Tag Archives: trees

Trees are Good for You

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The sun has just broken through the clouds, bringing a welcome brightness to a wet, grey day. I’m typing and watching antiques programmes on TV after a late lunch of home made pea and mint soup. Today has been productive and pleasant and all is right with the world. The only thing that could improve my mood is an invitation to stay at Blandings Castle.

So why am I wound up to the point of homicide?

Because yet again I’ve had to go to the phone to answer a call from an overseas call centre. I’m registered with the Telephone Preference Service but unfortunately this doesn’t stop the overseas calls and we are getting one or two of those every day. We notice them more that we are at home.

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Trees at Arnot Hill Park

As a general rule I try to be polite because the callers are only doing a job, but today I wasn’t in much of a mood for manners. I was forthright rather than rude, but I don’t suppose I improved their day. In fairness, they didn’t improve mine either.

As part of my on-going process of self-improvement I’m going to stop being irritable and start letting karma take its course. As I always told the kids, you shouldn’t let the actions of others dictate your behaviour.

From now on I’m going to stay polite and let karma sort things out. It’s just that I’d find it easier to do if I was allowed to pick karma up and hit people with it.

The trees are archive shots because if you want to be calm, trees are good for you.

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Sunset in Sherwood

More Trees of Sherwood Forest

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After preparing the last Sherwood post I realised I didn’t have a very good selection of trees. This was partly because I hadn’t taken enough pictures, partly because I needed to visit more trees and (to be honest) because I’ve mislaid some photos.

I can’t do much about the last point, apart from a lot of boring searching, so I short-circuited that by making another visit and taking more photos.

Sunset at Sherwood
Can you see the face?
Can you see it now?

It was an admin day today so we’d lost the best of the light by the time we started, but there was enough to get a good selection of photos. Many of them look like they are dead, and some are, but many of them will have leaves when spring comes, despite being hollow. Hollow trees are often quite vigorous as the material from the middle rots down and feeds the remaining parts of the tree.

Ancient oaks
Oak in Sherwood Forest
Ancient oak of Sherwood
Oak tree in Sherwood
A walk in the woods

Smaller holes are good too – providing nest holes for various birds and roosts for bats. The population of Great Spotted Woodpeckers has increased 400% since the late 60s due to a number of factors, including more available nest sites. Nest sites are important to hole dwelling birds.  In Sweden half of their Red Listed birds are hole-nesters who are declining due to a lack of tree holes. Meanwhile, Swifts, House Martins and Sparrows are all finding it difficult in the UK as people close holes in buildings.

Hollow ancient oak
Ancient Oaks
Ancient oaks
A path in the woods
Sundown in Sherwood
Major Oak

The Trees of Sherwood Forest

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When I say “The Trees of Sherwood Forest” I really mean the ancient oaks. At the moment when people quote a figure they seem happy with the figure 997 – 450 of which are living.  About 250 of the 450 are healthy and 200 are in various states of declining health.

They say an oak spends 300 years growing, 300 years in maturity and 300 years dying, so this isn’t necessarily a cause for concern, though in 2007 they did lose seven trees – including four in one particularly blustery night.

There is a plantation in Dorset that contains 260 saplings grown from acorns of the Major Oak, but it was only planted in 2003, so they are still 287 years from maturity. I know that you have to take a long view when dealing with trees, but planting for a time 300 years from now is hard to take in.

Oaks support more species than any other tree, being host to around 350 species of insect and 30 species of lichen. The insects are food for birds: acorns feed jays, badgers, deer and squirrels (and, traditionally, pigs) and the flowers and buds are the foodplants of the caterpillars of the purple hairstreak.

Even the dead trees provide habitat for insects, plus nesting and roosting sites for birds and bats.

Holding up the Major Oak
Ancient oak in Sherwood Forest
Strapping to hold an oak together
ncient Oaks of Sherwood

The most famous of the ancient oaks is the Major Oak, voted Britain’s Favourite Tree in 2002 and England’s Tree of the Year in 2014. It is something of a celebrity and will always be associated with Robin Hood. The story that he hid inside it is unlikely – at an estimated age of 800 – 1,000 years it was, at best, a young tree in Robin Hood’s time, and possibly just an acorn. Such are legends…

Here is a link to a site detailing some of the other famous oaks of Sherwood.

 

 

 

The Woods of Rufford Abbey

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It was sunny today for the first time in three days so it was off to Rufford Abbey with the camera and a happy heart. We weren’t the only ones, as there was a full car park and what seemed to be a coach trip too.

