Water, water everywhere

Sorry for the lack of posts in the past couple of weeks - I'm working full time for a short period while work is busy, so not getting up to the wood very much. Only one more week though, and then the coppicing gets going again.

We had a lot of rain on Monday, and the streams are flowing in the wood again now. Tracy popped up on Tuesday and took some pictures. First though, the river outside our house also got pretty high:
Our winter stream in the wood starts at our border with Dome Wood, and flows into the cant we cut last winter.
On the way it flows under a root plate of a windblown birch - the trees were removed last winter, but we used a log to prop the root plate up, as we though it was an interesting feature. The stream then meanders through the wood, passing just below our shelter.After which it goes down a mini-waterfall into the culvert under the main ride:
And comes out the other side.
After this it carries on through the wood and eventually onto the wayleave, where most of it goes into a drainage ditch, although the track is still pretty wet:
Here;'s a short video, first of the stream in Sweep Wood (which my parents own, and borders ours), and then of the stream at the culvert in our own wood:

Autumn is well and truly here now. The leaves are almost all brown on the oaks and the coppice regrowth, and have gone completely from the more mature coppice.

We're up at the wood briefly tomorrow to collect some firewood, weather permitting, and off to visit a friend's wood on Sunday.

Mike

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Rye Fawkes - bonfire night 2008

Last night was Rye Fawkes - Rye's bonfire night celebration. As usual it was a huge event, and I've got some pictures and a couple of videos to show you.

We watched from the east end of Cinque Ports Street, so we were fairly near to the field where the bonfire and fireworks were going to be. The parade itself follows quite a long loop around Rye before it gets to the bonfire. Here's the crowds in the street waiting for it all to start:
And here's some pics of the parade, and then a video:
(If the video is jerky, pause it and let it download before playing)


The field with the bonfire was a quagmire, but we had boots on. After a while the parade caught up with us, arriving with a red flare leading the way. They used the torches they were carrying to light the bonfire, and then the fireworks started (If the video is jerky, pause it and let it download before playing):

Here's a still picture of the fire. It got going better later on, but it also started to rain a bit, so I didn't bother getting the camera back out for it.
Overall it was a good night, despite the bit of rain that came towards the end. If you missed them, here's the video and pictures from the 2007 Rye Fawkes.

Mike

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Logging in the rain

Fortunately the rain didn't get heavy until lunchtime today, so we only got a little bit wet doing the logging. Paul came in his 4x4 (with proper off-road tyres) pulling Dave's trailer, and we got it parked near the logs.
With four people, four chainsaws, two pairs of lifting tongs and two mauls (splitting axes) it was a pretty quick job.
and before long we had a trailer full of birch for Paul's fire:
On the wayleave some strange orange stuff caught my eye:
I think it's Orange Peel Fungus (Aleuria aurantia), but tell me if you know better, I'm no expert in these things!

Mike

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The coming (wet) weekend

Looks like its going to rain a lot this weekend, so our visit to a friends wood is postponed... We're still going to our own wood tomorrow morning though, as a friend is coming to collect a trailer load of firewood. Let's just hope the rain doesn't get heavy until later on...

Mike

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The Oil Crunch: Securing the UK’s energy future

Well, here's something you wouldn't have expected to see a year ago....

The subtitle is: "First report of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security (ITPOES)"

and the members of this group are: Arup, FirstGroup, Foster and Partners, Scottish and Southern Energy, Solarcentury, Stagecoach Group, Virgin Group, Yahoo!

You can download it here.

Mike

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