Feed

6th May. I was really struck by the the arrangement of this fern's leaves on the forest floor. Taking a picture of it from a little further away I noticed flowers growing actually in the tree! A little higher up we have Willow and Rowan sitting in a tree. The children love being in nature. We have bought a woodland in Wales and have just begun the long process of putting together a management plan for a One Planet Development application. If successful we will get planning permission to build an eco house in our woods. This permission is conditional on us meeting ongoing requirements relating to our carbon footprint and meeting all our minimum need expenses from living off the land. One of the driving reasons for our choices is to give the children the opportunity to grow up in a woodland, immersed in nature. The last picture is looking above the children's vantage point to the tree tops. I love looking up to the sky through the trees. Bliss.

3rd May. On the way home from Hawkeswood we called in at Walkmill Community Woodland. We parked in the carpark where the Rivers Trust have placed their benches made of the recycled plastic from the River Keekle. Unfortunately someone had lit a fire inbetween some of the rocks there. I didn't think to take a picture before I cleared it up. I don't know what they had burnt but what was left was a lot of melted plastic and some larger sunburnt metal items. I cleared it up the best I could and then the girls enjoyed leaping from rock to rock. See the remnants of the fire beneath. I also cleared an amount of rubbish from the carpark into the bin provided. The view down one of the paths looking lush and green.

This is our mud monster family! The sand by the riverbank is perfect just now for modelling due to the wet weather we have just had. We shared our monsters on our local residents Facebook page and encouraged others to find them and make some more monsters to join the family. We can’t wait to see what others make!

In the woods, we have found a badger set, with the entrance cleared in the way that badgers do. It had long, black and white hairs outside it too, and, looking further afield, I noticed the toilet. Yuck! By Nansie

On our walks we often noticed on the rocks there is lichen. I think the yellowie orange lichen is crustose lichen; this means it grows like a crust. And the light grey one might be squamulose lichen it forms a leaf like scale. By Tom Macmillan

3rd May. After seeing bluebells in Midgey Gill woods I messaged a friend to ask if they were out in Hawkeswood. Our friends live within walking distance of Hawkeswood. Indeed that is where we met them for the first time. They have been visiting what they call "The Magic Woods" for over 30 years. Our friend said they had been there recently and the bluebells were out! Each year when we visit these woods at this time I am blown away by their beauty. The woods do seem magical. Like an idyllic fairyland. They smell amazing too. We had had weeks of sunshine and no rain. The stream which had formed a waterfall down from the adjacent field was now completely dry. More blue in the woods was what we took to be a Blackbird egg. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2020/05/identify-eggshells/

1st May. Another wooded area close to home. We walked round to drop off shopping for friends who would be vulnerable to the virus and are unable to shop online. Not far from their house are Midgey Gill woods. The children and I had walked up home from town through these woods a couple of times in the past. We had never spent much time exploring and Jon had not been in them. So this seemed a perfect opportunity for a Mayday woodland wander in more woods within walking distance of our house. The woods were so green and vibrant and we saw bluebells. Amazing to have these woods raising up from the edge of town.

25th April. The pictures say it all really. We had enjoyed this activity at forest school some time ago. I reminded them of the idea and provided an old sheet and a hammer. They did the rest without any further help from me taking turns and cooperating beautifully.