Forestry

This picture has nothing to do with forestry, but I also cleaned up the better pine table and replaced the very dark old one with it, which I think looks a lot nicer, which is why I’m looking so self-satisfied. Add a laptop and a glass of last year’s sloe gin to the picture and you can imagine what I’m looking like right now.

So yeah, forestry. We went to that talk in Mytholmroyd last night and it was very interesting. I’d heard a lot about Hardcastle Crags, well, I say that, I’d seen signs on the road pointing toward it and heard one or two people say they liked going there. I didn’t actually know what it was. It’s a National Trust run woodland area with an old cotton mill building which is now some sort of education centre and cafe. And a very lovely man called Nabil Abbas looking after the woodland and its inhabitants, gently sculpting the ecosystem to broaden the ecodiversity over time. We’ll be looking for the first opportunity to go over and have a walk around the place and maybe get involved volunteering (in all our copious free time.)

Also heard about a forest management co-op in the area called Black Bark, which we’ve shot an email off to, as they are into building stuff (like oak hurdles) and making charcoal, as well as running a local, low-impact firewood scheme. All very much the sort of thing we’d like to be involved in. Hopefully they’ll get back to us and we can go help out with whatever needs doing. Again, in our copious free time.

I also went to the local Stitch & Bitch meeting of knitters and crocheters this morning. I have to say, not much bitching went on, a lovely group of ladies who meet in the sewing cafe. One of them, Sam (I think, I’ll be mortified if I’ve got that wrong already) was saying she’d ordered a corset pattern, which is a coincidence as I’ve made about a dozen corsets, so she might teach me to knit and I’ll help her with the corset.

What a lovely place I live, with lovely people and lovely things going on.