After the storm

Well, we got the stormy conditions promised yesterday, timed just right for my trip to Birmingham on the train for work... I was 2 minutes out of Rye station when we had to stop because of a tree on the line in front of us! In the end I was only an hour late to Birmingham, which wasn't too bad.

Anyway, after 15 hours working yesterday, including meetings and writing reports on the train, I decided to head up to the wood this morning with Tracy, partly to see if there was any damage from the wind, and partly to get a bit more done on the coppicing.

While I got started with the chainsaw, Tracy went to patrol our wood, and also check out Sweep Wood for my parents. Apart from a leaning branch across the path in Sweep Wood (which she moved), she didn't find anything amiss. It's worth checking though, as there's plenty of evidence of things falling in years gone by:
What she did find however was plenty more signs of spring (these are all from Sweep Wood):
There was new boar digging in our wood too:
Back in our own wood, we tackled this patch of Chestnut:
It's the only bit left on that side of the ride. We got about half way through before the rain came on and we packed up and went home for lunch. I also got a bit more done removing the smaller trees from under the tangled mess mentioned in the previous post - I won't take a photo of it until we see some visible progress though!

We're away this weekend for my nephew's christening (we're godparents), and after that it's the Easter weekend, so apart from Sunday we should get three days in the wood, and we reckon that will be the end of the coppicing for this winter. A bit later than we might have liked, but not too much, and we've learned a lot, so it should be quicker next year.

Mike