I built a home for an owl, a mouse and a hedgehog

That's a brilliant start. It is hammering it down up in the forest, but we do need the rain. Zane forgot the lenses, sent me back home to get them, but I got a thing that I forgot as well, which was the ladder. And first job, Zane, is we're going to get an owl box up in that tree. Well, at least we're going to try. Right, that's step 1. Should we get dry?

Yeah.

So I bought us an owl box thing. I had no idea what I was buying, as you can see.

I would never say that's an owl box by looking at it.

What?

Looks like an old TV.

So I think it's like a recycled one.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? Like out of recycled material. It's a bit rough and ready, isn't it? But if it works, we can build our own.

That's massive. How are we putting that on a tree?

So I'm guessing there's like some bolts or something. So look what we got, a bit of OSB. I'm seeing something that will be helpful, Zane.

Do you know what, there's too much reading and not enough pictures for my liking.

So, so here's the gist. I think this is like a perch.

Yeah.

Why's that not working?

I can't recall seeing many owl boxes, but this one looks pretty different.

It's— it is cool. It's not what I expected, but I can see how it would work now. So I'm going to put this up like a tree somewhere. Apparently you've got to face it— oh, what do they say? Like southeast, I think, or south-southeast gets the morning sun. And then you want it on the edge of grassland, which we are. Like, you couldn't get better on the edge of grassland.

Oh yeah.

And then you have to have it visible at this time of the year. So it's apparently a good time of the year. So next job is drilling that to a wall— no, drilling that to the tree, the big oak tree that we've got there, trimming the bits down, and then going up and kind of hooking it on.

Yeah.

And then seeing if we can get an owl.

Get an owl?

Well, get an owl, that's what we're trying to do.

Give an owl a home, so you're trying to capture one?

I'm not trying to snag an owl, but see if we can, yeah, see if we can give an owl a home. Do you think we get one?

Um, yeah, I reckon we will.

You think we will? I reckon we will. Okay, well I've got other things to put up there. I've got a hedgehog house that we're going to do, not in a tree, but on the floor somewhere, and a mouse box, but we'll get this one up first, yeah?

Yeah, let's go for it.

Guys, surprisingly difficult to get the angle to be able to like, you know, your arms need to be out there to get it.

I was gonna say, it might wanna go up a little bit.

It needs to go up quite a bit, but I can't get it in because of the ladder. And then the slant becomes much more extreme, but it is, yeah, it needs to go up, doesn't it?

Got that!

That's it, that's it.

Yeah? Yep.

I think that's good, you know.

Yeah?

Yeah. Whoops!

It's called the the official drop test, just making sure that it can survive a proper drop.

This is what we do. We also do what do they call durability tests?

Yeah.

Do you know what we forgot to put in as well? We forgot to put the board in.

That's missing. Okay. Where is that gone? I don't know where it's gone.

I'll find it now. We've lost a bit. It's black or green.

Black. Oh, here.

I've got it, well done.

Well, did you say black or green?

Yeah, but I think this is it.

What about if it's black and green at the same time? That looks proper.

Yeah, good, isn't it? Right, so there you go, Zane. It is still pouring down, but we now officially have a barn owl house. I'm not sure if we're going to tempt one in, but fingers crossed. We've got loads more to do. I can't believe how miserable it is.

It's nice to get a bit dry, but yeah, it's just gonna— it's pointless changing, isn't it?

Talking about there, do you know what he's left up there? So he's been digging out all the conifers. And obviously chopping them down and doing stuff. There's one up there that's just been dug out and left with a big mound at the bottom of it. I reckon we could get it in the back of the truck.

Pinch it.

Or Christmas tree.

How big is it?

Is it Christmas tree size? It's enough to just about get it in the truck. Like, just. It's pretty big. We're gonna do it. We'll do it later on.

Yeah?

Yeah, that'll be the end of the day, right? Hedgehog homes. I need to get my hedgehog home. So we've spoken about it loads, haven't we, about getting different animals and stuff up here. I bought all these different bits. I bought a barn owl box, I bought a hedgehog box with the idea of like putting them up. We'll put them up, but then we could probably build that, couldn't we?

Yeah.

Like a Zane special.

Yeah.

It's just a bit of ply. And I think, again, I have no— like, I'm not a hedgehog expert at all, so I bought the right bits, but it is just like a ply top and then inside. But so the idea is we need to put this somewhere, and I've got a little mouse box over there as well, but put them somewhere where they're not going to I don't want to attract stuff into where we're storing boxes, but I kind of want to put it somewhere where, I don't know, like where if you were a hedgehog, where would you go?

So you want to find like a bit of a— I think in the forest up here.

Yeah.

And just, you know, a little bit of a clearing where it kind of looks as almost like a pathway where you'd go.

