It's Coming...

Scythes 2011

Yes that’s right; the main event for the foresters of the Wimpole Estate is almost upon us! This weekend is the annual Scything Festival weekend. We’ve been hard at work this week setting up and getting ready for the big weekend. All hands to the pump so far with most of us coming in on extra days to help out where we can and make sure everything’s ready to go.

As a bonus we have a work experience lad in this week too, not quite sure how he’s handling the chaos but he seems in good spirits and eager to help. Tom is his name and it’s not short for Thomas either, as I found out today! Jim was in on Monday to get the ball rolling and many of the marquees and our own lean-to’s were already up by the time I arrived on Tuesday.

With the boss off that day it was down to some hard work by Tom and I; putting up the other lean-to was especially hard going with just the two of us. That was before I was hunting around for another 6x3 marquee to fill a gap. After obtaining keys and digging the shelter out, not to mention pinching… er, I mean borrowing…the black nobs that screw on top of the uprights; we had it down in the main area ready for erecting. Or as Shane and I have been calling them recently – Nob’eads!

Despite trying to get through my list of jobs for the day (and picking up an extra one to help someone out) I actually learnt something too. Tom taught me the well used Dolly-Hitch, often tied to secure down things on to our trailer (why? ‘cos it don’t have no back hatch to it and things tend to fall out!). They’re also handy when putting up tents and shelters to tighten up the guy ropes.

I know it’s impossible to tell reading a blog article but I just wasted 10 minutes trying to find a decent picture of a Dolly Hitch! Man there sure are a lot of knots out there, typically all but the one I’m looking for. Ahh well, if I remember I’ll try and get a picture of one over the next few days and if anyone does actually have a photo of a Dolly Hitch then it’d be most appreciated.

Anyhoo, the rest of Tuesday was spent bringing down the pole lathes, shave horses, hay ricks and various odds and ends ready for when needed. Working with all this cut grass and hay does nothing for hay fever, especially when this donut forgets to take a tablet for it! This was made even worse today as for most of the morning (and some of the afternoon) I was raking up hay.

 

Hey, that's MY spoon!

With the majority of the main area having been set up yesterday, attention was now focused on getting the scything plots ready. The marking up and cutting of the plots in the South Avenue had also been started the day before but there was still the 10x10m and the 5x5m speed plots to cut.

 

Copious amounts of raking was also involved, fortunately our methods have evolved a bit since we first started setting the event up a few years back. Yep, no more scythed measuring tapes and wonky plots! Nothing but state-of-the-art equipment nowadays. By that I mean repaired old tractors, reciprocating mowers borrowed from the Wimpole Gardeners and Jim’s fluorescent lines of string!

So what have we got in store for the weekend? First day (Saturday) is usually the courses. Many of the scything dudes (Honestly, the best way to describe them!) will arrive tomorrow for the weekend ahead. Some will teach courses (I think Mark Allory is one, others I’m not sure on) while most will prepare themselves for the fight ahead!

The obvious one is the scything course, which I think our very own Paul Martin will be on this year. Go Paul! Look forward to how you get on in the competition on the Sunday! I think we also have the usual spoon-making course taught by the above mentioned Mark, as well as… er, actually check our sister site for more details!

Sunday will be the main event. Not only will it be the scything competition but the wine and cider competitions, spoon-making competitions; as well as sheep shearing demonstrations, blacksmithying and much, much more!

So stay tuned for the follow up blog next week, hopefully after we’ve recovered from the constant tasting of the cider competition! You think I’m joking but it’s true! Amazing how many of the judges ‘just had to try that one again’!

The photos are my own for a change, but from 2011. A taster if you will for the weekend…

2011 Winners

Back with a Bang! – Bodging at the Bodger’s Ball (Part 2)

Howdy all, and welcome to the second part of the Bodger’s Ball weekend! Running a bit behind still as the Ball was a few weeks back but I’m sure we (i.e. me) will get there eventually. Despite my worries about entry on the day, even with my little silver disc to prove entry (still on my key ring!) I waltzed straight in without being checked. Of course it was fine for those that camped over the night before, all snuggled up in their little tents, drinking beer and having a merry time. Actually that does sound like a good idea!

