August at Old Copse

It's been a month of entertaining visitors both in and out of the wood,  so not much opportunity for real work. Japanese friends said that yes indeed, Old Copse bracken would be much in demand in Japan, South Korea and China, both the emerging curly tops,and the roots. So you never know, there might be an Old Copse (TM)  bracken export start-up business in the pipeline.

Old Copse has  a new deer-stalker - David Abbot from Sparrowhatch Forestry -  Stuart lives too far away to devote enough time to the deer problem, and reluctantly decided that he could no longer help. There is  already one deer-seat on the Ride in OC2 , and David has put up a second one  plus a trail cam, in the birch clearing near the road. There is still plenty of evidence of deer so let's hope David can reduce their numbers in the coming season.

Mushrooms have arrived early this year, mostly ceps and bay boletes. Too many to eat fresh, so the annual drying has begun, to provide a year's worth of porcini to eat ourselves and to give as presents. The fungi is sliced, left to dry out for a couple of days, then threaded and hung at a south facing velux window in the loft to dry naturally and thoroughly in the air and sunshine. We've found via trial and error that this method works best.

This August there have been camp-fires, and cooking fires using the  charcoal we made a couple of months ago; children honing their skills in tree climbing, tree felling, axe-ing, and wood whittling;   small-wood owner friends enjoying the cabin in its beautiful surroundings, and exchanging ideas on woodland management. Its been good to share Old Copse with such appreciative visitors .