Longbows, Red Deer Stags, Woodland Yurts & a Cloudless Weekend!

That's me that is!

Helloooo!

Well, I've been busy organising the Exmoor 6000 Trees project amongst a few other things! Above is me firing my new Longbow for the 1st time. Leo made it for me from an ash stave he bought from Chris Boyton. It's not quite finished yet & this weekend was about me having a go on it to see what adjustments need to be made.

I got a bulls eye!

Well, it fired beautifully! A longbow has to have arrows specific to it and I was using Leo's arrows so it was hard to tell what changes might have to be made. He's going to put a bend in the middle to make it more powerful and fit an arrow plate using some antler. After that it can be oiled & a handle fitted. Then I can ping ping away!!

Excitingly the antler he's using is probably from one of the stags in the video below. I found it a couple of yrs ago!

Yesterday morning I went tracking deer. It was freezing & misty but otherwise a cloudless, beautiful morning. I walked around the top of the woodland & saw nothing but tracks. Lots of them! Oh and a noisy Lesser spotted woodpecker! (NB: I could only see red on his head not his bum & he looked distinctively smaller than a Great Spotted Woodpecker).

Trying my best to stay quiet I rounded the edge of a clump of gorse and, even though I'd been looking for them, I shockingly came across the three awesome red deer stags above. They had spent the night in a cosy corner of the regeneration area at the top of the woodland. Initially I made them jump by being a rubbish tracker. I stood stock still & practiced some gentle breathing techniques to help my heart rate drop. I like to think it stopped them from bolting! You'll see in the film how they slowly mooch off, keeping an eye on me but without fear. One of them even stops to eat & have a scratch!

An incredibly powerful experience.

Another rather special thing happened at the weekend too... we picked up our Ger!!

Paul King & Zac of Woodland Yurts (I forced them to let me take a photie! Thanks guys!)

Paul & Zac of Woodland Yurts were enlisted about 4 months ago to build Leo and I a Ger. We've been finding it increasingly hard to work on the land while camping. Our backs can't take all the stooping and bending anymore so we needed something more comfortable. The times we go to the land to do the heavy, cold & exhausting work can continue without fear of ending up prematurely in the knackers yard! Yip yip!!

Woodland Yurts.co.uk

We put it up for the first time on Saturday, it's rare that you get to say this these days but we were astonished at the quality of the craftsmanship. When we couldn't get something to fit, instead of immediately blaming the maker, we knew it was something we were doing. That's just how much confidence we had in Paul and Zac's work! Everything fitted beautifully & with a precision that amazed us!

This is the roof of the Ger. The centre piece is the Tono and is made of English Oak, the poles are of English Ash. All hand made by Paul and Zac in their workshop just outside Bristol. I spent a long time lying underneath the Tono. To me, it looks like the Sun.

The Ger is 16 foot in diametre. We took our time putting it up as we were learning how to do it, took about 3 hours in all, it took us half the time to take it back down again!

The frame is just beautiful. The walls subtly curved for strength. Zac pointed out that each join in the walls was knotted by him & took him ages! Precision knotting! Well done matey!

We chose the green roof cover to help it blend in with the natural surroundings but felt it would be too dark to have the whole Ger green so the walls are white. Paul suggested we also have a roof light, so there is a plastic window over the Tono.

The picture above gives a good idea of just how light and warm it is in there. I fell asleep in the doorway soaking up the sunshine! The roof, because it is a dark material, soaks up the warmth of the sun and the ash roof poles felt warm to the touch too. Enhancing my fantasy of the roof representing the Sun!

Such a beautiful space, even without any furniture in it!

The little bender has a charm to it I love but the Ger has a warm energy to it, an openess that means it's now my favourite! Goodness knows how many hours Paul & Zac spent on making the Ger but I bet it was more than the 6 it took me to build the bender!!

Hope this post finds you all well!

Much love,

hen
xx

Christmas on the Land! Merry Christmas! :)

Hope you had a lovely christmas!

We spent our christmas on the land in the freezing weather and it was amazing! It meant that we had to build a proper shelter that could take a woodburner or we would have frozen. So we did and here it is...

This style of building is called a 'bender'. It's basically a load of bendy sticks, in this case hazel, woven into a strong structure that can take a waterproof cover. We used 6m x 6m canvas, made for us by Atwoolls, to cover an area of 14' diameter by 6.5' high.

After coppicing the hazel rods I poked them in the ground at the right spacing (-ish!). I brought them together at the top and wove them into each other, tying in the ends.

Then I wove a wale to stop the dome wibbling and tied in the cross pieces. The pattern it makes is soOo lovely!

The frame is so strong, I could even hang off the centre of it!

This is the inside after it was all finished, so ridiculously cosy!

We recycled a load of rubber matting to act as a waterproof groundsheet and covered them with foam sleeping mats for insulation. Then we covered that in some new, off cut carpet donated by family & topped it all with rugs.

We'd managed to win a woodburner from Ebay which was definitely the heart of the shelter. Would have hated to be in there without it!

Early on Christmas morning I was walking in our oak woods and I came across six stags. I can get so close to the stags on our land, they don't like you being there though and move on in a slow majestic way!

The video is short but gives you a little idea of how they move and how close I got to them.

This stag was separate from the other stags and it was clear to see why. He was obviously lame and very thin. I was sorry that I had disturbed him as he was in a very cosy spot. If you enlarge the photo you will see just how thin he is. It's going to be a hard winter for him.

For our Christmas dinner we had a joint of pork from our neighbours small pig farm. Gloucestershire old spot crossed with wild boar. Delicious! I cooked it in a Dutch Oven on my cooking fire. Which worked a dream. Much better than a normal oven!

Here's me in my outdoor kitchen where I prepared exactly what I would have in a normal christmas kitchen. Lordy I adored cooking outside!

To make my cast iron cooking dishes into little ovens I put them on white hot embers and covered their lids with the embers too. The Dutch oven is designed especially for this as the lid has a lip on it to hold the embers.

Goodness gracious me but the meat and taters were delicious!

Tah daaAAaah!! Maple syrup parsnips, stuffing, sprouts, taters and pork. BuuUUUUuuuuUUuuuuuurrrrrrrpppp!!!!

The next day we processed a large ash tree for firewood, that had fallen last year. There was an exciting moment when some of the supporting limbs were cut almost catapulting my pal Elliott off the trunk! He meant to do it, of course... :)

*sigh* sorting out firewood in front of the bender. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous.

Our new nest. Cant wait to go back in a couple of days to celebrate the Blue Moon & the New Year!

Have a peaceful and happy New Year!!

Warmest hugs,

hen
xx