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I’ll put the bird photos up later, along with the story of the trials of bird photography and several hundred words of excuses for not doing better.

For now, just have a look at the sun and woodlands.

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The brick picture shows a brick from the Welbeck brickyard. Julia spotted it. She likes looking for old local bricks. Production of bricks at Welbeck Colliery started in 1926 and the stamp presumably changed to NCB Welbeck in 1947 with nationalisation.

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Old brick in the woods – from Welbech Colliery brickyard

Seven days to go

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Yesterday we mixed the Christmas Cakes (using a Mary Berry recipe) and tied up some loose ends. As the day closed it started to sink in that we only have seven more days with the group. It’s starting to sink in for them too, as the rehearsals aren’t going too well and they are starting to worry about it. I’m not sure why – we’ve never bothered with high standards before and people still clap and enjoy it. It’s about the effort, not the quality.

The dancing is making progress but the Technicolour Dreamcoat number isn’t going too well and we haven’t even started on I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts. Fortunately this is our Christmas party rather than Britain’s Got Talent so there’s nothing but enjoyment at stake. Having said that, if we did enter BGT I don’t think we’d actually come last; bad as we are (and I personally can’t carry a tune in a bucket) I have seen worse.

Kirsty, rehearsing hard
Lyrics

We’ve had a rest from pom-poms as they all made their wreaths last week and took them home (before I was able to photograph them). I just need to make a few more then I may make a wreath, or I may allow the ladies to use them when we visit the Care Home for a wreath making session (though we keep saying we will call them garlands – same thing but without the funereal connotations).

Then again, I may just concentrate on cookery for the party – I want to make sure we go out with a good spread. We have a plan for a gingerbread wreath so I may make that instead.

The group did the poultry work as usual and replaced a faulty drinker, had a couple of walks through the trees, found a dead sheep, made a few individual craft projects, put up some Christmas decorations and did the composting, so it was a reasonably full day.

Christmas decorations by Quercus
Ecocentre decorated for Christmas

As part of the process of closing down we have given everyone their folders to take home. Some of them are inches thick with things they have done while they have been here, others (depending on how long they have been here, and how industrious they have been) are not quite so thick. Even so, there are a lot of memories in those folders and I’m beginning to feel a little maudlin at the thought of breaking up the group.

Feels like time for a bit of Housman. Nobody does maudlin quite like Housman.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

 

 

You asked for cute…

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Second post of the day and it’s only lunchtime!

First we did the measurements for the Woodland Trust, despite the low temperatures. Looks like they need a bit of pruning but short arms and long pockets seem to be in charge at the moment.

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Then we took pictures of the new lambs. We have five now and, despite the dangers of stress we have moved them inside. It’s a trade off, but they’re soft lowland sheep and the snow could be a problem. So far they are all doing well.

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A tale of two taxis

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It’s been a tale of two taxis today. My favourite driver, driving for my favourite company came back from Christmas holiday today and brought me some Albanian lemons. He claims they have a soft skin you can eat and a flavour that’s a cross between a lemon and an orange. I will allow Julia to try first just in case this is an elaborate Albanian practical joke.

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Albanian Lemons

On the other hand, my unfavourite taxi company has just kept me waiting an hour and ten minutes because the taxi was late. One of our clients likes people to be punctual to the minute and the rest of them (several of whom have other things to do tonight) don’t reckon much to it either.

Me? Well I can’t wash the floor ready for tomorrow’s yoga until everyone has gone, so I’m not too happy either.

It all starts with social service trying to save money, so they take the firm that gives the cheapest quote instead of the one with the most reliable service.

Today, when they eventually arrived, we have had a lecture from the company. It seems it’s our fault because we should ring after they are 10 minutes late instead of waiting patiently for fifteen or twenty.

That, it seems, is what you get when you buy the cheapest service – you get bad customers like me.

Anyway, apart from that, we’ve had a good day. Everyone worked like a proper team, pruning blackcurrants and using the offcuts as cuttings, checking trees and moving the sheep to a field closer in because the accidentally pregnant ones (don’t ask) are close to lambing.

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One of them managed to get through the fence within 10 minutes – leading the pursuing staff through three gardens, over a brick wall and through a hedge.

Then the farm apprentice fell through a hole in the barn floor and cut his hand. The hole was, unfortunately,covered with pig manure, but luckily I have air freshener stored next to the First Aid kit.

So there you go, a day of mixed fortunes on the farm, though it has given me a good laugh.

