No, not Bill’s long-lost sister, but gates made from hazel sticks.

Garden visitors will most likely remember this one that I made a couple of years ago which lets people through into the picnic meadow. It still gets lovely comments, including some from the participants on Saturday’s Foraging day.

It just happened that I’d decided that the ‘corral’ at the top of the chicken field, where we round up the sheep when we need to get them into the trailer, would be better with a gate at the end of it rather than the straggly wire fence, and so with quite a bit of coppiced hazel lying around the yard, I set to.

It’s quite fun making a gate. First of all one has to get some accurate measurements and then decide on the style. This new one was to be similar to the above, but I went for a different style of bracing and I didn’t want it lower in the centre, in case a sheep decided to have a jump. .

It took a bit longer than anticipated as I had to go down to the river walk and cut some additional pieces, particularly for the two main uprights.

Anyway, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, it resembled a gate! That was the first hurdle (excuse the pun) over.

A rustic thing of beauty. As Sue often says about my workmanship (and I’m never sure if she says it to make me feel better about a wonky artefact!) “If I’d wanted perfect, I’d have bought it from IKEA.” I always think that Harrods would be a better comparison, but there we go!

Searching in my well-organised (well, I know where things are) workshop, I found that I didn’t have any proper gate hinges, so had this idea based on an old bike chain. It may last, it may not, but at least it is working at the moment.

I think it looks OK and the chickens seem to think so as well. It was a little tricky hanging it as Doodle the cockerel has a massive dislike of my cordless drill / screwdriver, so I had to do everything from one side of the gate!

A satisfying little project.