Wild Play and woodlands.

Yesterday.  morni. ng I took my two dogs and headed to a nearby wooded area, I felt I needed to do some connecting with the earth. I'd run my first after school club in the woods last week and it has become quite a seminal moment for me.

Being in the woods with children and seeing them interact with their environment, getting on with the serious art of playing and growing is wonderful. I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing with my life.

So, back to my walk yesterday. I needed to spend time, give thanks and say goodbye to any self doubt. I did a connecting with the earth exercise, (this did involve me laying down, the puppy thought this was a great new game) and then I wandered off looking for things that appealed to me. I gathered a few leaves, some bark and some red clover.

I picked an oak leaf - strength, birch bark - renewal & beginning, holly - assertion & objectivity, red clover - good luck and a sycamore.  The sycamore has no mythology from the UK possibly as it wasn't introduced until the middle ages. 

Thank You

30 Days Wild Challenge

I'm taking the 30 days challenge organised by The Wildlife Trust, this takes place throughout June and encourages people to get outdoors on every day throughout June. I'm outdoors most days but thought the challenge was a great opportunity to record what I get up to whilst being more mindful about it.

Day 1 was a bit of a deluge of rain and wind and I didn't get off to a great start, I managed to get out at lunchtime but didn't really feel inspired to take any photos.

Today (day 2) was marginally better with gusting winds, so Maybe the dog and I ventured out to pick some grasses to add to my forest school flora and fauna id book.

The meadows near my home are in full flower and looking rather beautiful at the moment.

Charcloth

Spent a lovely afternoon yesterday making a small fire to make myself some charcloth, this will help my firelighting go more smoothly without having to resort to using cotton wool. I've been drying my kindling and small twigs for a while so once I'd got a nice little flame going, it was ready to put my tin of cloth on to char. Its the same process as making charcoal, and only took a few minutes. I'm quite proud of the results.

The Purple Shed Studio: Playing with Fire

The Purple Shed Studio: Playing with Fire: Ooooh.  I made charcloth to help with my fire lighting skills today!. I

Woodland Management, New Events and an Art Walk

I'm on a woodland management course this weekend and yesterday I felled my first tree!  I was working with Ian and Andy who both own small woodlands, we started off with some smaller trees using the step method, but really... We wanted to fell a big one! So we all had a go at the 'beak' method and really made an impact on the area we were working on. By 3pm, the sun was streaming through and hitting the woodland floor giving some of the ground layer plants a chance to grow.

Its been a busy few months lately,  I'm crocheting lots, volunteering at a local school who run forest schools, studying and I've also started to volunteer at a wood to gain extra knowledge.

With Corridor Arts, we're also organising an Art Walk for May and talking to the Eden Project about having a Big Lunch Extras event the same weekend. The art walk will be in the Belper Parks and take place over spring bank holiday weekend.  The Parks will be filled with art work, yarn bombed and have some activities for visitors too.