More water - and an antler

Yesterday was dry, though cloudy and pretty windy, so we were fortunately able to go to the wood. When we got there we found that the upstream side of the culvert was full to the brim (sorry I didn't take a photo). The culvert pipe had become blocked because of the amount of leaves and twigs that had been washed down in the heavy rain of the past few days.

Fortunately there was a simple solution - I stood in the downstream end and shoved a long chestnut stem up the pipe. After a bit of jiggling around, there was a glugging noise and the water came rushing through.

While we were down there, I took the opportunity to dig a small ditch to divert water away from the ride and through the culvert. I'll probably enlarge it later in the year, but it's doing the job for now:

Lighting the fire was more tricky with the wind, but Tracy managed it, and then we got on with coppicing as normal. With it being windy I had to be a bit more careful felling - sending trees in the direction the wind was blowing, and using split-level felling cuts for more control.

We also met our neighbours Colin and Sue, who were up there with their son, digging a pond and dealing with the rhododendron they'd uprooted a couple of weeks ago. We also had a local friend, Richard, drop in - he's hoping to come and help out a bit in February.

There was one interesting find for the day:
It had a been chewed a bit, probably by a dog, but it was interesting to see that there must be some reasonably sized deer around.

And finally, before we left for the wood, I got a good sunrise photo out of our back window:
Mike