This year's charcoal production is underway - made in the woods from the coppice thinnings.
£5 Per 2.5kg sack of lumpwood, ideal for barbecues and easy to light.
£20 for 5 bags, with free delivery 5 miles around Worthenbury or Farndon
Bags of smaller lumps are available for blacksmith forges, garden chimeneras and handy in a log burner overnight to keep the heat in (very handy for canal boat folk).
Also Fine charcoal chippings and flakes are good for blending in compost.
Winter seemed to drag a little and gave damp ground conditions again at the woods.
The end of spring had a couple of sunny days in succession and the cycle of everything greening up started again for the year...
Normally a busy time for me, but ankle surgery and Crohn's Disease complications slowed me down a bit.
Annoyingly, I had uninvited late night visitors to the woods one Sunday night. two men with dogs, hoping they weren't after the hares, as part of my management of the woodland is keeping the grassland and edge margins as an optimum habitat.
Anything suspicious like this (particularly at night should be reported to North Wales Police on the 101 number (or their email, as it's quicker and easier). The wider locality has had a lot of equestrian, farm and rural property thefts, so anything that helps build a picture to combat this helps...
Last year I was working along the edge of the footpath through the woods, thinning back trees to let more light as the rest increase in height.
The opportunity to add extra cuckoo flower and vetch seed worked well, as this year has seen an increased proliferation of these flower species after sowing and rolling.
Another wet winter seemed to make the west side of the plot persistently wet. Further investigations revealed a blocked and damaged Victorian land drain. Due to the trees, there was no easy fix compared to when the land was open fields, so a temporary ditch now runs to the central ditch through the site.
A further bit of landscaping at the west of the path, against the boundary was done at the same time to reduce uneven ground. Here I'm planting a circle of birch, with a grassy glade where I can turn the tractor around and further wildflowers along the edges.
I now have beehives on site, not mine but a local talented friend who is as passionate about bees, as I am about trees.
Meanwhile, the hares come to see what I'm doing...
Notable wildlife during May has been:- hares, barn owls and tawny owls, bats, foxes, buzzards, jays, bullfinches, blackbirds, dragon flies, woodpeckers, Canada geese (with young hatching), moor hens (with young hatching) mallard.
Lots of smaller birds I haven't been fast enough to identify. One of the important aspects of the diverse habitat throughout the woodland, is the smaller insects that are supported, these in turn being food chain species on a wider scale - all helped by the range of vegetation and variety of vegetation.
