taking of the picture.

Wood Sorrel outside my bedroom

I'm not the daintiest of people and even less so when it comes to high tech gadgets and gizmos, so for its' own protection my phone permanently lives inside a fairly sturdy leather case. This may be partially to blame for some of my struggles, and I fear my left-handedness may also play a part (the case of course is right-handed), but I will share with you the problems anyway... you may be able to help me.

Holding it Steady

Primroses on the Eastern stream

I can hold a 4kg, foot long, Nikon steady with two hands and still hit the shutter release to take a picture...no problem, but I cannot seem to hold 0.2kgs of pocket electronics steady with one hand (or even two) and still manage to take a picture - the supposedly simple act of tapping the screen with a finger that's ill-placed and clearly doesn't bend that way in any kind of controlled manner, causes the camera to move quite some distance from where I frame it. I tried using just one hand to hold it and the other to tap the screen, with similar results (how on earth do the selfie-obsessives do it?). Is this a common problem or have the younger generation evolved particular finger flexibility that I can only aspire to?

Switching from landscape to portrait
When I want to switch from portrait to landscape with my Nikon I simply rotate the camera and continue shooting.... but when I want to do the same with my phone, the phone rejigs the screen and moves the shutter button to a different place on the screen. To make matters worst it always seems to be to the end furthest from fingers that only had half a hope of reaching it in the first place. Grrrrr. (and don't get me started about turning the picture upside down - what's that all about?)

High speed shooting
If I want to take a number of pictures in quick succession on my Nikon, I have a dial on the top of the camera that I move from Single to Continuous. Easy. My phone seems to have a mind of its own and can often take 10 or 20 images of the same thing in one go when I really only need one and of course the reverse is also true.... can I work out how to take more than one image when I want to? not a chance. yes yes yes.... "RTFM" I hear you cry, but really? does anyone? aren't we supposed to be in the age of intuitive operation nowadays? My phone certainly thinks it knows what's best for me... just a shame I can't tell it I'm a left-handed photographer who has already learnt to be adaptive through living in a right-handed world and so has no desire to cope with an adaptive device as well.

Ooh that feels better. Serenity reigns again.

In a nutshell... it's an Oak tree

Mark Moffett/Minden Pictures

When I was a kid, growing up on a dairy farm in rural Sussex, I spent many hours around Oak trees; climbing them, slumped against them eating lunch, or face pressed against the bark counting to 100…. “coming ready or not” ….and then I’d curse my wellies and the stupid tree as I raced off to find my siblings slipping around on a sea of acorns beneath them like some comedy cat moment in Tom and Jerry.
I spent so long with these trees I can still remember a few of my favourites… the feel of the coarse bark on our legs as we climbed, and the even coarser lichen as it dropped into your wellies and spent the rest of the day itching its’ way into your socks. A tree-climbing slip invariably ended with a few more scratches, lichen under the finger nails and weird green powdery lines down your hands and knees.
But in the quieter times (after a sibling fallout or when hiding instead of being “it”) I would collect up a pocketful of acorns and sit lobbing them out into the field seeing how far I could throw them and hoping the squirrels wouldn’t find them so far away from the parent tree.
I used to think the cows and all their ground churning were responsible for burying the acorns and that squirrels simply dug about all day hoping to accidentally dig one up.
Something so small, with the potential to be something so huge – my head just couldn’t work it out back then and marvelled at it often – imagining a miniature Oak tree inside each shiny golden acorn – some of which were big enough to fill my fist at the time.
The acorn could either be eaten (by a Jay, a squirrel or whatever it is that makes those tiny holes in the side and eats it from the inside out), or it could by some miracle become an enormous tree; a home to the squirrel, the jay and a million of those tiny hole-makers.
Who decides which it is? The cunning squirrel and his ability to remember where he buried them? The cow and her ability to trample them into the ground at the fringes of the field? or the Jay and his inability to keep them in his beak as he flies off with them? Well this week it's me that decided as I removed from the fridge a collection of acorns I collected from Rais last Autumn and stuffed them in a sandwich bag full of compost. I hope to grow them on and plant them back at the wood in a few years time when they are strong enough to fend off the nibbling rabbits and deer. Those I planted last autumn are already 6 months old and strong enough to go outside in my garden now - I'm interested to see whether those planted in the Spring will catch up over the summer, or whether they will always look 6 months younger.