Sunday 6 December 2009

Naughty little Robin!

We had an afternoon in the wood today, as it was nice and sunny and the morning rain had cleared. Robin was back again, but as we'd already had lunch we didn't have any food for him...
But he didn't believe us, so he thought he'd go and check inside the car while we were unloading stuff. We didn't see him in there, but he left some unmistakable evidence:
Fortunately we're well used to that kind of thing happening, as we have these two little rascals at home:Although we've been burning quite a bit of brash during the coppicing this year, we've also left some piles of it around for the wildlife where we can, and today we saw one of them in use. After eating an apple we leave the core in the wood - it's usually gone by the next day, and if not, well it will rot and maybe the seeds will grow. Today, an apple core lasted about 5 minutes:
The mouse dragged it back into one of the brash piles to eat in secret - I guess it was a pretty filling meal for it!

Anyway, we carried on with the usual work, Tracy further down the hill with some chestnut:
and me fighting my way through a patch of Holly, coppicing the Hazel and Sycamore that's growing amongst it:
The fun and games didn't end there though - on refuelling the saws we discovered that Tracy's had a small fuel leak when it was on its side, so when we got home it was my job to take it apart and fix it. I'm really glad I got copies of the workshop manuals for our saws a few months ago!
The little white fuel filter on the end of the black pipe was the problem, as it wasn't fitting tightly into its socket. I think I have it sorted now, but we'll have to check it tomorrow when we use it...

I'm also hoping the wind will be reduced tomorrow - I didn't get to try out my new pulley today as it was a bit too windy to fell larger trees.

Mike

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