There was an almost full moon and a clear sky last night, so I went down to the beach to take some long-exposure photos.
The streak in the last one is a plane that was flying past.
Mike
We woke up to snow this morning. Not a lot, but enough to be worth having a walk round the wood. Here's a selection of photos in and around Sweep Wood (my parents' patch):
And here's a few views in Chestnut Coppice and the wayleave:
As we passed through, I noticed that the culvert under our main ride had got blocked:
A quick poke around with a stick soon fixed that though:
After topping up the bird feeder we went back over to Sweep Wood to do a bit of work, although we kept the chainsaws off so as not to disturb people having a New Year's Day walk in the woods. We found last year's fire still smouldering, and soon got it going again so we could make a hot drink at lunchtime.
We got on with building another log rack, and splitting some logs left from yesterday's work.
While we had lunch a number of birds passed through the area - they seem to enjoy the space we've created, with opportunities to find food and a clear view to watch out for predators. The blackbirds have been getting progressively tamer, here's a female one that was digging for food just a short distance away:
Our old favourite was there too of course. He's called Rob One - there's also a Rob Two and Rob Three, who have territories further into the wood. You can actually tell them apart from their different behaviours!
All in all, a pleasant way to spend New Year's Day.
Mike
It may be New Year's Eve, but we were still working in the woods. Paul and his daughter Emily came up in the afternoon to join in, so we made pretty good progress, especially considering we didn't make a very early start! We left a number of logs lying around for me to split tomorrow and put into a rack - we couldn't do it today as we didn't have post driver there.
Here's a before and after view of the area we cleared today:
The view back up the hill gives us a sense of progress now:
We departed just as some rain started, leaving a big fire going, which will hopefully still be burning in 2010 when we return...
Mike
It's been a wet week so far, and we stayed at home today, catching up on things and sharpening the chainsaws. Yesterday we had a group from Butterfly Conservation come to help, and a good crowd turned up despite the weather - they were rewarded with a dry-ish morning, but we packed up at lunchtime when the rain started properly. Here's a few of them at teabreak time:
Earlier in the week I spent some time working in a ditch again...
but I have now at least cleared everything we need to alongside the barn nextdoor:
We're leaving most of the brash to rot to improve the habitat there.
Let's hope we get some better weather in the next few days...
Mike
Before starting work in the wood today we went and topped up the bird feeder again. The birds seem to munch through it pretty fast, but I guess they don't know for sure we're coming to top it up, so they just eat all they can to get them through the winter. Anyway, this time it was brighter, so I got some better pics:
Back in Sweep Wood we felled some chestnut, clearing spaces for work we're planning for the upcoming volunteer visit. Here's a before and after of some of them:
We also built a couple more log racks and caught up on splitting some of the logs from trees I'd felled on Thursday. We're trying to figure out where we should stop this winter, and work towards that point...
Mike
