Sex

Graffiti like this never fails amuse and bemuse, what was the motivation? Was it a desperate request to fulfil an unfulfilled desire or celebratory affirmation of fulfilment, or was it an advertisement for saucy forest pop up shop? We'll never know. I also wonder if the folk that carve the forests graffiti remember doing it, or ever returned to the scene of their whittling.

Cash Crop

They're cropping the mature coniferous trees in a corner of Burley New enclosure know as Great Early. Burley New was enclosed in 1810, though these conifers are a much later introduction, planted after the primary timber had been cropped. When you're used to the forest looking a certain way big chunks suddenly missing are a bit of a shock. That's the thing about the New Forest though, it's a living thing, it's not a historical scene set in aspic, it's a working and evolving landscape.  Always changing, either moving forward with new cash crops to be planted, or travelling backwards restoring streams, encouraging the re-establishment of rare bog woodland and returning some former plantations back to open heath. I wonder what they'll do with this piece of land next?  I noticed they've left the few scattered deciduous trees in situ.