All the trees are growing!

My parents are visiting, and yesterday we took a walk in Sweep Wood to see how it's getting on after our two winters coppicing there. And it's looking great!

All the trees we cut last winter are growing again now, here's Sweet Chestnut, Hornbeam and Alder:

The year-old trees are doing well too, here's some Ash back in leaf:

And of course, until the trees grow back to close the canopy, everything on the ground is going crazy:

Compare this to a similar bit of the wood a few years ago:

Quite a difference, eh?

Here's another one from a few years ago:

but this area doesn't look so different yet for ground flora, as we only just cut it - it'll need another year's growth to change visibly.

The bluebells have just started to pass their peak in this part of the wood now, so here's a few photos, as there may not be many more.

The ride between Sweep Wood and Chestnut Coppice is looking pretty good too:

and not far from there is some Hawthorn in bloom - a bit later than the ones you might have seen in hedgerows, as it's shaded to some extent. But once again, there's a coppicing benefit here, as this is a tree that didn't flower at all until we cut along that ride:

One final exciting thing we saw, which bodes well for the summer, was hundreds of caterpillars on our crab apple tree. I'm no good at identifying them, so any help appreciated! They did an amazing job of looking like twigs:

Though when they do it on the edge of a leaf it's probably a bit less effective as camouflage:

Anyway, that's all for now. We walked some of the High Weald Landscape Trail today, so there'll be pics from that in due course...

Mike

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The Land Rover Defender has gone...

Our Defender has now been sold... We're sad to see it go, so here's a few photos of some of the fun we had with it.

Moving logs:

In the snow:

With family visiting:

Near Dungeness, soon after we bought it:

Of course there were less happy times too, like when some numpty skidded into us on ice - though his radiator, bonnet and lights were busted while we had a bent bumper!

and when the clutch broke, while we were in the wood

Anyway, we have a Suzuki Grand Vitara now, which will hopefully be more reliable and practical, even if it doesn't have as much character.

Before we let the Defender go, we did have one last job for it, moving some more logs! Here's the pile after 12 trips back and forth:

We left some barrier tape round the pile to at least indicate to any passing children that it's not a safe place to climb. Doesn't mean they won't, of course, but we've done our bit.

Lastly, the Bluebells in Sweep Wood are looking amazing now! I'm going to get some more photos soon, but here's one to keep you going:

Mike

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