Why we couldn't turn wood to charcoal

Sorry about the failure last week - yes i don't think we let enough oxygen into the kilns so the fires went out...the theory is that the oxygen is limited so that not all the carbon turns to carbon dioxide...but there's no smouldering without oxygen (as the saying goes). anyway i've checked it out and fingers crossed we should do better tomorrow...if not i will abandon my plans to live in the woods. Will try and post some more techical info, or links to other website once i've found some.

Emptying the Kilns

So we went to see our lovely new charcoal on Friday, the kilns were opened and inside.... some slightly charred wood. Well, one more step on the road to success! We discovered the problem: some blocked flumes and perhaphs the wrong configuration for keeping the air flowing through it.

Stickie buns at Lunchtime! Provided by Alyson, these were warmly received then duly scoffed.

Tomorrow we will start the burn and we are confident of turning the wood into pure eco friendly charcoal by the end of the day!

wildflower seeds

We still have 100's if not thousands of packets of mixed wildflower seeds that the bbc commissioned for the Springwatch event. Do you want some or no someone, or a community group that does? They should be used in gardens etc. not scattered randomly in the countryside so we don't affect what's going on out there unnecessarily.
Contact the office for more info.

BEES Conservation Volunteers

BEES Conservation Volunteers
Last Friday we cleared vegetation from the historic hill tramway at Shipley Glen with help for the first time from some volunteers taking a break from their desk jobs at Bradford & Bingley Building Society. Set in historic woodland the tram has run for 111 years ( http://www.glentramway.co.uk/). Under the drizzle we attacked the weeds with strimmers, sickles, spades and trowels. By the end of the day we had cleared the whole line (about 400m) ready for the invasion of families this Bank Holiday Weekend.

At the end of the day an impromptu fashion show along the station-platform/catwalk treated us to Pavell's Spring foliage garland design modelled by the lovely Agnes.

Knotweed

Last Friday we had a volunteer meeting. A chap from the council came to talk about Japanese Knotweed, which was really useful because we come across it all the time.

We also ate a lot of biscuits.

Since the last blog volunteers have made baby herons at the Yorkshire Sculpture park (don't ask), had a long day at the orchard that ended with a barbeque, and spent last Friday on the nature reserve.

Up on the roof

..well not really 'cos that wouldn't be safe, but the roof went up on the shelter at the orchard today - with the help of the step ladders. It was a bit of a job trying to get it right first time, but eventually it went up just in time.

In other news, the first of blossom was showing, the garlic was coming up. Other people worked on small vegetable plots within the orchard.

There was also some bizarre work, drilling holes in plastic cups. Not for use on the orchard - you'll have to wait and see what use they'll be put to.

Lots of people out today, well there were lots of teas and coffees to make at lunch anyway and not much room in the minibus - 14 at least.

Next task is on Sunday 2nd May - find out what the cups will be used for then!

Lakeside Residential

We spent two days at the beginning of the month at Lakeside Ymca on the shores of windermere. Lakside provided accommodation and food in exchange for our efforts at deer fencing an area of woodland (to enable regeneration of the trees). There were 18 of us and we completed about 100m of fence, including some awkward spots...in fact we were retrofitting an exisiting fence which had its pros and cons. Although the sun shone on saturday we all got a bit soggy on sunday...