Little Oak Lodge Update

We've been slowly making our way through the landscape design works for the green space at home. Since we've moved in we've completed the main raised beds, built the garden office and garden shed, planted nearly 200 trees as a perimter hedgerow, planted a few fruit trees, set up the bird feeding station, dug out the car parking area planting beds, set up the composting areas, set up the log sheds and filled them up, set up the herb garden and this week Matt and I cleared out the ditch in the front of the property and dug out the planting beds in the front garden.

Nice to actually see the stream in the ditch after clearing it all out and cutting down the roadside. Hopefully we can encourage more water plants in here

Next jobs to do is erect bird boxes (particularly House Sparrow boxes) and will then probably have to focus on jet spraying and re-pointing the patio and cleaning the conservatory (boring stuff). Will have to find the money from somewhere to plant up the beds we've dug although I might go heavy on the bulbs this year before a more permanent planting scheme. I might start growing stuff from seed to save money although will need to buy a greenhouse for that or annex the Conservatory.  Later in the winter/early Spring we can sow the wildflower meadows and plant up the raised beds (at the moment got winter broccoli, sprouts and onion sets).

Ultimately the goal is to increase biodiversity and carbon storage on site in addition to developing a bit of self-sufficiency with food growing and home energy production (the logs from our tree surgery business waste). Been setting the biodiversity monitoring baselines this year with the moth trapping on irecord and ebird garden recording. Should be able to quantify any biodiversity gains.  

Jacob filling up the feeders 

Been using the long winter's nights to get through some project work. Just finished writing a couple of papers on Azores Pelagics and David, Vince, Pedro and I are just beginning our 20 year review for Corvo for Dutch Birding and Birdwatch Magazine. Arjun has got through the Ebird and Rarities Report Data to add to the Azores Bird List log and today I got through the latest batch of Portuguese Rarity Committee votes. Also been getting through some work on the Beddington Farmlands campaign being led by Tony from the Wandle Forum. Dimiter was at the Bulgaria project site in the week and reports that our wildlife pond is holding up which is handy! Also been getting ready to shut down the Tree and Garden business for a week over Xmas and sorting out the end of year figures and the annual reports etc.  The background to our project and business framework is HERE. 

On the subject of work that's been interesting lately as we've done a few jobs for the London Wildlife Trust and have a job at the London Wetland Centre early next year and more London Wildlife Trust jobs too. I was doing the annual figures this week and things seem to be holding up pretty well.     

So seem to be getting there. Despite all the work it all seems a bit depressing out there so very pleased that it's the winter solstice tomorrow and we start heading towards Spring and the emergence of more colours and life. In order to brighten things up a bit I treated myself to an early xmas present of giving the campervan a paint job and body work makeover and got some internal repairs done. 

Almost good as new! 

241224 Update: Rather than drift further from main topic and do a new post about the Lodge I'll update on our mini-zoo here. One of the drums we beat is the importance of bringing nature into the home and garden and in a rapidly dissappearing wilderness the ethical and sustainable domestication and husbandry of animals is one of humanity's few redeeming features. Therefore a mini-zoo has been a feature of our household for some time now. We had to scale down when we moved but now we are beginning to build it back up again. Our latest addtion was a beautiful young male Western Hognose Snake that we purchased from Exotics at Heart back in Oxon when we visited family over the weekend. Our first family snake! 

  

Jacob has called him Slivery. Here he is having his first meal in his new home. 

While cleaning out the mini-zoo recently we had to dig out the Forest Malay Scorpion that had buried itself underground and just lived there waiting for food to drop in (morio worms). The entrance hole had collapsed and was beginning to mould over so we brought it to the surface again, here photographed in reflective light revealing that green reflection. They look black in flat light.