Team effort

And today's team was... Paul, Penny, Emily and Charlotte! They all came up for a day of coppicing, sitting round the fire and to be outside on a sunny winter's day.

But first, you need to see how cold it was. This was the view down the wayleave:
The sun was just coming up over the trees as we approached the wood:
and was making the frost sparkle in the trees:
As we walked in a wren was hopping from one pile of wood to another again, and this time I managed to actually get a photo. Not a very good one, but it's a start, and with patience I may get a better one.
I had a little walk around to try and get better pictures of the wren, but it was camera shy - always close, but hiding in the wood piles. I did see our neighbour Colin though, and had chance to chat with him briefly. He'd stayed the night, without getting hypothermia thankfully, but hadn't seen the boar, which is what he was really after.

Walking over to the area we're working in at present, Tracy noticed these tracks:
Any ideas? My guess is that they're hoof prints, but that as the ground was partly frozen only the edges left any impression.

Before long our coppicing team turned up, and after a hot drink they got to work in the area we're calling "dead oak corner", after the dead oak that's near it.
We'd been saving this area specially as it had a lot of trees that could be dealt with using a bowsaw and loppers, although Paul brought his chainsaw to use on the larger ones.

Not only did they come to help us coppice, but they also brought lunch!
We'll have to get them to visit again... :-)

Harvey and Rosy came too, but they didn't do any coppicing.
Even at lunchtime you had to be careful where you sat, as some of the benches were still thick with frost:
After lunch a fire was lit to burn up some of the brash - this area isn't near where we've been building the dead hedge, and there was also plenty of space for a fire.
By the end of the day the team had created a good clearing at the corner in the ride, and it's almost joined up to the cant we cut last winter now.
All in all, a good day, and many thanks to Paul, Penny Emily and Charlotte for their work!

We're up again tomorrow, hoping to to have a local retired forester visit, and also deliver some logs at the end of the day (taking advantage of the rock-hard ground to drive in to the wood we hope).

Mike