A kindly coincidence
brought tree surgeon, Duncan Smith
, back to our village. A near neighbour had asked him to tame a leggy leylandii
hedge and he had a ‘problem’. As a commercial enterprise, the municipal tips
charge him to take his woodchip waste. It didn’t take too much imagination to
find a permaculture solution: we said he could drive the 2km to our woods
and dump it there. We’ve just spent a very pleasant three days in a sunny, if
somewhat soggy, woodland, barrowing the woodchip along the nature walk we’ve
previously created. The aromatic carpet makes walking easier on the sodden
ground and, as it rots down, the woodchip will use up nitrogen, so acting as a
weed and grass suppressing mulch.
Once we’d finished, we
went for a stroll, spotting deer and wild boar foot prints and, in this
unseasonally mild weather, some mushrooms. One we haven’t identified yet, one
was a mushroom we’ve already met and the third was, well, how can I put this?
It has the less-than-endearing qualities of smelling badly and looking like a
dog’s penis, which gives it its Latin name, Mutinus caninus.
Its common name is the Dog Stickhorn. In Roger Phillips’ book, Mushrooms, the season is shown as summer
to late autumn.
I couldn’t identify the last fungus, found
in an area of Corsican pines, please post a comment if you know what it might
be.
When the rain has been
sheeting down, all too often recently, I’ve found gainful employ inside, freshening up our website
for the new season, using our new logo, created by our friend, Tony, a professional graphic artist. I swapped me and my big green Renault van, diesel included, to help
him and his family move house in exchange for a logo for our holiday cottage
business. I should also mention recent holidaymaker Kieran, who did the bit of JavaScript
that makes the images revolve on the front page: thanks to both of you.
