Rewarding work????

Funny, I've just looked at my last post and have been pleasently unsuprised that I find working in the woodland so rewarding.

People who know me, in real life.....blood and guts and screaming loudly...know that i look after, very often children with many and varied difficulties.

Others have very definate views on this habit. Some view me as a saint, to be reverred..'Oh you are so wonderful to do this. I've always wanted to but I dont think I could spare the time'
Some view me, quite frankly as mildly insane others take a wide berth, avoiding me and mine as toxic, something to be feared.

I've been looking after other peoples kids for quite a number of years now and rarely have I found it rewarding!

Why?

I'm not sure.

My own children are more grown up, rounder in thinking human beings thanks to fostering other children. They have seen and heard retold harrowing tales from childrens early memories, things most adults never come across in a whole lifetime.

The children we have welcomed into our home and family have had labels which have stuck to them faster than any superglue and have followed them relentlessly wherever they have gone.
ADHD, attachment disorder, ODD and compulsive disorders, not to mention neglect, torture and abuse.
Is it any wonder that most have fallen short of achievements and expectations of their peers?

Resilience, continuity, thought, understanding, mentoring , consistency and love are more often way down on the important list of surviving tactics and solutions if they are there at all.

Disorders and negative happenings are labels and badness. They say what has happened and what is but are unhelpful and destructive.

The other stuff helps us and others move on , make sense and move forward.

Most of the children we have looked after have come to us entrenched in a system designed to help them but often makes them and continues to make them reliant on that system.
Forever needy, forever lacking.

I live in hope that one child will hold onto the positives and reject the system that needs them more than they need it and embraces the wonderful possibilities this earth holds.

Working in the Woodland

Working in the woodland is probably one of the most rewarding things i've ever done.

Not for me the noisy chainsaw and tractor spewing out fumes, but hand tools, often handed down through generations.

There used to be a thriving coppicing industry in Wales, servicing woodlands big and small.

Walk into any old woodland and you can see the remnants of past working.

Hurdle makers, charcoal burners, hedge layers, old skills rekindled in this modern carbon fuelled world.

Working with the hand tools, learning their uses, becoming profficient is a joy initself but I've learned so much more about quality of craftsmanship and the quality of steel used in the making of the tools.

I have a lovely Elwell billhook, beautifully balanced and now expertly sharpened by young son.

It slices through small branches with a conviction I am sure its own. The handle had been varnished in order to present it for sale. Varnish scraped away and now oiled with linseed it will last confidently for a few more years.

The 4lb Brades felling axe I have could well have been used by fire fighters in the blitz or land Jills in the Scottish highlands. It was made in 1939 and now sharpened can fell an oak, birch, ash and willow without splitting and spoiling the wood.

I don't have a two handled singing saw....yet

When you work together well sawing through a large trunk, the saw sings and the rhythm of using your whole body to power the saw, hypnotic. It's amazing how effortlessly and quickly it can cut through the largest of trees.

What i find wonderous about coppicing is that you cut a tree fairly close to the ground and in the spring it shoots forth new growth in abundance.

You can have a tree to process and from that you can have firewood, wood for charcoal, beensticks and peasticks, wood to make furniture, wood to cleave to make posts and hurdles and gates.

..........and 8 to 10 years later you can do that all over again.

Renewable.