Army of helpers

June 11, 2014 Chris Lee

I've enlisted the help of some Gloucestershire Old Spotted pigs to clear the brambles and nettles. Time will tell on whether I've made a big fat mistake.

LIFE IN THE WOOD

Over the weeks, months and years, I am going to tell you about life in the wood. I will try to describe the crazy ambition I have to manage a woodland that runs alongside the busy A477 near Cosheston in Pembrokeshire.

Our wood is a five-acre block of cramped Japanese larch, wild cherry, ash, oak, alder, hazel, guelder rose, alder buckthorn and elder dominating patches of tall herb, grasses and natural wetland. In spring, it rings to the sound of swallows and redstart; in summer, it is shoulder-high in meadowsweet and willowherb with otter, heron and kingfisher all visiting. Come the winter, there are moorhen and snipe feeding in the wet thickets – if they can outwit the wiley fox.

I hope the material recorded in this blog will be partly inspired by the wildlife living on the edge of a busy road, it’s visitors and my amateur attempts at woodland and wetland management to make it an even better place. Who knows, let see eh?

I will also share some of the stories and restlnessness from my day job in my pursuit of new ideas, fresh approaches and better ways.