Hobnobbing with strawberries

I've had strawberries with my homemade muesli every day this week and today I picked another bowl of them from our little strawberry patch and a few raspberries as well.


John the blacksmith came round for tea after working at his forge at TIlford and obviously I was thinking strawberries and cream, or at least creme fraiche. But Alison was thinking Hobnobs. After she had an inspirational moment, Alison decided on strawberry Hobnobs. Simples!


I may need to go out and buy some more creme fraiche and Hobnobs tomorrow.

Polelathe - The lathe that John built

Some time ago, back in January I think, I spent a day introducing polelathe turning to some of the practical habitat management course at Merrist Wood college. I always think it a success if the day generates enthusiasm for greenwood working and it's a real bonus if I can start people down the path of building their own shave horse and/or lathe. So it was with pleasure that I learnt a couple of weeks later that John had already built his shave horse and would soon finish the lathe.

He kindly sent me some photos of the shave horse and the lathe.

All that beautiful clean wood. Very nicely built John. They always look better than mine, but then I did raid a skip for my timber. But that lawn looks suspicously like it's never had a shaving on it in its life! That was some time ago now, so hopefully your borders and lawn, not to mention the carpets indoors, will be suitably mulched with wood shavings! I know from experience that this is an inevitable but not universally popular consequence of taking up polelathe turning.

I Look forward to catching up with you soon, and if you are coming to the Coppice Group open day, next weekend, bring it along.

What We Did On Our Holiday - or the 5th West Country Scythe Festival

Warning - a long post, mainly concerned with scything. So if it's not your thing, you might want to just flick through the photos instead.

I first used a scythe as a teenager on holiday on a Welsh hill farm to clear bracken from steep fields. Some decades later I started to use a scythe again for clearing bracken, this time on lowland heath. I've been using it now for 2 or 3 years and it's a key part of our changing from spraying to managing bracken without chemicals.

So once again it was time to go scything on holiday, this time to find out just how I should be doing it.


On Saturday 13th June a motley crew of almost 50 would-be scythers assembled on the festival field at Thorney Lakes near Muchelney on the Somerset Levels. After some desultory attempts at organisation we grouped into beginners, improvers, don't knows and 'don't know if we don't knows' to start a day of demonstrations, tuition, talks and plenty of mowing. England's largest ever scythe course was underway.


Before long we were tucking into the grass, this area needed to be cut as it would be a part of the craft area on Sunday. In the foreground Roy demonstrates his sharpening skill whilst in the background an assortment of beginners, improvers and don't knows mow the grass.



George was a fellow 'don't know', but his height and mowing style soon set him apart from the rest of us. George understands the meaning of a close shave. George's snathe (handle) is specially made by Andy from English ash, steam bent - possibly the largest snathe in England.





In between boughts of mowing and repair the scythes rested on the rack. The majority of these snathes are Swiss made adjustable handles in ash which makes them very light and comfortable to work with. Increasingly English snathes are starting to be made and as demand grows I think they will become popular.




Meanwhilst by the big tent housing the scythe shop an area for sharpening and remedial work on scythe blades was soon established.



I started using a blade which had seen better days. Although reasonably sharp in places, jagged rents in the blade recorded its encounters with recalcitrant birch saplings and stones on the Lynchmere commons whilst scything bracken.


Here Roy demonstrates how the edge of the scythe blade is peened, or cold hammered, to create a wafer thin, razor sharp edge. The Austrian blades we are using are forged from a single piece of Sheffield steel. Unlike the traditional English blades, which are generally high carbon steel blades riveted on to a much thicker mild steel backing, the Austrian blades are much thinner. This gives two huge advantages, they are much lighter (and easier to use all day) and much thinner, so they can be sharpened to a razor edge more easily. But they are susceptible to damage, hence the emphasis on sharpening and repair.

Those who remember scything as very hard work are probably right. It seems to me that English scythes are heavy, ungainly and harder to use and sharpen by comparison. It may be that this is one place where the Industrial Revolution did us no favours as I suspect that the design of the old English Scythe is more concerned with ease of manufacture than ease of use.



After some remedial help from one of the tutors my blade was on its way back to life. As the repair, peening and sharpening of the blades was a key reason for attending the day I spent a lot of time working out the rents on it. The remedial work went very well, but unfortunately I over peened the blade pushing out too much metal to the edge leaving it slightly less than razor sharp, but still a massive improvement.

The good weather on Sunday brought out the visitors and soon the field was crowded with stalls, displays. demonstratoins, curious visitors and a strange assortment of scythers.


Amongst the greenwood activities was Steve Tomlin, bowl turner, spoon carver and greenwood worker extraordinaire from Devon. Here Steve is helping Kristiana our Austrian Scything tutor (from the Austrian 'Sensenverein' scything organisation) to make a spatula.

In the morning Kristiana taught us the 'tai chi' movement in scything, apparently a part of 'the cloud'. Although George didn't take to it to say the least, I have found it quite useful and it's now a part of my Zen and the art of scythe maintenance repetoir.



