Bridgewood pictures

See also the Bridgewood weblog posts for more about the wood.

Hazel poles
Freshly cut hazel poles, stacked in front of the wood pile in the Glade.

The Five Fingered Hand tree
This is an ash tree on the north boundary, covered in ivy and shaped like a left hand with a thumb (on the left) and five fingers. In the picture, three of the fingers are clumped together just to the right of the "thumb". The palm forms a platform about five feet off the ground, and the fingers make it a good climbing tree as they lean over the stream.

Picnic tables in the Glade
No more sitting on logs! (ok, and one of those fold up chairs they sell at motorway services....)

Car parking / hard standing area
This area has now been surfaced with hardcore, and is big enough for a dozen or so cars, but can also accommodate trailers and vans, or be used for storing whole tree trunks. Last year this area was densely populated, as it's surroundings still are. I cleared it at the start of spring, and this video shows one of the trees coming down. There were trees every few metres at that point, with lots of shrubs and smaller trees growing during the summers.

Digger bucket and tree stump regrowing
The bucket from a JCB during the clearing and surfacing of the parking / hard standing area. To the right you can see one of the tree stumps, right on the corner, and it's already started regrowing. In a couple of years time it will be a bush, and then a small tree with several trunks.

Glider cart at Bridgewood
http://www.bridgewood.org.uk/glider/ has details about building this cart, including pictures and measurements.

Deer footprint

Part of the Middle Ride
I'm now working on clearing the start of the Middle Ride for vehicle access, especially in the area where there will be space to park, maybe keep a trailer, and store any equipment or materials coming or going from the site. As with the Glade, I'm cutting the trunks up into sections, using them to mark the edges, and stacking the smaller branches beyond them. This picture is also mentioned in this weblog post.

The Glade in March
The Glade starting to come to life, with the ground that was trampled during felling and clearing now turning green again. The contrast with the view from January is striking. This picture is also mentioned in this weblog post.

Green shoots ... at Bridgewood at least
No green shoots in the economy yet, but it was a sunny spring day in Bridgewood today and the ground has a scattering of new growth. The red shape in the bottom-left corner is Scarlet Elf Cup, a type of mushroom that grows on decaying wood, and also comes out in spring.

Rabbit footprints in the snow

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