Free Christmas Tree

In these troubled times everyone is trying to save money not least at Christmas time which as we all know has become a festival of rampant consumerism rather than goodwill to all men. One of the most expensive decorations people buy is a Christmas tree, with larger specimens costing over £40. You don’t need to buy a Christmas tree.

Many wildlife trusts and council countryside management departments will be running a ‘pick your own tree’ event at which the public are invited to come and cut down a Scots Pine. The 'payment' is to cut down more than one tree and leave those you don’t need on the ground for rangers to burn. The rationale behind this is that Scots Pine is an invasive species and has to be controlled.

So contact your local wildlife trust or council.

Fox Strike

 It is a sad fact that owners of chickens will at some point be visited by a blood thirsty Rufus. There is really no point in getting too upset as the fox is simply doing what foxes do. The best means of defence is to erect fox proof chicken houses which frankly is nigh on impossible.

We have kept chickens for some years and thanks to various defence stratagems which have ranged from barricading the hen house with branches to sitting up all night with night vision goggles and a shotgun, have never lost a chicken to a fox. That is until earlier today.

I went out this morning to clean the hen house and immediately noticed a pit under the electric fence, that was not there last night. I had a fairly good idea of what had happened, not least because there was a mass of bloodied feathers nearby (I’m nothing if not observant!). Having opened the house I could see that we had lost a chicken.

Tonight I’m camping out by the hen house with a shotgun to hand. Foxes do what they do and I do what I do which is to nail the bastards!

World Preservation Foundation

World Preservation Foundation

Interesting website, especially the section relating to biodiversity.

BASC - The British Association for Shooting and Conservation

BASC - The British Association for Shooting and Conservation

Coppicing

I like coppicing as it is not only good exercise in fresh air but also a way of prolonging the life of a tree and as a student of history I find it incredible that coppicing, as a means of woodland management has been in existence for approximately 4,000 years. Our iron age ancestors coppiced woods, timber from coppiced  woods has been used for construction for as long as mankind has been able to build. So an iron age roundhouse has as much in common with the grandest of Elizabethan houses in terms of basic support.  Can this be proved? The answer is  yes,  as any dendrochronologist worth his or her salt will be able to accurately age the timbers in a building and from this a number of suppositions can be made.

We can safely surmise that coppicing has played a part in significant historical events, many of which have transformed the world geographically, metaphysically and politically. What do I mean by this? Quite simply without wood from managed sources the world would be a different place as where would Romans have sourced wood to build boats in which they carried out the invasion of ancient Britain in 55 BC?  Would a man perhaps called Jesus Christ perhaps have been hung up on a wooden cross and had such a dramatic impact on Western thought? Would there have been a Peloponnesian War? Would the Vikings have built their longships and invaded England in 900 AD? Would gunpowder production, which was dependent on a good supply of wood for charcoal production have continued, leading to modern developments in ballistics? Thankfully we will never have to worry too much about the answers to these questions. Nonetheless it is worth pointing out to the sceptics in our technological age who doubt the importance of woodlands, that the Forestry Commission was created as recently as 1919, with the express purpose of managing woodland such that Great Britain would have sufficient timber to meet future wartime requirements.

What then is coppicing and why has it had such an impact on the  development of woodlands? Put simply coppicing is cutting down a tree and  leaving a stump or stool to grow shoots. These shoots will eventually become trunks or to the cognoscenti, ‘rods’ from which fence posts, rails and gates will be made. Even the wood that cannot be used for fencing has a use as it either becomes part of the deer/ rabbit defences erected round the coppiced stools or is added to the pile of waste wood to be made into charcoal or simply put in the log burner at a later date. The frequency with which trees are coppiced is really dependent on how big the woodland owner wants his rods to be so some coops (collective name for coppiced trees) are managed on a 5 year cycle, some on a 7 and some on a 10. I have even found a woodland that was coppiced on a 15 year cycle but this is fairly unusual.

In general any tree apart from conifers can be coppiced but some are or have been favoured over others as the properties of wood varies from species to species. The ideal woods for construction for example  are hard so varieties such as  Oak, Sycamore, Holly and Beech remain very popular. Softer woods such as Alder or Willow were used to make charcoal suitable for black powder manufacture, about which I will say more in my next blog entry.