Yeah, well maybe, yeah, like I say, I have no idea. I guess the hedgehog's got to find it, innit? My concern then is that you can put it out and it's just going to all get rotten, so I think we need to Like lift it up off the ground just like an inch or so.

Yeah.

And then put a roof or something on it. Right, I reckon up there in like a little wood pile and then we build the wood pile around it.

Yeah.

And then it'll look nice, won't it?

Yeah. Right, do it. Okay.

Right, so I think this is a nice little spot here, Zane. We've already got— there's an up Upturned tree and loads of logs already, and I'm just going to flatten it out a bit and then put this down just so it doesn't get cold underneath. You say you prefer the Owl Box?

No, sod the Owl Box. Yeah, this looks epic. Mi sei innesciato anche a me.

You know, after all our hard work of planting all those herbs.

Yeah.

This is the evidence. Look, I told you the sheep were up here.

You see it?

So they have been up here eating all of my herbs and lovely stuff and just taking complete advantage. I think we've got the situation under control now, but what I've learned is just plant stuff the sheep don't like. So the herbs, the sage and the rosemary, the sheep are like, bleh, we don't like that. And they've ripped up all the clover and just thrown it out. So we're just planting stuff that sheep do not like going forward, I think.

Nice.

Maybe like that side.

Over here?

Yeah, though it will just like self-root in it. They're quite good ferns. Yeah, a bit more over there. Yeah, I'm I'm really, really proud of this already, Zane.

It looks like it's always been here, doesn't it?

Yeah, I know.

Looks incredible.

So we spent way too long building a hedgehog house, but because we're just very excited— you've got to picture this, it's raining today, we've got tons to do, and we've just spent half a morning building a hedgehog house in the woods in the soaking rain. Like, we are thoroughly soaked.

It's like being kids again though, isn't it?

It is good fun.

Building dens.

It's good fun. So we're gonna, we're gonna have a little cleanup, we're gonna have some lunch, and then I'm gonna quickly go through everything that's happened in the forest since the last time you were here. So lunch first and then we will do the grand tour. So Zane's got the camera under a very nifty umbrella there, but let me come and show you something over here which I thought was very cool. We've been putting up the steps and cutting all of this bit out and bending the willow over just to try and kind of stop that wind coming in because we are quite exposed here. I know it looks a little bit rough, doesn't it? But all of this, you can see this was done maybe a week ago and everything was still nice and green, so It's obviously getting what it needs, and we'll just continue kind of like weaving bits in like that as it grows and thickens out. We want to do that because of the wind, but I want to do it for another reason as well, which I can show you in here, Zane. So you can see in here, Zane, a little tiny bird's nest. And we've got birds nesting all the way along this willow now, but I'm not going to shake it around, but it's really wobbly and blowing all over the place. But with a bit of structure in it, it should give it the support, and then the birds can come in and nest wherever they want. So these are all new, and these are nice because it just gives you like a little place to kind of sit down. I'm not going to sit down today because it is hammering it down, but I like it up here. We're going to get chip on here. This is the job for next time, I think, Zane. We're going to scrape all of this off and get the chip. But come and have a look, Zane. This is, this is the one that's getting me at the moment because look, the sheep have been here again. Their sheep poo. But all of this stuff here, this is the clover. So they went through— I planted all of this, or I grew all of this from seeds and planted it all, and Watered it again. You know how much I watered it, Zane. And then the sheep came and ate it multiple times and wrecked it. But I just, I dumped it all here, but it's grown back, innit?

Oh wow.

Yeah.

Staying alive.

Staying alive. So it's— I feel like we need to give it a new home.

Now how have we had nothing for like 3 months, 2, 3 months?

Then we get this.

To this.

It's nice though, you can see like all the— like look how healthy the plants look. I thought there was going to come a point where I'd come back up and everything would be dead because of the dryness or, or the sheep, one or the other. But look at it now, a couple of weeks of nice rain and it's, uh, it's all coming back to life, isn't it? I'm excited for next year staying up here because this is— you can kind of see still that it's first-year plants, kind of someone's been up here planting. But I think next year some, some will do well and some will die and some will take over a bit and it will just, it will spread and it'll look quite nice. Have you seen all the bees on it though?

Yeah.

Like, obviously not today, but the amount of different bees, that's what's crazy up here. You think, for all the honeybees up there, And you see a few honeybees on things, but you see more like bumblebees and fluffy bees and mason bees and all these other different bees that obviously living up close by to the forest. Now they got some nice herbs to go on. Right, Zane, have you seen our seeds? We got some plants that have taken hold here. So not many, I'm not going to lie, it's not been the best, but some that have germinated.

Well, considering the conditions we've had, well, yeah, they've They quite like this condition.

I think the problem that I had was that I let my seeds all go wet, didn't I? Let the seeds go wet. But we've got like— things have germinated, we've got plants.

I've got— the main question is, what are they?

I don't know.

You haven't got a clue, have you?

