October 2024. Before the East Anglian Coppice Network could agree to host the annual gathering, we needed to find a venue. Wakelyns became that venue in so many more ways than we imagined. Huge gratitude to David and Amanda who were hands on to help create our weekend as over 100 coppice workers from Bewick… Continue reading The Gathering of Coppice workers at Wakelyns
Category: 2024
Longshop Saxon boat
An unusual element of this project is a fitting ending to our National Coppice Gathering in Wakelyns: they are using only the Anglo Saxon techniques and tools to create a replica of a Saxon long boat - most of which are familiar to us coppicers. But not a saw in sight. All based on cleaving… Continue reading Longshop Saxon boat
Covid and walk to Stoven Wood
Ah the luxury, the freedom, the unexpected time, the glorious isolation that covid bequeaths. Apart from the body stuff (temperature, dozy, vomiting, pathetic weak, dippy, sniffy) which will of course pass, the sudden gap that is given is a joy. Tasks are minimal and each one acclaimed as a miracle. My one physical task this… Continue reading Covid and walk to Stoven Wood
Visit from Small Woods, Graham Hill and Saved by Friends of Kaliwood
An visit from Graham Hill, from SmallWoods, linked me and the wood with our past again. He'd come straight from David Mitchell, who I see I visited nearly 10 years ago (the joy of documenting!) It was a pleasure to walk the wood and land with Graham, a very keen observer, and questioner. We spoke… Continue reading Visit from Small Woods, Graham Hill and Saved by Friends of Kaliwood
Land May – flowers
Recalling when Clive came last year, and assuaged my feeling of terror of so much ragwort, by declaring what rich variety of flora was on the field - after he came again this year I walked the field and found similar gratitude. Here it is. The dominant thistle (I notice named as Scotch bastard thistle)… Continue reading Land May – flowers
Sowing seed, rain dances,
I couldn't have done it without MJ. We harrowed and sowed in the same day, up to the 12 hour, mixing hand sowing with tractor sowing. BS Species Rich Wild Grass Seed (5 x 20kg - £143/20kg)1£715.00£715.00£0.00£715.00Crimson Clover Seed (Trifolium incarnatum) (1 x 25kg)2£86.00£86.00£0.00£172.00Phacelia Seed (Phacelia tanacetifolia) (1 x 25kg)3£114.00£114.00£0.00£342.00Borage Seed (Borago officinalis) (1 x… Continue reading Sowing seed, rain dances,
Spontaneous Hazel weaving in the wood
Returned one day to find the front of the pond frame had been completely re-built, and well built and well woven. Clare and her daughter had done in one weekend. Then Clare and her son rocked up on a spring day and continued the weaving, along with Peter, who'd rocked up just to see how… Continue reading Spontaneous Hazel weaving in the wood
Tractor driving
As I sat on the tractor bumping over the furrows created by it's larger cousin on last years plough, I thought back to that moment in Time in our Life project, when I declared my desire to marry a farmer, and realised that while this would never be fulfilled, I AM a farmer. Is the… Continue reading Tractor driving
Richard Fox to wood, with TPO news
By random chance he followed me into the wood. After a firm reminder that with a TPO wood, I needed to seek permission to fell/coppice/cut back ANY tree - or at least any tree born prior to the TPO which was an early one, 1949. Ah so that’s ok, we’ve just felled silver birch which… Continue reading Richard Fox to wood, with TPO news
Friends of Kaliwood – poems, fire, flint, paint, chai
We brushed our dust - Meg reminding us that the phrase came from a poem . Caroline the poet was with us and gave us the word Widishins - but I’ve forgotten the meaning!!! Leslie told us of the Plantation garden in Norwich which lifted her spirits. We meandered over to the field to view… Continue reading Friends of Kaliwood – poems, fire, flint, paint, chai
