Willow harvest

Last weekend, a team of 30+ locals came down to the river for sausages and willow cutting. Finally, the floods were gone and there was a bit of warmth in the air! We made the most of it...

Cosmo, Liam and Conor playing in the willow pile

It was the best day of the year so far! Thanks to the many hands that pitched in, we got all the willow cut in under an hour. Fantastic work and great fun too. The willow will be sold to Colin McAteer at www.greencoffinsireland.com, where it will be made into beautiful willow coffins.

Mum and Dec hoist bundles of willow up to the roundhouse

Caomhlain tries out her bow and arrow! She's a mighty fine shot!

Aine with a couple of bundles

Liam, Cosmo, Conor, Sam and Ruthie

Huge thanks due to Anne, Michael, Conor, Liam, Dec, Jennie, Sam, Ruthie, Valerie, Canice, Cosmo, Carmel, Rita, Amelia, Cece, Olivia, Phil, Pete, Ciara, Howard, Caomhlain, Monica, John, Oisin, Eoghan, Catriona, Keith and family, Saoirse and her parents whose names I have rudely forgotten, and everyone else who came down to lend a hand!

Tree weaving

So I was down at Seed Savers in Scariff, Co. Clare, a few months ago for a willow weaving course and got all inspired. "Work with what you've got!" said the instructor. "Hmmmm" I thought. I'd been looking through fancy books like this one and salivating over websites like this one, but she got me thinking. I've got tons of willow trees at the low end of the River Field just sitting there (well, growing of course, but not doing much else) so one afternoon I took a bit of a figairy, grabbed a roll of string and headed down to tie some branches together and see what happened. What started out as a few simple arches has rapidly evolved into a witchy and magical canopy that I'm weaving as it grows. To add to the atmosphere, I've glued little mirrored mosaic squares to fishing line, tied each end to a clothes pegs and clasped them to the branches. They glisten and twinkle between the leaves in the sunlight. I love it.

Oh my, how she's grown!

The willow maze and dome have taken off in the past few weeks and sprouted 3 inches of new growth. Compare these pictures with the ones in the post below from Saturday April 2nd - quite a change!

Willow Maze

I know it's not terribly obvious from the photos, but these little sticks in the ground actually are a huge and complicated willow maze. Mum and I planted it two weeks ago. It took three solid back-breaking days. They're only just starting to sprout, but when they do, and get a bit of growth on them, it will look a bit mazier... The maze is on a quarter-acre plot (!) and is really difficult - despite planting the bloody thing, we still got lost, and we were holding the map! It should be a lot of fun on drunken summer nights. The paths are wide enough to get a boat down too, so when it floods in the winter I'll be going round it in my coracle (if I get my coracle - please please please!!). Spinnies anyone?

Cloud-gazing dome

So I wanted to make an extra special willow dome, not your common or garden one but one with a bit of je ne sais quoi... so ta da!!! Introducing(possibly)the world's first dedicated cloud-gazing dome. Basically a normal dome, with a hole in the middle made out of old chicken wire than I stuck bits of willow through. The deal is you go in, lie on your back, and gaze up at the clouds while the wind rustles the leaves and the sun comes streaming in etc etc. It looks a bit sparse at the moment, I'll admit, but it's only just been planted so be nice. By midsummer it'll be a big fuzzy ball of green. With any luck!

Wattling...

The next step was to wattle the walls with willow saplings. It was a lot of work! Willow was harvested from coppiced trees in the field and from a willow tree that had split and formed an island in the middle of the river. We had to swim upstream with loppers and a length of rope and climb the tree to get to the willow, then bind it up and drag it downstream. Lots of fun :)