Shouldn't the sheep be round the fire pit?

That's better!

After gaining forced entry to said site and seeing absolutely no-one I recognised (not a good start), I decided the first order of business was being fed. Having set up the eatery the day before I knew which direction to head. One bacon and egg roll later and I was raring to go, although go where I still wasn’t too sure.

Fortunately Paul staggered up behind me soon after and after a brief discussion over his merriment the night before we wandered around, then began unloading the charcoal kiln…though now I think about it Paul and I got our breakfast after we met up! I suppose that’s what I get for writing this a few weeks after the event, curse my memory!

Mind you I’m writing this blog post on a piece of spare paper in front of the TV while watching the bonus disc of ‘Goblet of Fire’, so quite contrary to my usual writing style. Of course now I’m typing this up a day later I can edit things a bit. And also wondering why I left this paragraph in instead of leaving it out and moving on! Still wonders never cease, bit like the way I waffle on! Mmmmm, waffles…

Pole-Lathing... without the pole!

After that tangent, where was I? Oh yeah, breakfast! So just to clarify, if you weren’t that confused already, I was munching my breakfast biscuits when Paul walked up. Not sure what to do next then we walked over and got ourselves a bacon and egg roll. Free too as we’d been helping set up the Ball over the last week. Winner!

Aside from the vast array of Bodgers and pole-lathers (who I think are known as Bodgers!), there were those with other country crafts; more charcoal makers, timber beam crafting, our very own ‘Have a go pole-lathe area, wool working and most importantly the beer tent! Some of us were a bit shocked (mentioning no names!) to find out that the beer tent wasn’t open until 5 in the evening. Happily though the other bar run by Justin, Jess and Olga was open during the day!

As it happened Paul and I didn’t get much charcoaling done that day. We started off with good intentions, quickly realised that masks and goggles were kinda important so took a break while retrieving the necessary items. What usually happens when you pop off to grab something? Yep, you walk into more problems that you need to straighten out and it takes you forever to get back to your original task.

Lamb burger anyone?

Plus, was it raining? Oh yeah, it was raining too. One thing you can’t do when the weather decides to rain on your parade (literally) is dig out charcoal to put in bags! Though to be fair it didn’t start raining until after lunch. Which brings us up to lunch! We had a good lunch, provided by chef extraordinaire Justin!

Yes you guessed it the Trust eatery and bar were all in the same place, works for me! I have to say they did a mean lamb and mint burger, I even got a spare egg left over from the end of the breakfast service that Olga dropped into my open bun! Even better than extra food in my roll (well apart from the cost) was Graham brought Paul and I a beer to go with our burger! Incidentally that’s Graham I know from the wool working, not Simon’s father.

With the weather clouding over during lunch and the subsequent heavy rain after, we decided to shelter in the marquee set up for the wool working (Jean and Graham) and our own Debbie who was hard at work doing corn dollies.

What did we do while we were waiting for the rain to stop? Make a corn dolly of course! Encouraged by Debs, Paul and I got stuck in with a simple design of dolly. It’s not often I’ve said I’ve played with dollies!

My first corn dolly

Anyhoo, although it looks quite complicated it was actually easier than I expected. There are more difficult designs you can do but for complete beginners this one suited us just fine. I could be that we also had a good teacher helping us though,but I was quite proud when I ended up with my first ever corn dolly. Course, Paul’s was bigger than mine but as they say size isn’t everything!

Speaking of making things (no I didn’t carve another spoon, I’m saving that for the scything weekend in a few weeks), Shane was in the marquee with the charcoal bags making purse nets. The nets are used by us in the winter months when the ground is more open and we set about catching those Wascally Wabbits!

I think after the dollying and the rain we had intended to go back to the charcoaling but Paul disappeared to get a beer and I didn’t realise how long he’d been gone until quite a bit later! By then it was fast approaching the time when I had to disappear myself and by the time I found him it was a quick goodbye and I was heading for the gate.

