Squashed frog

I felt bad when I discovered this as I was sorting out wood for the firewood pile. I must have dumped the birch log down without looking. But froggie is quite beautiful in death . . .


Got someone coming to do an Intro to Green Woodwork Course here tomorrow and I don't know anything about him as his wife gave him the course as a surprise birthday present.
Hope he enjoys himself !

It's a hard life . . .

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I needed a rest in the hammock after doing battle with a shed full of wasps (not the one shown here but the other one housing my treadle lathe). We hadn't got round to moving all the bee gear out and there was a super full of frames some of which still had honey in them - I'm amazed it's taken the wasps this long to find it.
I donned the bee suit, got the smoker going and got rid of them.

A nice young tree to ID

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St Alexander's Day

ALEXANDER THE CHARCOAL BURNER
Third Century

Dissatisfied with the nobly-born but unsuitable candidates for the vacant see of Comana in Pontus (northern Asia Minor), St Gregory the Wonder-worker turned to Alexander the Charcoal-Burner and, in spite of his rags and dirty face, chose him to be bishop. Alexander turned out to be a man of wisdom and is said to have eventually suffered martydom by fire.
August 11th

Had a missive from Peter Jameson today, who amongst other things is a charcoal burner, informing me that it was St Alexander's Day yesterday. Good luck to all the Charcoal Burners out there!


Going down to Berkshire this evening to give a demonstration to the
Kennet Valley Woodturners
there's a picture of a great little armadillow made from a Banksia nut on their front page.

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Rural rusticks

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Swapping recipies for rabbit stew - I bet !

Dick is a great character and hopefully he's going to help us to get a dog like his.
(shame it's not in the photo)

On the left is John Browning, spar maker (for thatch) - he's got an amazing cheap old axe which is so polished and shiny through years of constant use.

The dog is a Bedlington terrier x Whippet (like Alfred on Heartbeat) and it will hopefully be in October/November time.

We could do with some rabbit control on our plot - they are getting to be quite a pest. It's interesting to see the things they DON'T eat. Like foxgloves, daffodils, primroses, pine, hazel, acer, verbascum, elder, cherry or birch.
Everything else has to be protected . . .

Early bird

If the early bird catches the worm . . . what might happen to the early sparrow ?

I happened to look down the garden this morning and saw what I thought was a wood pigeon sitting on my chopping block.

Looking again I realised it was actually a bird of prey tucking into it's breakfast of . . . fresh sparrow !



Managed to grab the camera and took a reasonable pic considering I was on massive zoom and balanced on the edge of the window.

See earlier blog link to youtube vid to see our large sparrow family. When we had a look all we could see were a few feathers and the beak which some wasps and ants were already fighting for !

Anyone know which bird it is ?

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Blake Hall Game & Country Show

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Ultimately we enjoyed the weekend but it didn't get off to a very good start yesterday and the weather wasn't kind to us again.

Loads of people came out today despite the rain and it was a good big show with plenty to see for everyone.




There was a good dynamic in our end of the marquee with a lot of banter and camaraderie flying about. I was demonstrating making the priests and we did sell a couple - but no clackers . . .

Priests, clackers and hot pink

The priests . . .

from £25 . . . . . . . . . . .

The clackers . .

from £20 . .. . . . . . . .

Hope the punters at Blake Hall Game, Craft & Country Show appreciate my efforts in supplying the country members with some hunting and shooting artefacts for their delectation . . .

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