Snake!

Snake & Woods

Getting diesel the other day we came across a young man who felled trees. We spoke and he was interested in our wood for coppicing. We invited him over and we took a long stroll through the woods looking at trees. I learnt a lot about the wood and the things chestnut, hornbeam and other trees are good for.

On out return we checked the bridge over the stream for strength – it had to get a heavy tractor and trailer over it. The young man jumped onto the side of the stream and there was a load hiss. He had just missed jumping on a snake! His boot inches away for it. The snake was more scared than the lad, who had quickly jumped up again onto the bridge, was wriggling away, or trying to as it was stuck in some hardcore.

It was a beautiful creature, dark, over two feet long and quite fat. It had obviously just eaten and was resting on the mud in the hot sun. We stood and watched it for a while until it finally managed to escape. It was an Adder, the only poisonous snake in Britain.  So a good warning for us to watch out and to be aware one is in nature. Safer than the city but with its own dangers for the unaware.

Walking the Woods

Today the longest day began miserable but not raining. Both had had a bad night so decided to enjoy the wood not visited for a while. What a change the dampness and the heavy rain had g=brought down a lot of rotten wood. The paths we had made in May still held though and the wood once inside was welcoming. We decided to head into the centre. So much still really unexplored in terms of location, work and maintenance.

Found two magnificent Oaks surrounded by bramble and bracken so we has our first job to clear a space around them. Then there were two small spindly Beech trees within two feet of one of the Oaks and as much as I hate cutting down trees these two had to b removed both for the Oak an the ground around. They would have grown and caused too much cover and hence little light for wood life to develop well.

A morning well spent. On our return the scaffolding was begging taken down from the house so we can now sit and admire the PV solar panels without distraction!

Onions

Well the first crop of the season in bulk we had to harvest over 100 onions today as the weather was taking its toll in terms of them going  off and damp
First thing was tonight make a wonderful French Onion soup YUM YUM
The rest are airing out ready to be both eaten and stored over the next few months

look forward to the rest of the crop

Solar Panels and Wasps

Back from Italy
new builders etc getting on with the job making lots of mess but wires appearing all over the place - new plumbing going in.
hay is growing getting ready to be cut - need some good weather for that, hope it comes soon needs to be cut before it seeds.

The big change is that we now have an array of solar panels on the roof which will supply some of our electricity and what we don't use we will sell back to the grid. hopefully paying for the installation over about 9 years. The guys who put it up were great and did a grand job, even if it rained most of the time and e had to clear 4  wasp nests before they could really get going.
The wasp man ripped up off well and truly. saying it would be so much then when he arrived it would be something else much higher. People can be so untruthful about things when it comes to making a buck.


Now as it is a root day we need to plant out the leeks