Thursday 7 August 2008

Workers in the wood

I wasn't the only one working in the wood yesterday, this little ant was busy trying to drag the remains of an insect twice its size onto my chopping block:
I assumed it didn't actually want me to chop the insect with my axe, so I helped the ant and its cargo to a safe place...

The logs we'd left on Monday:
and now split and stacked:
I'm planning to put a shelter of some sort over them, and perhaps spread out the stacks a bit to help drying. Yet another job to add to the list...

I noticed an interesting thing. The shoots on trees which weren't coppiced have mostly stopped growing, and have formed buds ready for next year's leaves:
while on the coppiced trees, the new shoots are still growing like crazy:
I guess this is because they're trying to quickly recover from the trauma of being cut down?

And finally, one of the "shield bugs", which are everywhere in the wood:
Mike

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi

"I guess this is because they're trying to quickly recover from the trauma of being cut down?"

My guess has always been more a factor of the produce of the root system in that the relatively high yield of nutrients from the established root system provides far outweighs the needs of the new growth.

I keep coming back to see pictures of your woodland. Love the trees and the wood stuff you do.

Bernhard

Mike Pepler said...

That's a good point. I keep forgetting that the trees don't think and plan, but react in automatic ways to their environment, so the idea of excess nutrients keeping them growing for longer into the summer makes sense.

Thanks for the kind comments, it's good to know people are reading! :-)