Tag: woods

Firewood, Woodland, Working the land

The Firewood poem

Ellie

I thought I would share a poem I found about firewood today! Given that we like lighting fires for cooking, sharing, making drinks etc in our forest school sessions!

We are also completely wood fired at the smallholding here, a log fuelled Esse for cooking, heating and hot water when the solar thermal panels are out of season, and a small log burner in the lounge!! So useful thoughts for what burns well in those too, especially as we seem to have ash die back in the woods so need to carefully monitor and fell!

Also it’s now the first of September and officially the start of the part of the year where we can trim hedges, gather firewood for next year and do a bit more work around the place without disturbing wildlife with their young.

Woodland, Working the land

September in the woods!

Ellie

James and I took another walk through the woods to see what we could do over the winter…. The dog came off the worst full of seeds and sticky buds!!

   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   

Forest schools, Wanderings, Wildlife, Working the land

Forest school

Ellie

I have been really lucky recently and have been allowed to attend a forest schools leader training course!!! So much fun and it’s going to be amazing for my class to access and beyond in school!!! I am going to set up a forest schools area on the farm, as we have an established area at school, so my establishment module with its management plans etc is mainly going to be set at the farm!! But anyway the course…..

We had theory…..

We had games…..

But then we had lit fires…..



Lit Kelly kettles….



Shelter tarps rigged into shelters which withstood the wind and the rain and the hail!!!



We learnt knot tying… Square lashing, frapping, clove hitches, two round turns and half hitches etc…..



We made pictures about the structure of the woodland…..



And started to name and label bits of trees and woodland flora we found!!!!



As I said so much fun… But it’s going to be a LOT of work over the next few months….. But I am still REALLY excited and can’t wait to start using our school forest schools area and also weirdly excited to be looking at my own woodland and developing management plans and the site!!!! Even though it seems to mean mapping the whole nine acres!!!! I may be in the woods a while for that one!! I hope the ordinance survey shows up how steep some of it is in large enough forms too…. Abseiling forest school anyone?!?