Not my most successful weekend....

[John Fenna]

As per the title really!
I got to the woods at about 10am on friday and started putting up the 'chute shelter
PING the high line that the chute hangs from parted ... take everything down, find another 100m long rope (the synthetic one the nice - but now rotted one that the replaced the synthetic one for ethical reasons) and start again. Replacement rope too short to go over the normal tree forks so had to be restrung on lower forks...
Pretty well destroyed my duff shoulder throwing the rope over the new forks...
Rope got hung up out of reach..
Broke the "hooky stick" that is in place for pulling down the highline if it get pulled up out of reach...
Remade the "hooky stick" ,retrieved the highline and pitched the chute..
Rope stretched as the wind got up..
Repitched the chute...
And - relax!
A late lunch - pitched personal shelter then made a new Maul to replace the one I broke at home.
A great evening after spending too much time getting the fire to burn - everything soaking.
Early bed.
Woke in the night to high winds and lashing rain - went back to sleep..
Woke 5am to the sound of trees falling...
Got up
Chute blowing around badly - the rope had stretched again and the wind was whipping it around.. tried to tension the rope but the wind would not let me ... sound of falling branches. Little branches falling in various parts of the woods - only twigs falling in my area...
Re-lit the fire, had breakfast... pondered...
Decided to call my wife for a weather forecast - lull then more wind and rain...
Decided to cancel the meet - unable to reach 3 of the 4 who were going to join me - left messages...
Slowly abandoned the woods and the weather steadily improved.
Found that the storm had eroded the new/replacement high line ... need to buy more rope..
Went home - still trying to tell folk that the meet is cancelled!

 

[Mesquite]

Sounds like you had fun and games to say the least John

 

[Drain Bamaged]

Yes, but apart from that, what did you think of the play Mrs Lincoln?

D.B.

 

[ged]

Sorry to hear about the shoulder John.

Everything else is all in a day's work for a bushcrafter though, isn't it?

You'll have to have a word with Big Si about the 'Ged-o-matic'.

I think somebody's nicked it now though.

 

[Goatboy]

On balnace though Mr. Fenna I think the site would have to have a lot more weekends like that to take away what it's given you over time.
Bummer to hear the shoulder is bothering you, hope it heals fast.
I allways try to think of adversity as a way of pointing out weakness in a system, that way it can be rebuilt more strongly. Just a pity no-one else around to give you a hand.
Hope it all goes better next time.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[John Fenna]

Ach - the shoulder is a constant bugbear ... if the next steroid injection fails to sort things they will - and I quote - "chop the ends off the bones" to give the nerves and strings room to move...
It turns out that my allies never got the phone messages as he has changed mobiles... so we went for a bimble to our old site (the one the wind flattened in 2013) and recovered some more kit. The land owner has recently cut and stacked the timber that blew down - so we could get in safely.
It was a sad sight and a sad site - but we picked up a kettle, a cast iron griddle and a grill stand, found the Milbank bags (both well mouse chewed) and unravelled a pocket full of paracord.
The day has been beautiful and if it fails to blow a hoolie tonight I will be tamping!

 

[John Fenna]

It seems that the gusts early this morning were over 100kmh!
Tonight we are only forcast gusts of 80kmh...
As our site catches the wind a bit I expect more trees and branches will come down and as there are a couple of trees that are somewhat iffy looking near the communal area (I will be asking the landowner if we can fell them - if they do not come down tonight) I feel justified in cancelling the overnight: during today I felt a bit of a fool as the weather was so benign!
Seeing what the wind did to our old site reminded me that the wind can turn woods into killers!
From this

To this

in one night - note that the round table has not moved....
Perhaps this has made me a tad paranoid...

 

[dewi]

Better to be cautious than getting a tree landing on your head at 2am!

Is the woodland you use a real wind trap, or is it theres been a lot of freak weather down that way?

 

[John Fenna]

On balnace though Mr. Fenna I think the site would have to have a lot more weekends like that to take away what it's given you over time.
Bummer to hear the shoulder is bothering you, hope it heals fast.
I allways try to think of adversity as a way of pointing out weakness in a system, that way it can be rebuilt more strongly. Just a pity no-one else around to give you a hand.
Hope it all goes better next time.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

Yup - been there since April 2014 now - a great little site

 

[John Fenna]

Better to be cautious than getting a tree landing on your head at 2am!

Is the woodland you use a real wind trap, or is it theres been a lot of freak weather down that way?