This

becomes this

which become this after only one year!

The Landrover and the Collie

I know a dog called Wiz. Wiz is a 4 year old collie bitch with beautiful bright eyes and a lovely coat. She belongs to some friends of mine who run a dairy farm in Surry and she spends her time running round the farm acting as an inspector of works and woe betide anyone who ignores her demands for affection.

I was at the farm one evening in September being shown how to feed calves as the farmer and his wife were going to a show with some of their prime beasts and needed a network of people to deal with various farmyard tasks whilst they were away. So it was under Wiz’s watchful eye that I was filling water buckets, topping up feed bins and making up milk formula. Judging from Wiz’s waggy tail and smiley face I think I was doing a reasonably good job. The only slight problem came when my dog Winnie, a Fox terrier/ Jack Russell cross started to get a little aggressive. This was easily solved by chucking her back in the Landrover leaving Wiz to make cow eyes at my other dog Bisley, the Springer spaniel.

Wiz

I know a human who sometimes comes to the farm to help with the things that produce white stuff that humans drink, don’t like it myself. This human is a bit stupid but he always gives me a pat and takes me for  a walk in the woods with Bisley and Winnie. I like Bisley as he’s a handsome boy but Winnie does get a bit jealous at times so I’ll have to put her straight. The human drives a big red box called a Landrover. I like chasing the Landrover but the black round things it stands on don’t taste so good. The human always slows down when he sees me but I wish he wouldn’t as I can move faster than his Landrover. Nothing I like better than to race it down the road and bark at it. It hasn’t caught me yet and it never will.

Sometimes I demand that I be allowed to sit in the Landrover and the human lets me in. He thinks I’m being cute; the fool doesn’t realise I just want to get out of the rain!!!

Organising an open day

Many people who volunteer with countryside charities will at some point be called upon to organise or help organise an open day; the idea being to raise awareness of the charity’s aims and hopefully some funds. To those people who have been asked to help with an open day I would say DON’T. Run a mile, leave the country and change your name as it is absolutely not worth the grief and hassle.

I volunteer with a fairly well known countryside charity and was asked to help out with an open day. The format is usually that we sell tea, cake and burgers and punters look at a few cows and go home. This time I proposed that we do something different in that we make the day slightly more interesting and a bit more family friendly so I suggested we have a bouncy castle for the children, a ‘have go’ clay shoot and a beer tent. You’d think I’d asked the other volunteers if I could sell their daughters into white slavery. Never have  I seen so many supposedly intelligent people start behaving like kindergarten children.

Problems started when the other volunteers were told one of the main reasons for an open day was to raise funds. They didn’t want to do this as all they want to do is cut down rhododendron or maintain hedges. The fact that money needs to be available in order to buy hedgerow plants or tools did not seem to have occurred to them. To complicate matters even further the de facto leader of the group threw all his toys out of the pram and left in high dudgeon citing arguments over the bar as being a contributing factor. Since he was a supporter of the bar I was  a bit perplexed by this and even more perplexed when he flatly refused to tell me what the arguments were about. Even now I have no idea.

Still I thought arranging the clay shoot would be easy. After all shooting is a fact of life in the country and many people enjoy it so what could go wrong? Well quite a lot actually. The same group that didn’t want the bar didn’t want the shooting either as they didn’t think it was relevant and one person actually said they didn’t expect to see any animals being shot. I tried really hard to ignore the stupidity of this remark but made it very clear what my opinion was and explained in words of one syllable that it was a clay shoot – the clue’s in the name. I also thought it would be a good idea to lay on some air rifle target shooting, nothing fancy, just a few paper targets stuck to straw bales. This also caused a few raised eyebrows.

The bouncy castle however generated the most vitriol as apparently I was bringing ‘urbanity to the countryside’. What a ridiculously pompous remark and the person who made it quite clearly thinks that children should be seen and not heard and obviously has no clue that the word ‘urbanity’ should not be used in this context. Still, bless’em, they can’t be expected to know. On the day I think parents were very happy to have somewhere to allow their offspring to let off some steam.

