A day in the woods

This morning some general clearance to fields 4 and 5 which were cut yesterday - basically felling some of the trees and big beech boughs which overhang the field. Then I discovered an old route into the field through the beech forest (suitable for a vehicle) which will be useful if I put sheep in it this year as I will need to transport water, etc. After a couple of hours clearing some big trees which had fallen across it, it is now serviceable.

Next some leaf raking - crazy as it sounds I raked most of the leaves off the field. As it's surrounded by beech forest it was a LOT of leaves. But to give the grass the best possible chance of colonising (and it's doing pretty well) I need to give it some warm exposed soil (not foot deep leaf litter).

After lunch I tapped three big birch trees for sap - planning on making some birch syrup. Can't find the book with the instructions but have found some articles on the web. I need 100 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup! Trees are gushing sap at the moment but I might need to tap a few more and get some extra buckets.

Finally, I prepared about 40 fence posts, from hazel spars reserved from the hedge laying, to finish the last section of hurdles around field no 2. These were sawn to length then sharpened with the axe. Tomorrow I'll hammer them into place before starting the 'weaving'.