Elders 11 – Ash (Thursday)

We were over 20 around the circle, (including one of 100 years!) and most if not all had done their homework, as we discovered going round to pool our innate knowledge of Ash, our tree this week, passing – appropriately – a huge spoon carved by Jason Parr, out of ash from this wood

• It can grow to 35 meters tall. It has black buds, and flowers of male and female
• It is a good wood for making tools, such as hammers and is used to make hockey sticks and oars
• Ash is best in the ash tray
• Easy to work provided it is not knotted, bent with steam as in wheel back chairs
• In the folk tradition it is used by Molly dancers for their sticks, as well as for police trunchons!
• Sad it is dieing all over the land – will there be as cure for Ash Dieback?
• Morgan cars chassis was made of Ash
• Known as the Venus of the woods. light and graceful
• Ash before oak, we’re in for a soak, Oak before ask, a splash
• Ash before oak, a lady wears a coat
• Why Ash Wednesday? The ash from burning the palms
• Used for making walking sticks
• In Norse mythology Yggdrasill is an enormous ash tree that connects the nine worlds, including the underworld (Niflheim), the earth (Midgard), and the realm of the gods (Asgard).
• One fo the first trees to loose their leaves in the Autumn
• Anglo Saxon word æsc, poetic word for spear. We meandered from here to a spear killing a man, then ash used as the timber to burn him.
• If children were born weak limbed, they had to pass through the cleft of ash, after which if the ash grew the limb strengthened.
• There is a sculptor called Ben who bends the ash into tunnels of living ash

The British sculptor David Nash’s Ash Dome is dying. The remarkable work of Land Art, which he planted as a young artist at a secret location deep in the Welsh countryside more than 40 years ago, was meant to outlive him. Now in his 70s and a Royal Academician, Nash is disappointed but accepting that disease will kill the ring of 22 ash trees that he planted in 1977.

Art net

Spontaneously, Martin sang us a song about the Ash Grove – which was moving enough to ask him to sing more verses!

Rachel read from her hero, Oliver Rackham, who’d been comissioned to write a book exclusively on the Ash tree, soon after Ash die back was confirmed in the UK

Ash is one of the commonest trees. Most ash trees are wildlife, like blue bells or badgers or birch trees; they look after themselves and cost nothing. Ash is under appreciated: it has not the glamour of birch, the mystery of lime, the antiquity of yew, the magic of rowan, or the lore and legend of oak. It is a very recognisable tree that people are fond of in a quiet way, but not one that people are moved to write books about.

Oliver Rackham, The Ash Tree

After all this knowledge, we ventured into the wood. Inherently an oak nuttery, the ash trees growing would have been ‘by accident’. The three near by were clearly suffering from Ash Die-back (Chalara dieback of ash, also known as Chalara or ash dieback, is a disease of ash trees caused by a fungus called Hymenoscyphus fraxineus). Professor Kingham took us though the science of Chalara.

However as we walked down the track beside was a nursery of a hundred small ash trees – here’s Virginia holding one we pulled up to see its root.

Back at the cabin, under the shade of a healthy ash tree, Nicky took us though our tapping paces, inviting us to tap another’s back shoulders, difficult to reach ourselves. What joy!

Back to work, and a strict 2 minute draw of first ash leaves, (after a few observations) and then the keys. Yes, it’s through drawing that we see – in this case that the keys were twisted. This was followed by a 10 minute draw, and an exhibition around the fire.

After tea and cake – to celebrate Kally’s birthday – we shared what we had learned this day about ash.

• Leaves like a fibonacci sequence
• Twisty keys
• I had not looked at ash for years
• That Morgan’s chassis made of Ash
• The tree of life
• To trust in nature – like Oliver Rackham says, they look after themselves
• The amazing utility of ash
• I’ve always liked ash trees

Then Serena added to our knowledge by showing us how we could see the years growth on the step: a small circle around.

Finally we sang Esther’s song, Oak Ash and Thorn.

Finally a painting by John Constable of some ash trees. I haven’t managed to find one of those classic C18th paintings of Mr and Mrs x with their greyhound.

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