So despite all the arguing everything from my point of view was ready, beer ordered, bouncy castle ordered, shooting coach arranged, police informed, safety checks done and license to sell alcohol obtained – hurrah! Then less than two days before the event the shooting coach pulled out as he had work commitments. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so had a large G&T followed by a G&G. Another coach could not be arranged and I was unable to accept offers of help from experienced shooters as they did not have the relevant coaching qualification which would have caused problems with our insurance.

The attractions on the day consisted of the things you would expect to see such as cows, burger bar and nature walks. I along with the mem., and some good friends was running the bar (read beer box), bouncy castle and charity merchandise stall. The antis, as in anti children, beer and anything that might be fun sold tea and cake, studiously ignored us and our efforts and made snide remarks. Hope they all get suppurating piles.

Never ever again!

On Shotguns

 

‘Pull!’ Bang, Pull!’ Bang, - ‘Oh Bugger’! The ravings of a madman? No me at a clay shoot and my reaction at having missed a very easy shot, with The Mem., in the background laughing like a drain! On this particular day we were shooting at the Cowdray Estate in Midhurst and I had just discovered that my Barbour needed re-proofing. Thus the fact that I had missed and The Mem's humour did nothing to improve my mood. Generally however I enjoy shooting immensely as it appeals to my baser human instincts, even if the quarry is only a small black clay disk. There is nothing quite like the satisfaction one gains from seeing the clay disappear in what seems to be a puff of smoke when it is hit by pellets from a shotgun.

Everyone in the land has the right to own a shotgun, subject to passing police checks on their background and home security, which does take a little of the romance out of the notion of defending home and homestead  against marauding redskins and various fierce representatives of the local wild life. Mind you in sleepy Haslemere the fiercest wildlife there is is the local neighbour hood watch coordinator and shooting them whilst perhaps  a service to mankind is not generally advisable. The term shotgun is comparatively recent, first coined by James Fennimore Cooper in one of his many stories of life in the Wild West, in 1776.

Prior to this date they were generally referred to as "scatterguns", "fowling pieces" or "two-shoot guns". Essentially, early muzzle-loading shotguns were identical to muskets, in that they were both smoothbore weapons that were often used to fire multiple projectiles. The shotgun has fallen in and out of favour with military forces several times in its long history. Shotguns and similar weapons are simpler than long-range rifles, and were developed earlier. The development of more accurate and deadlier long-range rifles minimized the usefulness of the shotgun on the open battlefields of European wars. But armies have "rediscovered" the shotgun for specialty uses many times.” It is a matter of historic fact that a formal protest was made by the Germans during the Great War because the allies were using shotguns in the trenches – oh how unsporting!

Shotguns are fascinating pieces of equipment for a number of reasons. On a cold day with wind howling through the trees, one can gain a huge amount of comfort from holding a shotgun even if it’s not loaded. They somehow take the user back to a time when life was so much simpler. No TVs, no ipods, no pre-packaged food. OK there was more disease and mortality rates were higher, but that’s mere detail! Unlike other firearms they are not especially complicated which means they are very easy to strip and clean, even for an engineering ignoramus like myself.

Shotguns come in many forms and cost from £50 for an old second hand ‘garden shed’ gun to many thousands of pounds for a handmade Purdey, Churchill or Boss. Our most expensive shotgun is an over and under Browning which I bought for the princely sum of £675 from one of the local firearms dealers. To me this gun is as lovely to behold as a gun costing far more and the smell of gun oil emanating from the gun cabinet promises many delights. The simple act of lubricating what few moving parts there are and running a slightly oily cloth over the polished stock is tremendously soporific and one can just imagine the craftsman who devoted so many hours of his life to the creation of a wonderful tool

Both of us believe in shooting for the pot, seeing no point in blasting away all day at creatures we will never eat – foxes of course are the exception! It was therefore with howls of glee that I welcomed the sight of a pheasant circling round the garden in early December as I wanted a brace for our Christmas lunch. As it happened I had my old side by side (£100 from a game fair) and a couple of Eley Number 5 32g close to hand. As the pheasant circled lower BAM! I let it have the first barrel and even though I say it myself it was a good shoot. The bird started to crash and with the dambuster music playing somewhere in my mind I did think all that was missing was smoke coming out of the back.

