Took the boys up the woods, supposedly for a couple of days, but events ie an electrical storm last night, dictated that we just spent a very long day up there instead, youngest is not at all comfortable with electrical storms and the last thing i needed was a very scared 9yr old in the woods in the middle of the night, so we decided to pack up earlier than intended, anyway, few pics of the trip.
The woods that i have use of, shining in their spring glory, they are not very big, but we have more or less free reign from the landowner to do anything we want whilst we are there;
Eldest getting the fire going, he's turning into a real pyro these days
Fire on the go with the all important kettle
Youngest collecting and sawing fire wood, the trees in the background are all Sweet Chestnut and are the remains from the '87 storm
Eldests set up for the night that never was
and himself enjoying it
a quick nap
Time for a spot of lunch, the boys bought bannock mix and bacon with them for their lunch and wanted to cook it in a true bushcrafty way with a grill made from locally available materials rather than using the frying pan.
The two cooks at work
wasnt long before eldest took over though, he's a good cook and quite regulary gets in from school and cooks a meal for the whole family, no prompting, just something he likes to do
The fruits of his labour, bacon butties, bushy style
Youngest wanted to try something he saw on RM Wild food, so i collected the nettles for him and wilted them over the fire, youngest having a munch
After lunch we had a bit of poke round the woods seeing what we could find
Deer Poop
Butchers Broom
Wood Spurge, seeing more of this up here than ever before at the moment
Birch Polypores by the dozen
Anyone for a burl?
The woodland floor is carpeted with Primroses at the moment and the Bluebells are just starting to appear
The woods are littered with these holes, talking to the owner and his family they are old fox holes/practice OP's dug by the Canadians back in WW2 as they used the woods for training purposes.
After a poke around we headed back to camp, where the boys got the marshmallows out and toasted them over the fire
Eldest decided to sit and whittle for a while, is this not the pose of a lad who is totally at home in the woods?
Whilst youngest played with his hammock, this was very kindly donated by a member here after the lads previous hammock was destroyed by mice.
As late afternoon approached we got the message that storms were on the way, so the boys and I elected to call it quits for the day for the sake of youngest and got back home in the early evening, shame we didnt stay overnight, but there's always another day, as it was the storms got here at about 0330 - 0400 this morning and the lightning was spectacular, to my mind the decision to leave the woods early, although disappointing, was the right one.
The woods that i have use of, shining in their spring glory, they are not very big, but we have more or less free reign from the landowner to do anything we want whilst we are there;
Eldest getting the fire going, he's turning into a real pyro these days
Fire on the go with the all important kettle
Youngest collecting and sawing fire wood, the trees in the background are all Sweet Chestnut and are the remains from the '87 storm
Eldests set up for the night that never was
and himself enjoying it
a quick nap
Time for a spot of lunch, the boys bought bannock mix and bacon with them for their lunch and wanted to cook it in a true bushcrafty way with a grill made from locally available materials rather than using the frying pan.
The two cooks at work
wasnt long before eldest took over though, he's a good cook and quite regulary gets in from school and cooks a meal for the whole family, no prompting, just something he likes to do
The fruits of his labour, bacon butties, bushy style
Youngest wanted to try something he saw on RM Wild food, so i collected the nettles for him and wilted them over the fire, youngest having a munch
After lunch we had a bit of poke round the woods seeing what we could find
Deer Poop
Butchers Broom
Wood Spurge, seeing more of this up here than ever before at the moment
Birch Polypores by the dozen
Anyone for a burl?
The woodland floor is carpeted with Primroses at the moment and the Bluebells are just starting to appear
The woods are littered with these holes, talking to the owner and his family they are old fox holes/practice OP's dug by the Canadians back in WW2 as they used the woods for training purposes.
After a poke around we headed back to camp, where the boys got the marshmallows out and toasted them over the fire
Eldest decided to sit and whittle for a while, is this not the pose of a lad who is totally at home in the woods?
Whilst youngest played with his hammock, this was very kindly donated by a member here after the lads previous hammock was destroyed by mice.
As late afternoon approached we got the message that storms were on the way, so the boys and I elected to call it quits for the day for the sake of youngest and got back home in the early evening, shame we didnt stay overnight, but there's always another day, as it was the storms got here at about 0330 - 0400 this morning and the lightning was spectacular, to my mind the decision to leave the woods early, although disappointing, was the right one.
