Weaving willow hurdles for the wild play area

The hurdles at the end of the wild play area in the Earth Trust Centre garden had reached the ends of their working lives, and have been recycled into firewood for our Big Bale Boiler, which heats the office and Centre buildings.

Our Countryside Skills groups have all been working together to weave a new hurdle fence, and it looks brilliant!

We cut our own stakes from ash trees growing in the wrong place in the Broad Arboretum (they’re rather too good at self-seeding for our liking!), and harvested the willow from the sculptures at Neptune Wood in the autumn.

Many hands make light work! In just one session, students from Brookfields School went from ground level (shown in the picture above) to the sunny half fence below.

We had help from Wallingford School too.

The finished fence:

Hopefully you think the new fence looks as smart as we do. It should at least help to prevent excited Earth School visitors from running onto the farm track during the lunchtime play!

A new wood store

We often light fires at Countryside Skills, to stay warm in the winter while we work, to make elderflower cordial over in the summer, or to make blackberry juice in the autumn. We therefore need a good supply of dry firewood. Our Year 11 students from Langtree School have been chopping firewood for us, but ran out of space to store it – they have become very efficient with axes!

A couple of the students offered to build us a new firewood store – and they have!

Oscar and Jack started by clearing and levelling the ground next to the wall, and pruning the overhanging tree to maximise the space available.

They used a pallet for the base, and timber we had leftover from previous projects.  They did all of the planning and measuring out themselves, and demonstrated their proficiency with saws, drills, spirit levels and team work!

In two sessions, they had it finished, complete with a beautiful felt roof! Maybe we’ll make some popcorn on the fire next week to celebrate... Great work boys!

Planting trees with the Sylva Foundation

Part of the Countryside Skills course requires the students to show that they are able to plant a tree in the correct sequence and know how to look after it (i.e. by providing a guard to protect it from nibbling rabbits and strong winds).

This year, we have been very fortunate to be able to work with Gabriel and Jen down the road at the Sylva Foundation, and have planted up a few plots of their Future Forest. We have planted sweet chestnut trees in plots that we will take future Countryside Skills students to coppice in a few years time. The site is very easy to access so it's perfect for some of our less mobile students.

Every single one of our 50 Countryside Skills students planted trees. Well done everyone!