OLD LOGS Old logs are like old friends at the bottom of the woodpile. I’ve a few girt solid lumps mingled with planks, cords and various rubbish low down in amongst the rot and sawdust. One piece of ash is a junction of pollard shoots which was once allowed to become branches. It’s a chainsaw [...]
Read More »How To Blog
Posts Tagged ‘oak’
11 February 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman OLD LOGS
Thursday, February 11th, 20109 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman THE AWKWARD CUSTOMER
Saturday, January 9th, 2010THE AWKWARD CUSTOMER Jackdaws in the lime were particularly noisy at 9.20am when I stepped up into the garden to saw some logs. I caught the end of a skirmish with a buzzard. The big bird of prey opened its considerable wings and lifted with a retreating upwards sweep. The undersides of its body were [...]
Read More »4 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman JUBILEE STEPS AT TEN IN THE MORNING, (LACK OF) VISION
Monday, January 4th, 2010JUBILEE STEPS AT TEN IN THE MORNING 10am: a dozen or so blackbirds stripping berries from Jubilee Steps cotoneasters. With ground hoar-frosted and hard as iron, it’s a mercy for our feathered friends that such a heavy bounty is to be had. They scorn the scarlet berry clusters during autumn, as if saving themselves for [...]
Read More »2 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman WHILST SITTING ON THE FLATTENED BUTT OF AN ANCIENT POLLARD OAK
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010WHILST SITTING ON THE FLATTENED BUTT OF AN ANCIENT POLLARD OAK… … a country robin flitted between nine tanalised fence posts which bordered the bottom of an uncut thorny hedge, one-by-one. It surveyed the frozen pasture from the flattened top of each in turn. Jenny wren emerged from a tangle of dead brambles, looked left [...]
Read More »26 December 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman NOT BEING DISTURBED
Saturday, December 26th, 2009NOT BEING DISTURBED Temperature dropped at 2.15pm. It happened at the moment a brief but squally shower arrived. I cut a few more logs, then left Mrs Nails tidying up the flower garden to walk round Breech and fetch my van. An extended family was waiting with good humour for ‘dad’ (who apparently is always late) [...]
Read More »18 December 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman DORSET TO SUSSEX BY TRAIN
Friday, December 18th, 2009DORSET TO SUSSEX BY TRAIN Less than half a dozen hardy souls braved arctic weather on the platform at Gillingham Station to catch the 05.37 to London Waterloo. With blanket coverage on last nights media about heavy expected snowfall in the South and East, I wonder how many took this opportunity for family time at [...]
Read More »15 December 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman WOODING IN THE BLACKMORE VALE
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009WOODING IN THE BLACKMORE VALE I took the ridge road seven miles south of Sherborne through Holm Bushes on a numbingly cold and filthy mid mid December afternoon. I travelled slowly, heater on full whack and window down, elbow resting, eyes focussed simultaneously ahead and to the sides. Outside the van, the sound of rain [...]
Read More »29 November 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman OBSERVATIONS FROM THE A34…, HEDGEROW TREES UP FRINGFORD WAY, MILTON KEYNES CENTRAL
Sunday, November 29th, 2009OBSERVATIONS FROM THE A34 NEWBURY BY-PASS HEADING NORTH A MILE SOUTH OF CHIEVELEY SERVICES Hawthorn and hazel in a lay-by on the A34 Newbury by-pass are doing well. They bulge within their corrugated degradeable plastic tubes and make a fine, shrubby hedge behind the steel crash barrier and line of four evenly-spaced rubbish bins. These [...]
Read More »30 October 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman 92 MILES TO MAIDENHEAD
Saturday, October 31st, 2009I left the house in darkness at the stroke of 6am. Unlocked the van, slung in a case, climbed in, turned the key and switches, pulled out and along St James away. My day unfolded whilst travelling west to east across Salisbury Plain. Daylight proper came somewhere betwixt Andover and the M3, though we all [...]
Read More »31 August 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman COUNTING APPLES, A VIEW FROM CHERRY ORCHARD TO GUY’S MARSH AND LITTLE LONDON
Monday, August 31st, 200931 August 2009 COUNTING APPLES I managed to get out the house for gardening shortly after 2pm. It was lovely. The swirling 36-hour mist had gone on and been replaced by brilliant late-August sunshine. The weather grumblers should be pleased, although there remains a decent breeze. I’m sat beneath St James Hanging, a precipitous slope [...]
Read More »