Pigs in the woods

We've just started our experiment with Natural England to look at the effects of grazing the woodland adjacent to uncllys with pigs.

The objective is to reduce the amount of bracken and bramble and to see whether after the pigs have turned the ground over there will be a more diverse woodland flora.

In October we will be running a training course with Natural England to look at the Management of Pigs in Woodland as part of the national Grazing Animals Project.

The pigs will be there until the end of November when they should have fattened up nicely on acorns ready for Christmas. Our piggy banks!

Richard log splitting

As a by product from sawing loads of oak for the timber beams for the Ruskin studio project, we now have several tons or cordwood and slabwood to process. Richard jones has been doing a great job with the log splitter and we've puchased 50 specal ventilated bags so that the oak logs will season in the bag over the next year or so.

The bags will be ready to sell in September 2010 at a price of £80 plus VAT at 5%.