A walk in the woods

A walk in the woods

A brief stroll around the beautiful woodland here at Lackan Cottage Farm, which was once bog, and has been cut over for peat. The birch trees are natural regrowth on the old bog, which has dried out significantly as a result of surrounding drainage and the trees themselves. It’s a beautiful place, full of life, and one of few pockets of such woodland in the landscape. 

The woven fence is finished

The woven fence is finished

So after a week, the wonderful woven birch fence is complete (at least for now – we have used up all the material), and it looks really fine. It is amazing how much birch was needed to create the fence, but now as we coppice the birch woodland, we’ll cut...
Weaving a fence

Weaving a fence

  Isabelle and Josiane have come from Quebec, Canada to volunteer on the farm for 3 weeks, and having spend days clearing and mulching young trees, they are turning their attentions to creating a fence from the piles of birch trimmings that have been sitting in...

Coppicing and horse permaculture

Since autumn appears to have arrived (and because it’ll take me weeks), I’ve made a start on coppicing over in the woods. Although it is mainly birch, I’ve started with an area that has some ash in it, to give the ash a fighting chance, and because...

Woodland wanderings

This is a really beautiful time of year in the woods, and I’m in the process of clearing fallen timber and storing it to dry. Here’s the entrance into the woodland, which opens into a great clearing, in which is growing one of the few Rowan trees we have....