The bird still had a little life in it when it hit the ground but rather than wring its neck, I let it have the second barrel. It was now very definitely dead. Whilst it is probably now not PC to say so I like my game well hung. The bird ended up in the garden shed and a week later I went to dress it. The shed had that unique gamey smell which to a country man is nectar to the nostrils.

Unfortunately this is when I discovered I had made a bad mistake. The bird, because of having both barrels, was now more colander than pheasant, and fit only to be fox food. Mind you on the plus side the fox that had been bothering my chickens, if it eats the pheasant, has a good chance of contracting lead poisoning!

Pigs - Part 1

Over the breakfast table one morning in 2006 we were talking about nothing in particular when The Mem., announced she wanted to keep pigs. Bearing in mind we both at this time had typically corporate jobs, I in IT and The Mem., in real estate, this came as something of a surprise. Taking the path of least resistance I agreed in a half hearted way and assumed the whole matter would be forgotten – I had of course forgotten about the steely resolve The Mem., showed when she took in our second diabetic cat, of which more later. Several conversations and a great deal of persuasion later I was taken to the Trilakes country park in Sandhurst and was introduced by the general manager, Jackie, to various Kune Kunes. I pride myself on not being soppy where animals are concerned but when I first met Bubble and Squeak it was love at first sight. A deal was struck within 5 minutes and so the fun started.

Do not be under the impression that it is an easy matter to own pigs. There are a whole myriad of issues that need to be sorted out, housing, containment, medical care and of course diet. Having watched Gordon Ramsey’s ‘F Word’ programme we had wonderful ideas about going out and buying a nice shiny new pig ark, that is until we discovered just how much they cost. Nothing daunted a comparatively quick search on the internet, oh the wonders of modern life, introduced us to a firm called pighuts.co.uk run by James and Anna King who were pig farmers and who recycled their old equipment. Within a couple of weeks we had a very solid reconditioned pig ark for the princely sum of £90 plus delivery. Once this was safely placed in the area of the garden cleared for the purpose we were able to give thought to containment.

Now we both have a fairly realistic attitude towards farm animals, with exceptions such as the cat or dog, we believe they are there to produce or be eaten. That said they deserve a decent level of care which means plenty of room in which to move around. Kune Kunes, although small compared to other breeds of pig are tough and are quite capable of pushing over a fence. We therefore had to give careful consideration to the type of pen we would build; something that would be in keeping with the garden and strong enough to contain the pigs without looking like Fort Knox.

In February of that year I had been out in the garden on a particularly cold day planting potatoes in ground that had all the consistency of cast iron when I heard a friendly call from over the fence and was surprised to see a large ruddy faced man leaning on the remains of the fence between us and our next door neighbour Anne. He introduced himself as Mike Challen and explained how he was building a deer proof fence (poor deluded fool!) for Anne and would I like a business card, which I duly accepted. Fast forwarding to August I was glad I had done so as his was the first name that came to mind when thinking of the pig pen. Mike came to see us a few days later to quote for the job. A fortnight later we had a pig pen – now we were ready to take delivery of the pigs!

Kune Kune (pronounced Cooney Cooney) originate from New Zealand and their name is Maori for fat and round. This is fairly accurate, but you would be mistaken to think that fat in this instance means without strength. Kune Kune are quite capable of making a 15 stone man lose his footing and have been known to upend a fairly substantial pallet placed in their pen for their amusement. Added to this they are remarkably fast, particularly when there is a carrot in the offing! Theories abound as to how the breed reached New Zealand, what is agreed however is that they are not indigenous to the country. Polynesians may have taken them there as might whalers, sealers or people who simply colonized the islands. For the purposes of argument however they are regarded as being from New Zealand and anyone who is interested in further reading on Kune Kune should visit their local library or contact the Kune Kune breeders association.

‘Cooooon’, said The Mem., in a way similar to that of a five year old trying to wheedle some treat out of a harassed parent, ‘yeeeeeeees’ (I tried to make my voice sound like tectonic plates colliding and failed dismally as it made me cough!) ’can we get the pigs today?’ It wasn’t really a question so much as a statement of fact – ‘we are getting the pigs today!’ So seats down in our ancient Honda CRV and off we went. I must admit at this point that the closer we got the more excited I was becoming but I think I managed to hide it well under a veil of long suffering grumpiness.