From what I heard afterwards the event was a big success, everyone had a good time and many people had a bit too much Saturday evening! I should also mention Peter as he also helped out a lot over the Bodger’s Ball event. Even better I’ll include a photo of him and Debs chilling out in the marquee! Is that a roll I see you munching there Peter?

To wrap things up I’ll end with a final gathering round the evening campfire. Not sure if this was on the Friday or Saturday night but you get the idea. Pictures are courtesy of our sister site (you know the address by now!) since I’m still sans-camera man, or woman!

Enjoy and see you next time!

Back with a Bang! - I Love it When A Plan Comes Together! (Part 1)

Hi folks, sorry for the extended hiatus but rest assured the Wynpol journeyman is back on the case! Been a busy couple of months, what with christenings and everything else it's been a tough job finding time to write. Anyhoo, I thought I'd start off with an event that happened a week or two back. I'm talking of course about the bodger's ball!

On the week leading up to the event, all of us were quite busy setting up and making sure things were in place for the big day(s). I think boss Simon had organisation overload in his head that week as it was a struggle wrapping his head around the jobs or tasks he was gonna give us.

My day on that tuesday was quite hectic, which wasn't helped by the gusty weather we were experiencing that week. Especially when the lean-to shelters had to be erected! My what fun we had trying to haul a billowing canvas tarpaulin over moving uprights. As you can see from the photo we got there eventually and they were all nicely anchored down. I had to feel sorry for Adam though as the poor lad was struggling with the knots we were using.

Adam incidentally was a work experience lad we had for six weeks helping out in the forestry department. He was pretty good I have to say, even though sometimes I felt he was a little reluctant to get involved with the task at hand. Apart from that he was a good worker and did his best, bless 'im!

Kiln alight... check, tents up... check, photographers shadow out of shot... oh dear!

Also as you can see it was still early days, though lighting the charcoal kiln was almost a disaster because when we first lit it the smoke was blowing directly across Home Farm! Fortunately the wind shifted a bit so our geese were saved from cooking. By the way the lean-to's I'm referring to are the tent-like shelters you can see on the right, not the comparatively easier to put up marquees behind the charcoal kiln.

Other jobs at hand were the digging of the latrine, which I don't think was actually ever used during the weekend. Go figure. Don't worry, there were proper portaloo's for the women and those of a mild disposition. And yes in case you were wondering it is just a big hole in the ground! I wouldn't call it deep though.

Aside from the lavatory experience there were water taps to connect up; another "Easier said than done" task. Something we were still fiddling around with on the afternoon before the big off. Speaking of digging, twice I was sent off to retrieve digging tools (spades, mattocks, shovels etc) only to find that when I managed to bring back the items, the task they were going to be used for had already been done!

With the burning pits dug (courtesy of Albert in his tractor) we then stacked huge piles of wood adjacent to the pits for use on the day. With the timber trailer now able to be used the movement of wood across the site for various purposes was a bit easier. The timber trailer had been out of action for some time because none of us were trained to use it, not because it was broken. We don't break things that quickly you know! Well, not that often.

Aside from fetching the pole-lathing equipment and helping to put other marquees up, the other big task we undertook was the construction of the barbeque area for the official National Trust BBQ! This was partly done with the timber trailer and partly man-power - i.e. team forestry.

After careful manoeuvring of some kick-ass large timbers it was a case of properly fixing them and ensuring that they didn't move or roll over the weekend. Stakes driven into the ground on either side of the large timbers were enough to hold them in place. 

Mind that hammer Shane!

This is one of the smaller BBQ areas we did initially before Simon decided to bring in some huge timbers for the NT cookery area. Everyone is hard at work, hard work posing for the photo that is! Unfortunately we had just finished this one as Simon showed up so we had to look like we were still doing something so he could take the picture! It's amazing what perspective does too... Shane isn't really about to knock me on the head!

With most of the organising and setting up having been completed on the Thursday you would have thought Friday would be more relaxed. You'd be wrong though! With the main structures in place it was all the little things that needed to be sorted out the following day, along with the arrival of the majority of the bodger's from all across the country.

Luckily the new arrivals were quite happy to organise themselves so we didn't have to worry about them much. There was the odd problem while we were sorting out a leak in the water pipe but apart from that there were no calamities.

