Bricky Copse

Standing on top of a compost heap,  which is now taller than the fence between us and the copse, to offload hedge trimmings, I noticed this array of mushrooms and went to have a closer look. I don't know what they are yet.

The sheep that were in the field have eaten down the low vegetation (in spring there is a carpet of opposite-leaved golden saxifrage) revealing the large stones and bricks that make up the floor of the copse. There are mossed over concrete steps at both sides of the copse. Someone whose family lived here for a good chunk of the twentieth century told me there was prisoner of war accommodation there during the First World War. The prisoners worked on local farms apparently.

Another interesting thing in the copse is this split trunk of an old sallow. From this split the trunk spreads almost horizontally in two directions over an area about 20metres wide.

The photo below shows the copse from further up the field. The sallow is the one at the front. Its lower leaves have been eaten leaving bare branches. There is birch, sycamore, holly, hawthorn, elder, dog rose in the copse as well. The dog rose grows all the way up to the top of the hawthorn which, from the right, is the third in after elder and holly. At the left end, over the fence in the boggy brae garden is the famous 'Scrawny' (some kind of cypress).

The Bricky Copse on a misty day

Walking back up the field to my sheepskin "sit-upon-ery" that doubles as protection when climbing over barbed wire fences, I enjoyed the autumn look of dock plants. Also their leafy readiness for next year's growth where bracken has been trampled.