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

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