Sunday 18 May 2008

Pond life and first go using the basha

We went up the wood for lunch and the afternoon yesterday, and as it was drizzling, it was a good opportunity to try out our basha! A basha is basically a tarpaulin with loops sewn in along the centre and eyelets to fasten guy ropes to. This was the first time I tried setting one up - next time I think I'll use two more guy ropes and also change the way I strung the rope through at the top:
I made the pegs for the guy ropes from offcuts left over from when I made the stools, using a side axe to sharpen them:
More follows in the rest of the post, including new life in our pond and our latest sale of produce...

The wood's getting much darker now the chestnut leaves are out, especially on cloudy days:
I found this caterpillar eating a chestnut leaf, which was surprising as they're loaded with tannins and so aren't very palatable. Maybe it was desperate? Plenty of leaves to go round anyway...
The most exciting thing we saw was the pond - the scum has cleared off the top, and there's something green growing in it!
We're pleased, as we'd followed advice to not introduce anything to the pond, but to leave it and see what came to live there - so it's nice to see something happening. Of course, it is still used as a watering hole by deer and other animals:
We did a bit of work too while we were there, cutting up the last few chestnut trees that were still lying on the ground:
It was a good job we did it then, as a contact we made in a local pub last Thursday called, and came up to look at our produce. They're going to buy several tonnes of offcuts and bits of chestnut we have no other use for from us for themselves and their friends to use in their log-burning stoves. It's very satisfying to find uses for the produce! :-)

Mike

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