Last year I went to Lyon in central France and although I didn’t see the beavers that now live there I did see the trees felled and their distinctive tooth marks. The signs of beaver activity were in a park by the River Rhone about 3km from the very centre of Lyon. Beavers were hunted for their fur throughout Europe and became extinct in most of France. However in the lower reaches of the Rhone south of the Lyon they survived and have been recolonising the river northwards.
Beavers in the city of Lyon
Posted in Rewilding & renaturing, Wildlife
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Flood!
There were widespread floods in Shropshire this weekend and they reached right to the boundaries of Century Wood. I had planned to stay for the day but in the end I broke off early and went up to the Lilleshall Monument for a wider view and then to Lilleshall Abbey. Inundations aside, it was a beautiful sunny autumn day.
This first picture shows the view from the bridge over the mainline railway near Mill Meece, with a flooded field beside the tracks. A diversion had been put in place, but this led to a completely flooded lane complete with abandoned Land Rover Discovery half sunk into the verge.
Posted in History, Shropshire, Walden
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Concord and Walden in late summer
In September I was in Boston again and went back to Concord and Walden Pond that I first visited in March: ‘In 1845 Henry David Thoreau built himself a cabin in the woods beside Walden Pond in Massachusetts and started the process which led to “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” in 1854.’ In that post I talk about what Thoreau said and did, and here I’m just adding more photos and videos from September with enough of a description to identify them.
Posted in Forestry, History, Walden
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Summer photos from Century Wood
These are some of the nature pictures I took at Century Wood this summer. As a I mentioned last week, I didn’t get very much actual work done, but I did see some interesting things, including some striking fungi and various forms of damage by American Grey Squirrels. This first picture is a giant puffball, with a 50p coin for scale.
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Thoreau on Staten Island
I’ve done a lot of travelling this year and last month this included New York. Henry David Thoreau lived there for most of 1843, a year and a bit before he went to live in the cabin in the woods by Walden Pond that I wrote about in April. Naturally, I made time to retrace some of his steps and photograph one of the woods he probably knew.
Before we get on to my visit in August, I should explain the context. Thoreau’s mentor was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had established himself in Thoreau’s native Concord in Massacheusetts, writing and giving popular public lectures in a world before television and film. The town of Concord had a good road to the city and port of Boston via Cambridge, the location of Harvard College. So Emerson and Thoreau were able to get around and enjoy a cosmopolitan environment, whilst living within sight of fields and woods.
Posted in Forestry, History, Walden, Wildlife
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A busy summer – but not at Century Wood
I’ve not written for a while, being busy with other things. Moving house, travelling, building things for the house rather for than the wood. My visits have been to mostly to check everything is ok and to do bits of maintenance here and there. I recoated the log cabin and put more creosote on the barn. I did a bit more ride clearing, and looked for interesting things happening around me (like a giant puffball, a wasps’ nest, a woodpecker hole in a fallen tree). I expect things to pick up again now we’re moving into autumn and winter.
Posted in Woodscraft
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Tolkien and trees
Yesterday I caught the Tolkien biopic which is right at the end of its release in cinemas. Without giving away any spoilers, it’s set against the latter part of his childhood, time at university, and service in the trenches of the First World War. The main themes are his relationships with his similarly-gifted school friends (the other three boys of the “TCBS” club) and his difficult pursuit of the love of his life, Edith, but there are secondary themes of his fascination with language and hints at the importance he attached to trees. It reminded me of how he influenced some of my own early treeish thoughts.
Posted in Books, History, Poetry
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