A bit of both - yes - a bit of both

 

[markheolddu]

Hope your shoulder gets better soon John. Better safe than sorry it was a good call to cancel see you soon m.

 

[John Fenna]

Overnight the wind was gusting 118kmh! (figures from accuweather) now only gusting around 80kmh - I am happy I called it off!

 

[ged]

From this ...
To this ...
in one night ...

Well, they needed felling anyway, didn't they?

 

[John Fenna]

Well, they needed felling anyway, didn't they?

Funny thing is - just a couple of months before the storm the landowner had "thinned" the woods following his planned removal of non-native species...
He lost so many trees in that one storm he is only just getting around to logging the last of the trees the storm dropped for him!

 

[Goatboy]

Often find you get wind damage after a thinning. Wind gets in to the newly spaced trees and over they go.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Ferret75]

Sorry to hear about that John! When I mentioned your 'bogsnorkelling weekend' I only reckoned on you getting a bit wet and muddied! Hope your shoulder resolves without going under the knife mate, (although being out of action over winter might suit you better than when spring comes around).

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[John Fenna]

Sorry to hear about that John! When I mentioned your 'bogsnorkelling weekend' I only reckoned on you getting a bit wet and muddied! Hope your shoulder resolves without going under the knife mate, (although being out of action over winter might suit you better than when spring comes around).

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Wet and muddy is standard for West Wales This was extras! I hope to see the landowner this week with a view to getting permission to take out a couple of dodgy trees near our camp area...
Mind you - I have bigger worries/inconveniences at the moment...

36 years ago we bought our house and the previous owners left us the electric cooker as - at about 30 years old it was not worth them taking it.
We rebuilt the kitchen and turned the adjacent bathroom into a pantry.
The cooker had hand built cupboards on one side and a stud wall on the other.
The cooker was/is a 3 ring Belling.
The cooker has just died with only 1 ring the oven and grill working and the repair man refusing to work on it due to its age...
So we have bought a new cooker.
The only trouble is that the old cooker was 45cm wide and tightly built in and no new cookers come in at less than 50cm wide!
Yup - rather than destroy the hand made cupboards we have moved the wall!
We have moved it 10cm - we would have gone further but then we would have had to redo the plumbing to the washing machine in the pantry...
Due to my duff shoulder and knees we chose to get a builder in and got a bloke from the village as we have used him before and know he is OK.
Unfortunately we chose to have the work done over 1/2 term week.
The builders wife works so our man cannot do full days.
1/2 term is now over - and the builder has gone down with a bladder infection and cannot work - chaos in our kitchen!
I need to get into the pantry to rebuild the shelving so all the goods - currently in the livingroom and dining room area - can go back in the pantry, the dehydrator get put back in the pantry and all his tools get removed from the pantry.
We are also getting the builder to replace a rotted door and frame in the back of the garage.
Doors, wood etc are clogging the garage so I cannot get at my tools to work on other projects - chaos in the garage!
Naturally all my gear (except bedding and spare clothing) was pretty damp when I got home - and with the garage out of action where do I dry a 4mx3m tarp etc?
Only one option - in the dining area (carefully avoiding dripping on the table and stacked gear from the pantry).
Wife not overly amused...
It is a good thing I am only working the dawn to 9.30 shifts this week (and a full day on Friday) as it means I could get a session with my Sports Injury Specialist as he had a cancellation going spare :he trained as a butcher and a soldier ... it shows in his work (in a GOOD way Mark - I mean that in a Good way!) ...
Tonight I am reading a book in front of the Wood Burner in the living room and relaxing...

 

[RonW]

The only thing unsuccessful in that weekend was you messing up your shoulder.
All other things were reminders, lessons (re)learned and exciting times, preventing you from becoming complacent.

Hope you're doing ok!

 

[John Fenna]

The only thing unsuccessful in that weekend was you messing up your shoulder.
All other things were reminders, lessons (re)learned and exciting times, preventing you from becoming complacent.

Hope you're doing ok!

Yep - I guess you are right - it is all part and parcel of the Bushy life
Friday saw me relaxing well (apart from having to do the maintenance on the rope!) and enjoying the peace of the woods. Sat morning was literally a Wake-up call, Sat proved useful in that we recovered some kit from the old site ... I hope that the members that I could not stop from arriving felt the same...
At least we did something in the woods and no one died - so perhaps it was a successful weekend after all

 

[TinkyPete]

I remember my days in Brawdy we had two types of weather........

Wet and windy or windy and wet.