Check out the Book Review page for a review of They Can’t Ration These – a guide to foraging in wartime.

 

 

Gone with the Wind

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It’s been a fairly normal day workwise – moving sheep (selecting a few for market) and collecting eggs. I had set myself a target of a couple of hours weeding, though so far this is still a plan. There’s a lot to do at the moment removing old borage, foxgloves and forget-me-nots. We’re also cutting down dead poppies and drying them for flower arranging later in the year. Then of course there are thistles…

The wind we’re having is good for blowing thistledown around and I’ve had several lots blow past my face as I’ve walked round this morning. I have a plan for them which involves my flame gun, though I’m having to keep it from Julia after what happened in our own garden at the weekend. It involved dry grass, plastic plant pots and a certain amount of swearing (mainly directed at me by my good lady). She’s having to rethink the dried grass part of the flower arrangement she was planning and I’ve had to promise to be careful with the flame gun.

The group has been out on the field taking environmental readings for the Woodland Trust between the rows of apple trees in the agroforestry field this afternoon – temperature and wind. It’s been a good day for measuring wind as there hasn’t been a shortage. (You can tell that from the way the butterflies have been having to cling on to the flowers).

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Talking of butterflies, we’ve had a Brimstone on the allotment today, though I wasn’t able to get a good picture. I took this one over the fence, then walked round to the gate, by which time it was on a sunflower. Those pictures weren’t too good as the wind rose at that point and it was difficult to compose and focus. Even if I’d managed it I’d merely have taken a picture of a butterfly desperately hanging on to a sunflower. It eventually relinquished its grasp and disappeared into the fields at high speed.

It was good to see as it was the last species from last year that we hadn’t seen this year.

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One of this year’s new species – Common Blue – turned up just as we were walking up the ramp to the centre – pausing to feed on the mint. She posed, with wings half open to show the brown inner colour, and flew off as soon as I raised the camera. That’s how it goes.

As if in consolation the buddleia in the back bed produced a magnificent show – two Peacocks, a Small Tortoiseshell, a Painted Lady, a Comma and a couple of Small Whites, though the two whites acted more like a tag team, one settling for a moment before being replaced by the other.

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The lead picture is a Roesel’s Bush cricket. We spotted one last year in a cosmos flower and this one (as you may be able to tell from the pipe and water droplets) was disturbed as I watered the polytunnel.

If you go to Resources then Insects, there’s a link if you want to find out more. There’s also a picture and a link to something that scared the life out of me. We have a feverfew plant growing from a pile of tyres by the verandah at the back. There seems to be a wasps nest in it, judging from the number of wasps disappearing into it and I was checking it out as it will have to go. I’m all for biodiversity (even if it does sting) but there’s a limit, and the limit comes when wasps build a nest with a flight path that crosses a wheelchair ramp.

Anyway, there I was, with wasps flying past me and disappearing into the tyre stack, when I saw something decidedly scary. It was at least twice the size of a wasp, with red eyes and an air of menace. You can see a picture of it and find more details on the Insects page.

Meanwhile the group progressed with their task of measuring 53 trees and, as you can see from the pictures, found a broken bird-scaring kite. I know that birds are scared of snakes, but I’m pretty sure it only works if the snake is on the ground.

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A small insight into my life…

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There are a number of definitions of the word expert and none of the ones I recall cast much credit upon the possessor of the title.

  • An ex is a has been and a spert (sic) is a drip under pressure.
  • Any salesman who is more than 50 miles from the office.
  • Someone who learns more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.

However, despite that I now find that I’ve suddenly become an expert.

It started last night. I’ve already said I’d do the apple pressing and more work with the trees but last night I was asked if I could help the farm apprentice to learn about them. It’s a bit like the blind leading the blind because my total knowledge of tree husbandry could be written on the back of an envelope. I was about to explain my lack of suitability for the task when I had a strange experience.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you hear the word “Yes.” and realise it’s your voice saying it?

Anyway, we now move forwards about 18 hours. It’s lunchtime on the day after the unfortunate “yes” . I’m  researching tree husbandry and diseases of apple trees on Wikipedia when the phone rings. It’s someone asking for a member of staff who recently moved on and is working abroad. I explain this and the caller says she was looking for him to ask him to give a talk on Permaculture for Beginners.

“Could you do it?” she asks.

For the second time in 24 hours I hear a voice say “yes”…I do qualify it by saying “If you find anybody better I won’t be offended if you ring up and cancel me.”

“I won’t do that,” she says. “I’ve already tried everyone else.”