Wednesday, 29 September 2010 16:59

We had a most wonderful day out at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum this weekend. There is so much to see and do at there that a day never seems long enough. The buildings are just amazing and really do provide a way to step back in time and reconnect with our ancestors and certainly help me to complete the mental images I have of how our forebears used to live.

Friday, 17 September 2010 18:32

I do sometimes wonder if the trees are talking especially when I am sleeping in the woods. I find the groans and creaks very soothing and I always imagine what a tree would say if it could tell me of its life. Look at a fine old veteran tree near where you live and imagine the many changes of season and how the landscape might have looked when that ancient tree was a mere sapling!

Sunday, 12 September 2010 12:02

Having spent many occasions watching foxes (Vulpes vulpes) it never ceases to astound me how diverse their diet can be. I have often seen them hunting small mammals in the snow crusted fields, listening intently to their prey before pouncing.

Foxes like to do their toilet and deposit the faeces, or scat, on raised areas so that their scent is spread further by the wind. I’ve often found fresh scat on the large round bails the day after the bailer has been round – they are never shy to miss an opportunity.

Sunday, 05 September 2010 09:34

As one of the most common trees in the United Kingdom it comes as no surprise that the ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) graces nearly all of our local woodlands here in Mid-Kent. The ash tree not only provides us with excellent wood for making craft items, tool handles, furniture, etc. but it also provides us with pendulous clusters of seeds, called keys, which we can pickle. For best results the ash keys are best harvested before they develop “stringy” fibres - so there is only a small window of opportunity to harvest them at their best, we tested ours by snapping them.