Piglets on parade

Hey! It’s the Two-legs who brings the food bucket. Quick, everyone out!

A tree for the long-term

This very small conifer is a juniperus communis ssp. communis, the tree sub-species of common juniper. It’s one of the slowest growing conifers and the example I’m holding is already six years old. In Scotland, the common juniper usually grows 3-5cm a year and reaches a maximum height of around five metres. It will reach that height in about 100 years or so, so this a tree that we’re planting not for ourselves, or for our children, but for four or five generations on from us.

Still planting native trees

The Other Half gets stuck in. We spent the morning planting hawthorn, sweet briar and dog rose along the fence that leads in from Western Road. To keep the weeds and grass down, the plants were heavily mulched with spruce chippings that have been rotting down for a year.

Our woods camp

As the boys were given a tent for Christmas, I decided they needed a campsite to make best use of it. After an hour’s work, they had a spot set up under the trees with a windbreak of logs and interlaced branches on two sides, a bench seat, and a clearing to play in. Then it was up with the tent and the boys had their woods camp ready for occupation.