So how did the weekend go? Well hang around for the next instalment to find out! Promise it won't be a two-month gap to the next part too.

Oh incidentally thanks to our sister site for supplying the photos (and when I mean supply I mean "borrow", thanks boss!)

 

If you Go Down to the Woods Today…

It’s the start of a new week and what better way to start then by putting up a new post. Hopefully the start of brighter things this week too as last week wasn’t the best and I had a few problems to iron out (I guess I’m more sensitive to car accidents than most). Also why I’ve been a bit lax on the blogging of late but I don’t suppose you want to read about my woes!

We foresters have been working hard in the woods clearing trees in preparation for planting up as part of a grant scheme. Starting a few weeks back now, the first task was to clear the area and fell a roughly square / rectangular area. Paul and Debbie had a tough job that week coppicing the trees and cutting clearing the brash.

Paul contemplating his next tree

Once the majority of the felling was complete the next task was to clear the fallen timber out of the way. What, you may ask was I doing during this time? Dragging brash of course! As you can imagine, once Paul and Debbie have worked their magic and the tree is on the ground there’s still the rest of the branches and limbs to cut up and sort before we can tackle the main trunk.

Once a tree has been felled and de-limbed (see, technical term that!), it’s muggings here who usually has to drag the umpteen quantities of branches out of the way. To be fair I actually enjoy it and often I’m assisting Paul or Debbie clearing up, but hey, we have to be dramatic sometimes!

Since we’ve been working to clear a certain area the brash went to the edges of the defined area or in some cases piled around any oak’s we were leaving. The theory is that at some point we’ll enclose the whole area with a fence to keep those pesky deer out. If you’re not convinced about the damage the deer (and rabbits… and squirrels… and voles etc) jump over to our sister blog and have a read for yourselves! Those deer!

Me with brash!

With one half of the clearing, well… clear, we took the opportunity to plant up with some remaining hazel we had left over from the new hedge. At least I think that’s where they came from, blast my memory! One thing we all learnt in that week or two was to make sure that the trees were planted properly. I mean, really heeled in and make sure they don’t pull out again properly! Like Paul says, do the tug test! Certainly after the problems we had after the hedge planting, I think we were all keen to make sure it was done correctly.

Planting up with hazel was a relatively simple task: Just plop your spade it, wiggle back and forth to make a hole, drop in your plant and finally heel back over. Hard work actually after we did about 200 of them in the first stint! With all the trees planted in that half we used large tree guards and a cane for support, to protect them from the wild fauna.

With the first half planted up, the next task involved clearing the dead wood to the side for cutting up and dragging out the felled timber for cutting and eventually stacking. The dead or seasoned wood we cut into logs to supply the farm café since they have a new wood burner to keep the punters warm. The only problem we have at the moment is that they get through a hell of a lot of it in a week!

The dragging out of the timber was initially done with our trusty tractor and winch until someone managed to stall it while in the woods one Tuesday, not sure who that was, cough, cough, splutter! Hey it was going ok until the timber hit that hidden stump, so technically it wasn’t my fault! Fortunately Paul managed to get it working again a few days later and we continued dragging out and cutting up.

Towards the end, Simon also got John into the woods to pull out the smaller lengths and to finish clearing up. John is a horse incidentally not some elderly volunteer we thought we’d drag into the woods! Yup, a big ol’ Dutch Draft who pulls out most of our timber ready to be carted away at some later stage. The good thing is you can’t stall a horse! Although you do have to be a bit careful sometimes. For John’s latest efforts (along with Justin) in working, check out the movie clip on this link: John working.

At the start of the project we still had the landrover and since the weather hasn’t been the best in recent weeks we’ve been taking the long way round and coming into the woods from across a ditch. This was fine until someone slipped into it one day when going for tea break. Yes it was me again; you can’t keep a good clown down! Unfortunately this was after we put in a bridge!

Bridge over the river why

Without the landrover last week it was quite a trek with John down the tracks and across the field. Boy was I tired at the end of that day! Anyway, with the area clear it was time to finish planting up with newly arrived hazel. Of course to cut down on the cost of buying in tree guards we had a new task to undertake this time: Making the tree guards!

