We are a Community Project which means that without local support we won’t be able to go forward with plans to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into Community ownership. You can read here about our latest progress, some of the projects and activities we’re involved in and our ideas going forward. Also here are some wonderful blogs for WSWG from Margaret Lear and The Barefoot Woodland Wanderer!
You can go back through the archives from 2018 to learn more about our whole journey so far to bring Taymount and Five Mile Wood into community ownership.
Please join us and let’s make this happen together.
Wandering into Five Mile Wood last week, I was considering what might turn out to be the wood’s gift this month when I got distracted by a long-ago fallen log. Or rather, the holes in it.
We thought a nice way to start this month’s update would be to enjoy the amazing detail in this photo taken by Manuela Toth of Bankfoot showing one of the oak seedlings emerging from acorns planted by her daughter earlier this year as part of WSWG’s Little Acorns project. Just think – every tree starts its life as a little seedling like this. With a bit of care, our acorns will one day become great oaks. If you planted any WSWG acorns, do keep us posted on how they are doing.
We met up at the Taymount Wood car park, Linda and I, put on our boots and turned away, not into the gate. This was to be the long road to the woods, a circular walk via the disused railway line which once ran as a ponderous branch from Stanley across the River Tay to Coupar Angus.
The Community Consultation has been a great success and we are in the middle of evaluating all the results and comments (which are really inspiring and useful) …… a huge Thank You to everyone who completed the WSWG Community Consultation Survey!
A recent walk to Five Mile Wood on a blisteringly cold and windy March day forced an awareness of how open it is – and that gave me this month’s challenge right away. Part of the means of rising to the challenge may come from the gift!
Well, the biggest thing by far we have done this month is launch the WSWG Community Consultation on our new website. Huge thanks to Perthshire Websites for doing such an amazing job for us and to consultant Chris Collins for pulling together the WSWG Proposal Consultation Report, Maps and Survey Questionnaire to make this all happen. Both have worked magic for us above and beyond their remit.
This is the first in a new series of posts for West Stormont Woodland Group. From fear or repeating myself, I thought I’d write about the fact that each month, the woods have a Gift for us. And every month, there is at least one challenge that faces us – whether physical, philosophical or organisational – in contemplation of owning woodland as a community.
West Stormont was the name used in medieval times to cover the parishes of Auchtergaven, Kinclaven, Logiealmond, Moneydie, Redgorton (Stanley) and the Murthly portion of Little Dunkeld. West Stormont has been chosen as the most suitably inclusive title for the many communities connected to Taymount and Five Mile Woods today.
Working with local people to bring
Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into Community Ownership
West Stormont was the name used in medieval times to cover the parishes of Auchtergaven, Kinclaven, Logiealmond, Moneydie, Redgorton (Stanley) and the Murthly portion of Little Dunkeld. West Stormont has been chosen as the most suitably inclusive title for the many communities connected to Taymount and Five Mile Woods today.
Working with local people to bring
Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into Community Ownership
It’s a bit like walking on ball bearings in some woods this year. They slide away under your feet and you slide with them, temporarily on arboricultural ice, until crack-crack-crunch, and you’ve squashed them. The little oak-trees-in- waiting. Acorns. Acorns galore. 2020 is what’s called a “mast year”, when all the oak trees seem to produce more acorns than it is possible for the squirrels, mice, jays and other nut-inclined creatures to harvest or store.
West Stormont was the name used in medieval times to cover the parishes of Auchtergaven, Kinclaven, Logiealmond, Moneydie, Redgorton (Stanley) and the Murthly portion of Little Dunkeld. West Stormont has been chosen as the most suitably inclusive title for the many communities connected to Taymount and Five Mile Woods today.
Working with local people to bring
Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into Community Ownership
I pause on my way through the woods, quietening my breathing, keeping as still as I can. There is no sound, there is no wind. There should be no movement. Yet within the vascular systems of the broadleaved trees that bound the track, small enzyme changes are at work, invisible changes that lead to letting go, abscission, leaf-fall.
Whilst Membership of West Stormont Woodland Group is FREE and always will be, fundraising is a major objective in our journey to bring this woodland under community ownership. Please consider making a donation, however small, to keep our bid process on track. Thank you.
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