Odds and ends

We've been up to various things over the last few days. Most exciting (for us, at least) is that we've ordered two electric bikes! The idea is that this winter we'll be able to cycle there most days, rather than driving. Yes, yes, I know we already have bikes, but it's 5 miles, hilly and has cars going at 60mph - and have you tried cycling that after a hard day coppicing? Anyway, there will be more news when they come, which could be a week or two.

We've also been to Bodiam castle, as it's a local attraction and we had a 2 for 1 ticket. Well worth a visit, if you're into castles:
Interesting to see the notice in the car park, about how they expect it to be underwater in 50 years due to climate change:
Kind of brings it home, eh? I'm glad we're doing our bit by producing low-carbon wood fuel from our woodland...

Friday night we went to the wood with Joy, Jason and Lauren to watch badgers. While we were waiting for it to get dark, Lauren practised her whittling skills:

And Jason perfected his badger-disguise haircut:
Oh, and I took the remains of the old shelter down, all that's left now is a dry patch on the ground: As the light started to fade we headed off for our badger watch and all lined up in the path:
Sadly we didn't see anything other than a rabbit though. We're going to try putting some food out for them - we've been told peanut butter is a favourite.

Today was wet, but it dried up mid afternoon so I went up to the wood to do some logging and splitting, ready for a certain firewood customer. They have an open fire, so need the birch rather than chestnut, so I started with this messy pile, and brought a couple more logs over from nearby:
For the logging part I used my cunning little saw horse, made from the stump of a tree I felled in the winter. I just used the chainsaw to cut a V in the top of it: I spent a couple of hours alternately logging and splitting with the maul, finally ending up with a stack of firewood:
It's always somewhat depressing how little space it takes up once you've finished! I'll now leave it in the sun for a few weeks to dry...

And finally, a nice picture of a leaf:
Mike