Squirrel Vol-Au-Vents

Grey Squirrel Vol-Au-Vents   It has become a tradition that we celebrate our friend Hazel’s birthday with a squirrel dish.  Previous years have seen squirrel and wild garlic pasties and simple barbecued squirrel legs but this year I decided to reinvent a...

Ian’s Curvy Sweet Chestnut Doors

I was recently very pleased to get some sweet chestnut boards from Bron Haul. The before picture shows the very useful, and very ugly, fitted wardrobe and cupboard. It was too useful to get rid of but was a dominating feature that I disliked, and wondered what to do...

Dovetail box in wild cherry

Wild cherry logs – such a treat in the firewood pile. Whack with a splitting maul, and the clean inside shimmers with warm orange, yellow and green swirls. What double joy that the woodland is now producing cherry stems big enough to venture beyond aesthtic log piles...

Cleft chestnut fencing

Fencing – That Old Chestnut! We’ve been falling in love with Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) for a few years now. Once established, it grows strong and straight, responds well to pruning and has started providing a viable seed source from about 20 years old....