Last weekend I employed Matt Waller and Roy (the horse) as horseloggers to help extract oak boards which we had milled in a Hertfordshire woodland using an Alaskan chainsaw.  The opportunity arose because the manager of the wood had felled a few of the oaks so that he could grow more hazel coppice.  We were part of a trend towards keeping traditional skills alive - horselogging in the UK almost died out in the 1960s and 1970s, but it was saved by enthusiasts and is now becoming quite popular. Getting timber out of your wood like this creates much less compaction of the soil Read more...

Generally, speaking plants obtain the nutrients that they need from the soil - through their root systems.   However, some soils are low in particular nutrients (especially nitrate - the source of nitrogen needed for organic compounds like amino acids and proteins).  Some plants have ‘solved’ this problem by being carnivorous - feeding on / digesting small arthropods, such as spiders (arachnids), beetles, ants, flies etc (insects). Some carnivorous plants, such as the sundews (Drosera sp.) catch insects with the sticky glands on their modified leaves.  Their name refers to the glistening drops of sticky mucilage on the tip of each gland (see featured image). Read more...

It's worth watching the latest Star Wars movie just for the woodlands scenes, but it's best to view the film in 3D.  Somewhat reminiscent of the forest scenes in the film Avatar, the characters retreat to the woodlands to escape from the endless rounds of shooting and whizzy intergalactic travel.  The first of these woodland scenes is full of ferns, mosses and creepers in an obviously deciduous woodland which turns out to be the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.  This is also said to be the forest that inspired JRR Tolkien's "Middle Earth" vision.  The Stars Wars heroine Rey escapes to the forest where fighters from the evil empire "First Order" don't expect her to be and even when they do start pursuing her in the undergrowth there are lots of craggy rocks and places to hide.  It feels a long way from the planet Jakku, and indeed it is - because the Jakku desert scenes were filmed in Abu Dhabi. But woodlands play a wider role in "The Force Awakens" as they are used to symbolise peace and tranquility and a secure earth in a universe of danger and explosions.  At one point as a green planet is approached, Rey says, wide-eyed, "I didn't think there was this much green in the whole galaxy".   Much of the green is in fact the woodlands around Derwent Water and Ullswater in the Lake District where a whole slew of the filming took place. Read more...

With any machine a good maintenance schedule is vital. So here I will run through the checks I do on my strimmer. Spark Plug Firstly I remove and check the colour of the end, to see how the fuel is burning in the chamber. The working end of the spark plug should a nice biscuit brown. Its useful to then clean up the working end with some light grit sandpaper or replace the plug if necessary. Read more...

Wood is the fibrous (but porous) structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and shrubs.   For many thousands of years, it has been used as a fuel and a construction material e.g. cruck framed barns.  It is an organic material that is a mix of three different compounds:- Read more...

As a wood turner, it becomes more cost effective to produce your own turning wood to your own requirements. Here is a short description of how I produce two styles of blanks. First of all this can be done at any stage of the woods drying process. To begin with,  I take the log and cut it into three pieces. Two edge pieces and a thin board containing the pith. It is vital to remove the pith as this will help to reduce spitting as the wood shrinks with drying. I have found the easiest way of cutting a log for this purpose is to cut down through the bark lengthways, as opposed to turning the log onto its flat end and cutting through endgrain. This is because saws prefer to cut with the grain .        Read more...

The records of many hundreds of ‘amateur biologists’ over some forty years have been analysed in depth by Dr Tom Oliver (Reading University) and Professor James Bullock (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) to create a report on the state of our wildlife and how it has changed.  They analysed the records / data of some 4000 species - plant and animal, across the U.K. It is clear that many species have not fared well in recent times.   Animals that provide 'ecosystem services' such as pollination and pest control have undergone significant declines - for example , bees, moths, hoverflies and butterflies.   This is also true for hedgehogs - whose numbers have dropped dramatically in recent times.  The annual Big Garden Birdwatch (this weekend) has revealed that the numbers of some species, such as starlings and song thrushes, have dropped by 70% or more.  The RSPB has suggested that the numbers recorded in gardens this weekend might be lower than in some years - but this would because there is more food available in the countryside, so that the birds are less reliant on feeding stations in gardens. Last December was not only one of the wettest on record, but also one of the warmest.   Read more...

In recent years, the BSBI has conducted a plant hunt to see which plants are in bloom at the start of the New Year -  across the U.K.   Some 612 different species were recorded in flower this year (compared to 368 species last year), but the most commonly recorded species in flower were daisies and dandelions.  Dandelions are deep rooted, perennial plants; they are native to most temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere, though they have spread to many other places.  The dandelion genus, Taraxacum,  contains a number of species but Taraxacum officinale is probably the most common. Dandelions are to be found in lawns, on roadsides, on disturbed banks, river banks and other areas with moist soils - they are often regarded as pernicious weeds.  Young plants can grow with considerable force, and make their way through surface like asphalt.  Dandelions often reproduce by apomixis - a sort of sub-sexual system that has resulted in some 200+ microspecies in the U.K.   Many of these have been recognised and classified by Professor John Richards.   Read more...