Amongst the competitions on the day was the strimmer versus scythe race. One would probably be correct to deduce the one in the evil black outfit with the mask would be the loser, whilst the scyther is Simon Damant, English champion, from Wimpole in Cambridgeshire.



Soon it was onnto the finals. Under the blazing sun, 24 5x5m squares awaited the lucky finalists in the women's, bus-pass and men's finals. Here Mike Abbott wields one of his hay-rakes to clear the plots after mowing so the quality can be judged.


To my amazement I found myself in the finals. Knowing that George would be putting in a very close shave I decided to go for speed and use my normal bracken cutting rhythm, even though the effect upon the quality of the mowing would be dubious to say the least. In the event George excelled himself, moving from 'don't know' to second overall, although his blade took some damage in the course of it. Well done George!



Apparently I managed to create a new class, the 'extremely fast but crap finish' style of mowing. as I managed a time of 2 minutes 20 seconds. Plenty of room for improvement next year. I plan yet another class, the 'amazingly fast but not so crap finish' by then. And of course, I won a medal. What can I say, except a big thank you to Simon Fairlie (the organiser and proprietor of the scythe shop), Simon Damant (for the last minute coaching), all of the tutors for their help, George, Sean and the rest for all the encouragement.


One thing I don't like about many shows is the indecent speed with which the exhibitors start tearing down the stands and fleeing the field, often whilst visitors are still there. It always leaves me with a feeling of anticlimax. But by Sunday evening the festival was still going strong as visitors, competitors and exhibitors danced to the music of local bands. Come the thunderstorms of Monday there seemed to be no great hurry and instead the show faded gracefully from the field.

Somerset & the Green Scythe Festival

We're just back from a week in Somerset the highlight of which was the 5th West Country Scythe Festival, held at Muchelney on the levels. The Thorney Lakes camp-site is just round the corner from John Leach's pottery which is well worth a long visit, but lock up your wallet unless you really mean it (we have a growing collection of John Leach's pottery collected over the years).

I will post more details of the scything courses and competition shortly in a separate article. Meanwhilst you can find scythe information here at the scythe shop and also Sean Hellman's blog article on the scythe festival


This part of Somerset is dotted with traditional orchards, many of which are cider trees. The Dabinett cider apple is a local one and one of my favourites. I always throught the word gribble was made up, but in fact the Dabinett is a gribble, or self sown seedling, of the Chisel Jersey variety of cider apple.


The Somerset levels is a place with big skies and we were lucky to have great weather for most of the week. Just up the road in the village of Muchelney, is the School Farm shop. It didn't take us long to find it as they serve excellent home made cream teas as well as selling their own meat and vegetables, and of course the local cider and beer.



Quite inexplicably I seem to have taken a picture of the tractor display instead of the tea shop. We soon made friends with the family who run the traditional small mixed farm and I learnt that they have farmed here for 4 generations. Almost as long as the tractors I think. Graham is rightly proud of his ability to run the farm without buying a new tractor every year.


The site is only a couple of miles from Burrow Hill cider farm at Kingsbury Episcopi. Just as well we didn't have to lug the cider too far on our bicycles. At Burrow Hill as well as making excellent cider they have also revived the ancient art of making Cider Brandy by distilling the cider. Their website is here - The Somerset Cider Brandy Co


The day of the festival dawned misty and warm. Not too hard to tell that we would have a lovely day as the pollarded withies loomed out of the mist. The withies are used in the willow weaving industry, traditionally for basketry. The industry was in terminal decline, but recently seems to have stabilised, partly due to the demand for balloon baskets and coffins as well as the more traditional shapes and sizes. So it's good to know that stripping the willow is coming back into fashion once again.




Although I had not planned on it, I took part in the competition on the Sunday. The heats were aptly named as the temperature climbed.



Falling asleep in the tent to the sound of local band Fallen Apple playing in the marquee on Sunday night. We greatly enjoyed the cider, cream teas, cycling and of course the scything. We'll be back.

West Country Scythe Festival

We're off camping for a week from today. That will be why it's pouring with rain outside. We will also be taking in the 5th West Country Scythe Festival at Muchelney (near Langport) on the Somerset levels at the weekend.

The details are here 5th West Country Scythe Festival

Polelathe - Bowl

I've been very keen to try turning another bowl on my lathe in the shed. At the bodgers ball I had the opportunity to try a lathe properly set up for bowls with tools and fresh sycamore and it gave me a better feel for bowl turning on the polelathe.



Recently I managed to find enough time in between other turning to make a start on the bowl using some sycamore. It's about a 9 inch bowl. The evening sunlight was low enough to light the lathe and bowl through the open front of the shed/



I couldn't finish it in one go so I packed it in shavings in a plastic bag to minimise drying. Today I managed to finish the bowl and separate it from the core.