Basically they consisted of a plastic mesh that we cut to size (35cm circumference) and then held together with cable ties. After much experimentation we settled on one tie in the centre of the guard to hold it together, with two loose ties on either end to tighten up later when they’re in place. Fairly simple task in the end I agree but a bit daunting when there’s 200 – 300 guards to make! Like the saying goes though, many hands make light work.

By the end of the week, we had pretty much finished the planting up and aside from collecting the timber and one or two other ends to tie up, it was done.

Photos supplied by Debbie. Except the last one I nicked from Simon’s blog, sorry boss!

Now, what’s the next job?

 

New Forestry Team Member

This is a shout out to our newest member of Team Forestry, he’s just coming up for a week since he joined us and all is going well. It was a bit touch and go at first, his brother (or sister) unfortunately didn’t make the grade but after some careful nurturing and looking after by Graham and Olga, he passed with flying colours!

The first I knew about them was last Tuesday when we stopped by Simon’s sheep first thing in the morning with a couple of bottles. Expecting them to have moved on during the night, we collected two very cold little lambs! Wrapped in their plastic macs we bundled them to the vehicle, doing our best to keep them as warm as possible.

As we fed them in the warm, Simon pointed out the mother, which I failed to spot at first. All sheep look the same to me! Anyway, she showed absolutely no interest in her newborns and never even looked up when the lambs began bleating at the tops of their little voices (everybody, one… two… three… awwwwwwww!).

We had them with us in the Landover all day that day, feeding them when we stopped work for a break and checking on how they were doing. By lunch, one was perking up a bit while the other was still quite cold and straining its neck back (not a good sign). Unfortunately by the evening it had passed away.

Returning to work a couple of days later, I discovered that only one had made it since Tuesday. First off was feeding time for Larry (the lamb) in his make-shift bale home, which wasn’t that easy as he wasn’t taking it very well at first. He soon got the hang of it though and sat quite comfortably with Paul and Debbie drinking his milk.

Walkies!

After a hard mornings work, we returned to Larry to check on things. Graham arrived not long later and explained that he had been trying to get Larry up and walking, getting strength into his little legs.

It took some coaxing and lots of wobbling and falling over but we got there in the end! I think it was about this time that I was informed that Larry was a boy and not a girl of which I had been referring too all morning!

Still in his plastic coat (left) he seemed to tottering my way all the time, maybe it was the gloves or just the sweet words of encouragement.

Eventually though it was time for his lunchtime feed and the battle lines were drawn. Graham was in on corner with his freshly prepared bottle, which Paul was in the other corner wielding the warmed up bottle from earlier! In the end a compromise was drawn and feeding was shared by all and little Larry drank his fill on the fields of victory.

Feeding time...

At the end of the day both Graham and Olga arrived to collect Larry and bring him home for the next few days. With Simon away at the time it was feared that he not last long in an open barn; prone to the cold, foxes and anything else that may go his way.

Currently Larry is doing well, getting all the milk he can and enjoying his new home! I guess that’s one lamb that’ll do well.

Speaking of lambs, this weekend is the start of the Lambing at Wimpole, so if you’re in the area come along and have fun seeing the cute little lambies bouncing round the… er… pens.

A bit of free advertising for the National Trust there, can’t argue with that. Or maybe you can, who knows? I’m sure they’ll plough lots of memberships out over those few weeks to keep them happy!

As usual thanks to Debs for the photos.

Caption Competition

This was originally going to be included in the previous post but I couldn’t think of the best place to slot it in. So here it is on a post of its own! There is no prize for the best caption apart from the satisfaction of knowing your number one!! Enjoy.

Tree Planting at Wimpole (Part 2)

Several weeks have passed and the tree planting plan continues in earnest. As part of the project Oxford Archaeology East (OAE) where brought in to use the holes dug for the trees to see what, if any, laid beneath the soil.

This also drew the interest of the local newspapers who showed up at the beginning of the hole digging to report and take pictures. Even today I was in town and bumped into someone I knew and the first thing they said was “I saw you on the front of the paper the other day!”

