That's not foraging...

THIS is foraging! A willow tree had a branch down at the marina, totally inaccessible by vehicle, so we've embarked on doing it all by hand XD It's about a 15min walk in normal (i.e. not carrying trees) conditions.

Hopefully you can see the pictures: they're from Facebook this time.

Here's Matt collecting the bits of tree: my bike for scale.



A little further on, Matt stops for bramble (plus guest train!).







That last photo is him poking bits of bramble back through the fence so no-one chops them off: bramble explodes out the side shoots when the tip is cut off.

This is my loaded bike I pushed home: it got worse when the bramble and hawthorn was added.



We also found some silverleaf, and I took a photo of the canal view because it looked nice.





Matt cutting haws off hawthorn.



Some views of Matt carrying the 'tree' home:







Matt and bunnies for scale...

Fantastic.

I can't see the pics, but we've done the same before with large Willow branches. The hay farmer across the road has a line of massive and ancient Willows adjoining the road. Occasionally, when it's windy one of them will break off, fall and block the road, so we do our bit to help out

fabulous. Hope A & L enjoy

Now that is one serious foraging mission! I hope the buns appreciated your labours [emoji3]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Those photos are fabulous and thank you for posting :wave:

What a lot of willow! Fantastic haul all round

Update: we left the smaller branches on to of the dog crate to dry. Matt went out to see to them this morning, and Lopsy was stood on the blue plastic hideyhole trying to reach them (even fully stretched, the top is about 2' above him!). Idiot. Matt fed them their usual in the run, but shortly after eating some of what was on offer there, Aboleth went to join Lopsy. Idiots. Matt had to remove the tempting articles into the garage or they might have spent all day in there :lol:

Omi (and anyone else who can't see them): they're all here (with a few extra): https://photos.app.goo.gl/wkDSWi2cYkVjA7Z38

keletkezes said:

Update: we left the smaller branches on to of the dog crate to dry. Matt went out to see to them this morning, and Lopsy was stood on the blue plastic hideyhole trying to reach them (even fully stretched, the top is about 2' above him!). Idiot. Matt fed them their usual in the run, but shortly after eating some of what was on offer there, Aboleth went to join Lopsy. Idiots. Matt had to remove the tempting articles into the garage or they might have spent all day in there :lol:

Omi (and anyone else who can't see them): they're all here (with a few extra): https://photos.app.goo.gl/wkDSWi2cYkVjA7Z38

Click to expand...

Thanks so much I am very grateful. It's lovely (and somewhat reassuring :lol that other people are as bonkers as us :lol: That's the sort of size that falls on to the road from the trees very close to here. However, it probably takes us only a couple of minutes to carry them home

Did they strip the bark from that Willow? I'm finding at the moment, during times of plenty, that it's only Willow that gets stripped of bark. Other trees just have their leaves eaten, unless it's a very thin branch which just gets eaten with the leaves.

I agree your canal does look pretty

That's fantastic foraging!!

Omi said:

Did they strip the bark from that Willow? I'm finding at the moment, during times of plenty, that it's only Willow that gets stripped of bark. Other trees just have their leaves eaten, unless it's a very thin branch which just gets eaten with the leaves.

I agree your canal does look pretty

Click to expand...

We live backing on to the canal, but not in a very pretty bit: at least we're facing a nice bit :lol: They strip down everything but you know it's bad when they chew bramble to the soft middle! That means they're actually starving*. But anything soft and cheable goes: willow and mallow bark, the softer parts of hawthorn, the whole 'skin' and thorns of brambles, whole rose twigs. Yesterday an 18" 'hardwood' (i.e. not soft) rose twig was unrecognisable as rose having been in there for only 10hrs (7:30am to 5:30pm), they'd chewed a good couple of mm off all round.

*As in we've not been to see them for 12hrs :roll: :lol:

There's one more 'load' to collect: that's four loads total! Already filled the big microwave box so going to have to push at least threee more boxes into service probably, although the first lot was the most 'leafy' We're stripping the leafy bits and giving them the big branches, then one the leafy bits are dry the actual leafy bits are broken off the twigs (so the twig with leaves, broken off the twig without leaves) and put in a box and the not-leafy twigs are currently discarded on the ground but I might try and make a ball or something for them