I've learnt a lot from this bowl and finished with oil it looks good, but it's not perfect and I'd like to do even better before long. But before I do, I need to tweak my tools and the tool rest just a little bit. Special thanks to Paul Atkins for allowing me to make a mess of the blank on his lathe at the bodgers ball and with great patience pointing me in the right direction.

Cider - Bottling it

I've been making cider from a hotch potch of local apples for a few years now. I think the results are slowly improving, but others may choose to disagree.

The fermenting apple juice has been sitting patiently outside our backdoor all winter in an odd assortment of plastic 5 gallon containers. Some beachcombed and some reused old vegetable chain oil containers, whilst other are best left undescribed. With a reasonable (for cider) level of alcohol it never quite froze even at the worst of the temperatures, but all signs of fermentation ceased.



With such low temperatures there is also little chance of it going off. Once temperatures rise again with spring the fermentation continues. I racked the cider at some point (that is syphon it off the sediment) and then leave it again to finish working.

A final transformation can occur, when the malic acid turns to lactic acid, reducing the unpleasant acidity of the cider, so I tend to leave it in the barrels until temperatures are quite warm. It has happened that a cider so acidic that its almost undrinkable has turned out very well by June.

As I don't have a cellar or a cider room to keep it in the barrels I bottle it in order to keep it as long as I can. Mainly into 1 litre plastic bottles (the tonic/bitter lemon type mixer bottles hold pressure well and can be reused time after time very easily).




Occasionally if the cider merits it then I may also use some glass bottles. The two different ciders in the photo were bottled yesterday. The pale cider is made from our own Tom Putts apples in the front garden, whilst the almost brown cider is a combination of bramley, cox and russet from an orchard near Godalming which is slowly being renovated.

The difference in colour is partly down to the apples and partly to the length of time the pomace was left before pressing. Also I used some water and suger with the Tom Putts to fill the barrel. Purists would not approve but I am not above using water, sugar and yeast where needed. I tend to use sugar to increase the alcohol content if the apples are low in sugar and water to keep the barrels topped up. I always ferment to a dry cider, but then add a small amount of suger (1 teaspoon per quart) to prime the bottles as I have found this can improve keeping and sometimes some fizz can make a average cider more palatable. Cheers!

The Charcloth Experiment

My nephews James and Christopher have been staying with us this week and we managed to fit in some time for a little woody work.


Christopher was very keen to try making some charcloth and as I've never tried it I donated an old cotton T-shirt for the experiment. I've only recently learnt of charcloth, which apparently is the material often used to catch the sparks from a flint or steel when making fire.


Meanwhilst James was busy making a new shelter with a stick frame and bracken covering.



Back at the charcloth Experiment. The pure cotton material is rolled up and the rolls fitted into a suitable tin, in this case a golden syrup tin. The process is very similar to making charcoal. The aim being to cook the cloth until its perfectly charred but to avoid it burning to ash.




With the lid fitted the tin is placed in the fire. A hole has been drilled in the lid allowing the smoke to escape.
Once the lid stops producing smoke the cloth is charred, the tin is removed from the fire and the hole plugged with a suitable stick whilst the tin cools. The first attempts were a little trial and error, but in the end we produced some quite charred cloth which looks as if it might do the job. Unfortunately my steel spark striker wasn't good enough to produce an ember, though we got as far as some somke. More practice needed I think, although perhaps Christopher will have succeeded by the time I've posted this article.

Weald and Downland Weekend

One of the magical things about the Weald & Downland Museum is the sense of tranquility that I get through being there and that's concentrated once the visitors leave. The water mill is one of my favourite buildings even though its very hard to photograph.


Even at the busies times there are parts of the museum that remain calm and in the early morning, or a late summer evening it's quite special. The water wheel is around the back of the building and it's not until the evening that the sun gets onto the moss covered blades.


After a busy show day it's a good way to wind down to take a gentle wander round the site and let the quiet seep back into me.


Another building that's hard to photograph is the old smithy with its collection of iron tyres propped up outside.

This weekend I took my camera on a walk as well and couldn't resist taking some photos that I hope capture the special nature of the place.

Polelathe - Heavy Horses show

This weekend was the Heavy Horses and working animals show at the Weald and Downland museum. It's one of the biggest days in the museum calendar and this year the weather was excellent for a change.




One of the star attractions is the horse drawn steam fire pump which charges around the arena before extinguishing a small thatched structure. In the hot weather the thatch really blazed up and putting it out was a challenge.


Next to me in the smithy Robert and Carol were hard at work on both days of the show. In the summer I don't envy them working in the forge, but in the autumn it will be a different matter entirely.



As well as the horses the museum also works two pairs of oxen which are used for a range of farming tasks.


For most of the day the combination of my shelter and the oak tree I pitch under keep me cool and shady, but in the evening as the sun gets lower it floods my workspace with light.


I almost consigned some alder to the firewood pile having failed to work it before it dried out. But in splitting it I noticed that the grain looked interesting and when I tried turning it I found it had accidentally spalted really well with very interesting grain patterns, here making a pair of door wedges and a door knob. Not surprisingly they sold almost immediately.