The day before the local news arrived and filmed a short piece on the ‘search for the lost village at Wimpole’ that included boss Simon and our colleague Debs digging a hole. I don’t think she was very impressed as it cut into her coffee break! I managed to escape this one (but not the photo opportunity sadly) as Shane, Paul and I had scarpered for a brew at the same time.

Before everyone gets excited I should just mention this important fact. We aren’t looking for a lost village! I know it would be exciting and a huge crowd puller but the holes are there for trees not for seeking lost villages. Which incidentally aren’t near the hall in any case. As much as I enjoy archaeology, this was a secondary objective and we thought it’d be worth the look as we were digging up the lawn anyway!

Slowly but surely...

Enough of the media coverage though, I’ll add a link at the bottom of this post if you’re interested in reading the article. I have to say that the Royston Weekly highlighted the tree planting, so thumbs up for you!

So we assisted (or is it the other way round?) OAE in digging the 157 holes needed for the trees, which conveniently doubled as small test pits. I’ll be writing a piece about test pits on our sister blog some time in the future for you budding amateur archaeologists!

While OAE dug the sensitive areas by the hall (blue stakes), the rest of us dug the not-as-important white staked areas. A scattering of pottery, mainly Medieval was found in some of the test pits; along with animal bones and a reasonable quantity of building rubble.

Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been the greatest of late and although it made the holes easier to dig, the mud tended to stick to everything (being mainly clay soils at Wimpole) and everyone! It also had the added bonus of filling many of the completed test pits with water that then had to be bailed out before we could plant the trees.

Before I got to dig any test pits though, I took over from where Peter left off. Namely mark up every blue and white stake with an ID number and the tree species that was designated to it. So for a good day or two I set of with my set of maps and ID numbers and labelled every stake. It also helped OAE as they had to record any finds and the location of every test pit with GPS. It wasn’t without its headaches though as during that first week there were severe gusts that made map reading and ID sorting not the greatest of jobs!

Eventually though as you can see from the photo above, I did eventually manage to dig a few test pits. In the beginning (there was light!) I had started my first test pit and went over to check with Paul. I noticed he had dug up quite a number of animal bones and being both an archaeologist and an osteoarchaeologist I swapped so he could carry on digging while I handled the more delicate of the two.

The more I dug, the more bones were revealed to me and as I unearthed each new bone I began counting, calculating a quick MNI number in my head. MNI stands for ‘Minimum Number of Individuals’ and is used to work out how many individual animals are present at a time (more on this in the future). First there were two lambs, then three…and by the time I had got to the bottom of the test pit I lost count but I think I was up to about five! The photo below was taken near the start of my mini excavation and the board was literally covered in bones by the time I had finished.

 

Look at the bones!

It took me the best part of that day to finish digging one test pit (tree hole) it was that full of bones and even I was getting a bit tired of pulling out bone after bone and not finding the end of them. First off I was thrilled because I’d never dug a test pit with this many finds in it before but that had completely disappeared by the end of it!

After each test pit was completed, it was left open to be recorded by the OAE team and we erected a simple tripod of stakes to a) identify easily the location of each hole and b) to stop the general public blundering into said hole by accident and suing the National Trust for damages.

The tripods were Shane’s idea that very morning, since we were trying to come up with a solution that was quick and easy without too much faffing about. We did find it quite funny though when Simon decided to draw us a tripod to make sure we knew what the end product would look like! In the end work almost ground to a halt as we set out to work and left the technical drawing with all the dimensions behind!! Fortunately Shane remembering from scratch what a tripod looked like and we were all saved, well done Shane!

With holes dug and tripods up, we were well on the way. Starting in the east corner adjacent to the Pleasure Gardens, we worked our way across the park and up the hill to the wood belts at the far side of the parkland. It took a good while but after much digging and tripod raising the job was done! All that was left was placing a spiral guard round every tree; wire mesh to protect against foreign invaders (bunnies) and a metal guard to protect from the farm livestock…

News link: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Royston/Search-for-lost-village-06022013.htm

Thanks to Paul and Debbie for the photos!