And this is always the problem, but even like little ones like this, look at that. You see them there?

Just at the bottom. Yeah, could be anything that, couldn't it?

It could, but this, this kind of weather is good, good weather. Like warm. I know it's rainy, but we want the rain. And we'll get the warmth and then things will grow. But this is my favorite one, Zayn. You remember this one?

Yes.

They're our poppies. So they're going to grow up and be little poppies. It's nice. So even with Zayn's nifty umbrella there, we just had to get out of the rain. It's absolutely hammering it down. The plants will water themselves today, and I want to go and take this little tiny mouse box and go and put it somewhere special in the woods. I don't want it close to my beehouse. I don't want to attract mice in where I'm storing supers, but somewhere in the forest out of the way, there's going to be a nice little A house for a mouse. Right, so me and Zane over lunch have been trying to decide whether it goes this way and you nestle it in with all little logs around it, or it goes that way. And we were working out because it's got these bits of wood, it must, it must sit there like that. And then we Googled it and realized that we were both wrong. You have to strap it to a tree like this. Who knew? A hazel dormouse this is supposedly for. And it says try and find a nice hazel tree next to some vegetation. And we've got like the 2 most glorious hazel trees in the world. They are absolutely huge. So we're going to try and strap it to a tree and see if we can attract a hazel dormouse. So we've got these huge trees around us, and as I said, I'm not An expert, but all I do know is if I was a mouse, yeah, I would definitely live near these trees because the whole floor is just nuts. And then you look up at the tree and the tree's covered in nuts as well. So I think the mouse house will do quite well here. And literally just behind Zane, there is the perfect tree to put it. Apparently it needs to be about 1.5 meters high. It's very, very muddy, Zane. Whoa. Ah, I think we might be stuck.

I like the way you're feathering the throttle.

That's it, we're good, we're good.

Miley knows what he's doing.

I didn't— oh, I do not know what I'm doing. There we go, we're through though. Path is A little bit wavy, but this is it. We're actually here. Here we go. Okay, I missed it, is saying.

Oh my God.

So this is what I was talking about, saying. Oh, it's a bit big, isn't it? There'll be a little tree. Come on, we gotta find a little Christmas tree. for somewhere. Do you not think we get that down? Do you not think we drag— oh, like, it's such a perfect Christmas tree. Right, so Zane said that the one that I chose was too big and I've got to choose a smaller one to go in the back of the truck. Probably a fair point. What about one of these?

I will say though, that is definitely not as cool as that one, is it?

It's not.

I feel like we need a middle ground.

So you can see where they, they've been through here taking out all the trees, and over this side it's nice and light, and then we go to the dark bit, Zane. It gets so dark so quick. So Zane has convinced me to not get the huge Christmas tree. We'll come back in November for the huge one, but there's a little beautiful one just tucked away up here that I'm going to dig out. Right, so this is the little one that we're going to take, and I've only just realized this, but look, Zane, there's a holly next to it. So there's a holly and a little Christmas tree, and if we just take the whole bit and go plant it somewhere— yeah?

Meant to be together.

Definitely. Let's do it.

Right, before we go back, Zane, I've got one more fern that I want to get that's just up here. Right, this is the one that I want to get here, Zane. You can see it.

Have a look.

So we can take it back and maybe propagate it and take some bits from it. I'm going to dig that one out as well.

Let's go.

Mhm.

Oh, I am really excited about this little fern, Zane. I'm going to put it somewhere in here, I think. I think I'm going to give up buying stuff from the garden center to feed the sheep and we'll just go and find like little cool bits because there's tons of this in the forest. There's acres and acres of stuff like this. Anytime we see something nice and cool, we'll bring it back home.

Yeah, it's an expensive hobby otherwise, isn't it?

It's an expensive hobby, yeah. This was free, so if the sheep want to come and eat it, they can come and eat it. Like, that just shows what we're dealing with this year. Everything is like that, bone dry. Luckily, like, it's got a bit of moss to keep all the moisture in, but that is what North Wales is like this year. What do we want the tree? We want the tree to kind of go up, don't we?

Yeah.

What do you think, in the corner?

Kind of think corner would make it a bit of a feature, but I don't know, it can go—

I think corner. I think there. I want to go and get some more like moss and just turn it into a little moss thing. That would look quite cool, wouldn't it? Should we do it?

Why not?

Won't take long, will it? So we're going to call it a day there. I'm drenched through, covered in mud, but I've had a really fun day. I don't know about you, Zen, did you enjoy it as well?

Soaking wet, but I've enjoyed it.

Yeah, it's been good fun. So we'll come back every single month, we'll do something up here in the forest. I don't know what it is, but maybe we get a hedgehog that goes into our hedgehog house, or an owl that goes into our owl box, or we just cover this entire bank in moss and have lots of fun doing it. I don't know, it will be fun though, eh, Zane?

Yeah.