Bugton Underwood
This could be described as a model village, well hamlet really. Designed as insect habitats they will be filled with sticks, logs, leaves and rotten wood etc. I spent several days constructing these with chestnut riven down the middle by Kent Wildlife Volunteers, using a froe to prize the wood apart.
I know several carpenters who always claim their timber resembled a donkeys elbow or something......well they should have seen what I was using......more crooked than the 14th fairway at the links course at Sandwich.
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| If I had a pound for every person who asked me if it was a dog kennel...! |
I did actually really enjoy working on these. it gave me the opportunity to talk with regular users of the woods, this was either dog walkers, elderly couples just out for a very slow walk too see if any new features had been installed since their last visit. Visits at least once a day by physical and mental handicapped groups with wheel chairs enjoying the autumn leaves and people who's neighbours had told them there was a giant bird but were buggered if they find it! Did I know where it it was?....as it happens I do and see that pile of logs, get to there and you've passed it already.
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| the roofing slats were so warped I had to take out the perlins, as most of them would not lay on the ridge board and the eaves |
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| two completed insect homes, one with the extra wood shed feature |
The general conversations I had with passers by was that the increase in the number of people using the woods had risen dramatically recently. Another couple asked me, 'was I going to do up another wood when I finished this one'?.....made it sound like a DIY SOS programme. The changes in the wood are making a difference as one guy explained he'd seen lizards and smooth snakes. I saw a hornet on the totem pole.
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| please drive slowly through the village. Thank You |
They are still not finished, they need to be filled up with bits of wood and that. The plasterers, the chippy, electrician and the plumber are booked in for next week, whether they show or not is another matter. 'Popped out to buy some materials' four days ago and the vans in for the MOT on Monday.
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| Completed now and filled with sticks. |
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| The annexed wood shed. These logs have been drilled to attract single bees. |
I was involved in a conversation which suggested a phase 2 building plan for another property development with communal gardens?
