Bathing Bark

After pollarding some trees, there was fresh material available to experiment.

Not the best time of year for harvesting bark.

Mid-spring (May) is ideal, when the sap has risen and new leaves are well opened.

But the period for willow (Salix alba) is much wider, from April to August.

 

It takes some strength and effort but then you'll end up with a nice piece of bark.

Inspiration

Perhaps you remember my Neolithic beach find from 2021.

A Doggerland 'spits', you can read about it here.

There was an opportunity to join the Resurfacing Doggerland project.

The project lend the spits and I agreed to remove a small piece of material.

After 19 months, ZooMS and C14 research, the spits returned home.

(as soon as I can, I'll share the results of the outcome)

When we went to Leiden in January to pick it up,

I was intrigued by these objects....

The fur one inspired by a mummy; the Arrow Quiver of Iceman Ötzi

Back to DIY:

You can fold the bark and make yourself a 'bag' or 'quiver' (smile)

Have a can with rain water available to keep the branch and bark wet.

Your material will dry quickly as soon as you start peeling the bark.

 

If you're not sure what to do with it yet....

You can buy some extra time by preventing it to dry

.... the harvested bark is underwater now. 

The largest piece is rolled with the outer bark on the inside and secured with wooden pegs.

  

You can dry the bark to store it for arts-and-crafts projects later. Soak it well before use.

I also tried to harvest a piece of bark from the goat willow

(aka great sallow, pussy willow, boswilg, Salix caprea)

It was really difficult, labour-intensive and not motivating at all.

There wasn't enough sap, it has been a very dry year so far.

Next spring I'll give it another go.

My previous post about bark harvesting: Barkin Time

B-Day

My perfect birthday is a day on the beach...

searching for fossils... having the beach to ourselves

late in the afternoon the mist is rising again...

almost like a 17th century painting by Paulus Potter

You can find many photo's from over the years (in different weather) here

.

Someone came at the front door and asked if he perhaps could pollard our trees.

His 5 donkeys love to eat and play with willow twigs and we happen to love donkeys!

We'll visit them soon ☆

Woodwork

a closer inspection by the kenderman... (photo from talus)

The brown diagonal is our pollarded common alder tree.
Being the oldest tree in our garden it took the first hit and
had to deal with the full weight of the fallen tree!

It probably saved our barn from getting damaged.

 Already we have a big pile of branches to despatch...

(photo taken from a ladder)

Only 1/3 of the fallen tree has been removed but the trunk laying on our alder

is still too heavy to remove. So we'll wait and see if time is on our side.

Hopefully evaporation is going to reduce the weight....

Gardening again!

The weather is getting better now.
Preparing for springtime.