A new unit to make the most of this glorious weather. This is also Sunbaby's first official project with us, which seems apt as Panda Girl dips in and out of the unit while she gears up for her new Diploma.
We began with the idea of the living coutryside on our doorsteps.
A compost heap investigation. We learned that the heat inside compost heaps comes from bacteria breaking down the vegetation.
Compost heap cross sections and compost heap community food webs
Garden stickers for the little one
Recycling
Garden friend or foe
Garden gluing
Making bead caterpillars
Identifying insects we found in the garden
A countryside walk to do some landscape drawing
Bug hunting with Sunbaby
Lichen identification and pollution zones. Lichen growing high in the branches of established trees shows clean air areas.
Identifying annual and perennial weeds and hunting for them in the garden!
Finding hand creases in tree branches. We are one with nature!
We created a mini resevoir on an incline to demonstrate how house martins swoop across the incline, through air blowing off the water to catch newly hatched insects caught in the air flow.
Coppicing was a technique used for centuries to efficiently grow wood for staves, tools and construction. The trees are cut low to the ground so the new saplings sprout more numerously, effectively growing eight trunks instead of one. The trees are grown for 7-10 years before being cut and used, and the process starts again. We went looking for coppiced trees and we found a few.
These woodlands, coppiced and cleared by hand, allowed sunlight to filter through to the forest floor and so bluebells and other slow-growing wildflowers became established there. So forests in clay soil with bluebell floors can be identified as ancient woodland.
Pollarding was a similar technique but the tree was cut higher up to prevent grazing animals from eating the saplings. Pollarding woodlands are easily identifiable by their pollarded trees and their cleared woodland floor. Wood pasturing, with the exception of in The New Forest, is no longer used in the UK so this is another way to identify ancient woodland.
The mighty British oak.
Deciding whether our local oak trees are pedunculated or sessile oaks.
Oaks can live for 800 years and grow 30m tall.
Common oak woodland was grazed by pigs for its acorns. Jays and squrrels hoard acorns and contribute to the growing of new trees. Oak beams were used in timber frame houses and the merchant and Royal Navies used oaks for their ships. Both Regents Park and Greenwich Park were created specifically to provide wood for ship building.
We spent a happy 24 hours making elderflower cordial
Fern identification
We've been listening to baby robins calling and growing for a number of weeks now, in a nest in our conifer tree. Mummy robin has been super busy finding food for them. They've all flown the nest now so Sunbaby had a peep at the empty nest and was enthralled.
She made her own nest and used soft things she could find in the garden.
She spotted these spores on the underneath of a fern frond.
The baby bird role pay was a hit so big sister, Panda Girl face painted her as a little blue bird.
Crafting pom pom caterpillars.
Looking for woodlice and pill bugs under our wood mushrooms.
Part 2 coming soon!
