Feed

4.5 miles 1.30pm - 4.30pm. We wanted to 'fill-in' a section of our map that we hadn't been to yet so we chose Three-Shires Head. The weather was great as we left Manchester but got darker and wetter as we got closer to our walk! It looked super foggy when we were eventually parking up and we were worried we were going to get really wet. We did get really wet feet but the weather got better as we went along and was quite bright and warm by the time we finished - not quite warm enough for us to want to take our shoes off and paddle when we got to Three Shires Head though! We noticed today how little there was to look at - initially just grass, marsh grass, ferns and heather. There were NO trees! There was also a distinct lack of birds too. Early on the walk we saw what we thought was a Kite and later we saw a large group of birds flying together near a farm and later still some birds flying between the ferns next to the river. We ID'd these as meadow pipits. At the same time in the river we saw a Grey Wagtail too. Finally we saw the obligatory pheasant! As we approached some houses and then three shires head itself we did eventually see some trees (although they were mostly in the grounds of the houses!) The trees we saw and named on sight were: Rowan, Oak, Ash, Birch, Elder, Sweet Chestnut, Sycamore and Beech Trees. We also saw a tree we didn't recognise and had to ID when we got home (see photo of leaves). When we got home we looked some things up and thought that the kite we saw was actually a kestrel and the tree we didn't know was an aspen! We also named this thistle - a Creeping Thistle.

We got the chance to try using a flint to strike a spark when lighting a fire ⚡️ it was definitely not as easy as Kate made it look!

Once our dough had cooked in our fire we were able to taste what we had made! Some of us enjoyed the bread on its own and some added some toppings such as honey 🍯

Once we had a useable dough we shaped them into long thin sausages and wrapped them around some willow branches. Using the long branches to reach the fire we baked our bread fresh in the flame. Fresh Stone Age bread! 🥖

Using six simple ingredients we made some camp fire bread dough. We all had a turn at measuring, pouring, stirring and mixing to make our basic bread doughs ready to baked on our campfire. 🏕

To start today we had a discussion about the uses of fire, particularly in the Stone Age to link to our novel Stig of the Dump. After discussing how fire is made and ways to keep ourselves safe around fire we began by digging out a space to make a fire.