Bog Beacon!

Apparently these little fellas are quite unusual.  Widespread, but not common.  They are Bog Beacons, (Mitula paludosa), what a fantastic name!  They are actually much more orange than this, but boy, do they shine out of the very wet leaf litter!

They are very fussy about there habitat, but this seems to be ideal, as there were tons of them!

Growing from submerged, deciduous leaf litter in carr woodland.

A new favourite!

Busy!

Well since being laid up last week, I've been really busy!  Saturday we had to go to Welshpool to pick up OH's car from the garage. We had to leave early so we thought we'd make a day of it and headed onto the old Iron Age fort at Oswestry.  Nice for a walk round if you're in the area.  I believe it's the biggest of it's kind in the UK. Then we walked the woods at Rodney's Pillar.  That's also a cracking walk.  I didn't make it to the top this time, as I'm still very tired, but it was a good walk all the same.

On Sunday OH went climbing with the boys, and I had a wander on the land we are looking at to check the fencing.  There's quite a large section there that will need replacing.  I had the pleasure of spotting a woodcock and a gorgeous big hare, but sadly no photos!  That reminds me, in the morning I was sat just outside the door with a cup of coffee, and a sparrowhawk flew through the yard, just inches from the floor, and just feet from me!  Again no photo, but an image I will retain for sometime anyway!  Later that afternoon I took my eldest daughter for a drive.  She's had four professional lessons so far and is doing well.  She tackled some quite tricky stuff around the lake at Clywedog and in the Hafren Forest.  It wasn't as scary as I thought it might have been!

On Monday I had a field trip with Uni, to study some woodland.  We did a biodiversity study on higher plants, and looked at the regeneration of the part of the woodland that had once been planted with conifers.  It's all very interesting and hopefully will be put to good use for myself one day!

Tuesday was Practical Estate Skills, and green woodworking again.  I'm not going to produce any photos yet.  I'm going to wait until the gates are installed in our footpath project, which we will be starting next week.  Can't wait to get on with it and see everything in place!

Yesterday, the weather was appalling, we've had so much rain the rivers are fit to burst.  I drove into Uni, as I had an appointment yesterday afternoon, and the road to Aberystywth was a nightmare by the time I came home.  Luckily I had four lectures, so wasn't outside much!  Anyway, after uni, I went to visit someone who used to keep Tamworth pigs for bracken clearance.  She has 15 acres of woodland that was swamped by 8ft bracken!  The pigs have done an amazing job, and so has she, replanting over 6,000 trees!  Hopefully she will be a useful contact for us in the future.

So today, we have storm Doris.  My OH decided it was the best time to be in the mountains, and has headed to Cadair Idris!  I'm sure he has a bloody screw lose.  86mph winds and heavy snow?  Complete nutjob!!  I have stayed at home, as I'm the sensible one.  I have a new assignment to get on with; a report on the woodland we surveyed on Monday.

I also got my first semester results today, and I'm happy to say I've got through with a 1:1, so couldn't be happier.  Let's just hope I can keep it up, with everything else that's going on!

Mixed Feelings

I did end up going out the day of my last post.  It was a bit hair raising in the woods.  The wind was howling.  When I got home I logged onto the woodland for sale website to get the phone number for the North Wales agent.  I was going to give him a call and discuss a deposit for the woodland with him.  Sadly when I got onto the website it appears that someone else has beaten me to it.  Gutted to say the least, I had big plans for that place!  It's certainly knocked me back a bit.  But I have re-centred my attention on some land that I was looking at a couple of years ago.  The guy wanted to much for it, but he's not sold, so maybe there's a chance that I could get it cheaper.  Not quite the woodland of my dreams, but cheaper and still with potential.

Went out looking for edible mushrooms today.  Found a few Scarlet Elfcaps and a few Jelly Ears, but not the Velvet Shanks I had been hoping for.  Not ones that were worth eating anyway.  Lots of fungi still to find though, unbelievable that people think the season is over by winter.  Anyway I was going to attempt a wild mushroom chutney, but without the Velvet Shanks it wouldn't have been right with just ears and elfcaps!  So I made it with plain old button mushrooms instead.  If it's nice, I'll make it with oyster mushrooms when mine are ready.

We did map and compass work last week with Uni.  That was pretty cool, they dragged us all over the hills surrounding Plynlimon.  According to the fitbit I walked 24,746 steps and climbed 139 floors!  We're going to start looking at our footpath project tomorrow, so that should be quite interesting.

I'll leave you with some Turkey Tails (Trametes versicolor).  They are a rather pretty bracket fungus and are plentiful at the moment.

Woodland Revisted

After my Biology exam on Tuesday, I rewarded myself with a walk in the woodland that i so covert.  It is such a beautiful place, there is an old slate quarry with a proper little dingly dell at the foot.  It's such a surreal place, one where I could sit for hours just gazing upon the lichens and moss that grows there.

As yet, I don't know much about moss and lichen, only that lichen is such a complicated symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae!  I am getting pretty good with identification of fungus now, but I don't even know where to start with lichen!  I have invested in a book, but it in itself is very complicated, although supposedly a very good guide!


Here are some of the moss and lichen I found in my little retreat

I also found a wonderful patch of bilberries, which I've already made into Bilberry and Rowan jelly in my master plan for self sufficiency (in my head anyway)!  Once my exams are over, I really must crack on with packing up the house, and preparing it to sell.  My dream will never become a reality if I just sit there in the dell dreaming! And once it has happened, I can sit there all I like!

One Planet Development

As a student in conservation, I am fascinated by the Welsh Assembly One Planet Development.  It's a scheme that under very strict conditions, allows people to build sustainable off-grid lifestyles.  People who have the knowledge and understanding of what it means to live sustainably, and can prove that they can support themselves from their own land, are, most notably in Camarthenshire, being given planning permission to build eco-friendly homes in places where they would not normally get permission.   You can find out more about it here.

Of course, this is something I would love to do.  I've fallen in love with a piece of land, which contains woodland, and I think has true potential for an amazing way of life.  I have been investigating all sorts of avenues, including the growing of hemp (that comes with a price tag) mushrooms, and a variety of other crops.  I'd love to have a working horse, the land is quite steep, and a horse would be ideal for dealing with bracken and retrieving logs.

I've been looking into growing hemp for a variety of uses.  It can be used as a building material, oil to run vehicles on, and fuel.  All of these things would help towards a sustainable lifestyle.  However, a license to grow hemp costs around £600, regardless of the area you wish to grow.  Seems fair for a large scale producer, but for a couple of acres for self use would be totally unrealistic!

Still, I'm keen to keep investigating, and with a bit of luck will be able to make steps towards making it happen.  I would love to hear from other people with a similar mindset.  Anyway, I have an exam in Biology first thing in the morning, I should be revising!