Wednesday 31 December 2014

Rye Harbour Sunsets

We've had some lovely sunny days over Christmas, and I've been down to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve a few times to make the most of it. Here's a few snaps of the sunset there a couple of days ago:

DSC_3107 Sunset at Rye Harbour

DSC_3085 Sunset at Rye Harbour

DSC_3080 Sunset at Rye Harbour

DSC_3079 Sunset at Rye Harbour

Walking back along the beach I saw this huge flock of Oystercatchers...
DSC_3097  Oyster Catchers at Rye Harbour

Of course, they took off as I approached! I felt a bit bad for disturbing them, but it was past sunset by this point so I knew they'd be heading to the lake for the night soon anyway...
DSC_3100 Oyster Catchers at Rye Harbour

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Monday 22 December 2014

Coppicing update

There's been a few days with nice weather during December so far, and it's been great to spend them cutting trees in the woods:

DSC_3053

DSC_3054

DSC_3058

I've had several pheasants coming to watch me work - they aren't sufficiently afraid of humans for their own good! Fortunately for them I wasn't out to shoot them.
DSC_3012

The trees I've been felling have been yielding a decent quantity of wood, so I've had to build several more racks to store it in, but the tricky bit is always find a place for them where they won't be in the way of trees I'm yet to fell. In this case, I felled several trees first and cut them up:
DSC_3010

Then built a rack where they'd fallen, using some of the logs from them as bearers:
DSC_3017

Then the remainder of the logs made a good start towards filling the rack!
DSC_3020

Of course, plans and the wind direction sometimes change as you go along, and this tree didn't have a clear space to fall into. But it was very satisfying to get it to fall just where I wanted it, missing this log rack on the right and some regrowing trees on the left:
DSC_3067

As well as the racks of firewood, there's also a nice pile of logs which will make good benches at some point in future:
DSC_3069

And also lots of blanks for making one-piece stools:
DSC_3068

It looks like there'll be a few more sunny days over the holidays, so I'm looking forward to spending some more time up there - I shouldn't need many more days to complete the work I've planned for this winter.

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Sunday 7 December 2014

A frosty day in the woods

Saturday was a proper frosty day in the woods!

DSC_2987

DSC_2988

It was nice to have some cold weather to work in, I missed it last winter!

I put a few hours in today, coppicing some trees next to where some blew down last winter, then splitting/striping and stacking the logs. I thought I'd do before and after photos - only a few trees missing in the second one, but you can see the growth in the log pile...
DSC_2993

DSC_2998

I wonder if we'll get snow this year? It already feels more likely than last year did...

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Saturday 6 December 2014

Swans and Sunsets at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve

Last Sunday I went for a walk around Rye Harbour Nature Reserve at the end of the day. The timing was perfect for a great sunset!

DSC_2933 sunset

The lakes are now filled with Swans:
DSC_2879 Swan

DSC_2886 Swan

DSC_2884 Swan

And ducks, such as this pair of Gadwalls - first time I've ever seen these!
DSC_2887 Gadwall

Here's the female Gadwall on her own:
DSC_2899 Gadwall

And the male Gadwall:
DSC_2904 Gadwall

I was pleased to get a shot of a Cormorant flying overhead, though the light was fading a bit by this point:
DSC_2913 Cormorant

It's all a far cry from what it was like back in May:


There's still a lot of birds around, but it's much more peaceful now.
DSC_2907

Going back to the sunsets, I'll finish with a few more of my favourites...
DSC_2955 sunset

DSC_2972 sunset

DSC_2962 sunset

DSC_2970 sunset

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Moving towards winter in the woods

I was up at the woods this weekend after a few weeks' gap, and was struck by the shift from autumn towards winter... It's looking quite different there now:

DSC_2843


DSC_2844

I was there to do a job though, and got on with loading my Truncator:
GOPR09694

Sawing the logs:
GOPR09733

Tipping them into the trailer:
GOPR09735

And repeating until there was a trailer full of logs to take over to The Pelham...
GOPR10127

It's a great benefit having the Truncator for jobs like this, and as you can see in the above photo, when the job is done you can simply cover the trailer and drive away without detaching it. I made a video last year detailing how it is set up and operated.

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Sunday 9 November 2014

Rye Fawkes 2014

Another great Rye Fawkes last night!

DSC_2643

Here's my video of the parade, fireworks and bonfire. More photos below...


I was seriously impressed with the upgrade to the fire-breathing dragon's nostrils!
Rye Fawkes dragon

The rest of the parade was very impressive as well though:
DSC_2614

DSC_2617

DSC_2619

The fireworks were a good show as well, though a bit chaotic this year as they decided they needed to move everyone off the bridge over the river before the show started. This was supposedly for safety reasons, due to the wind, but the security people didn't actually tell anyone that reason to start with, and were a bit rude when people were reluctant to move...
DSC_2632

DSC_2637

DSC_2636

DSC_2635

Another great night out, as always! Looking forward to next time...

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Sunday 2 November 2014

Coppicing, stools and benches

We had a productive day in the woods yesterday, coppicing a few stools and adding to the pile of split and stacked firewood, ready to burn in a couple of years:

2014-11-01 14.47.15

I also picked out a number of straight sections as I went along and made stakes from them, which will come in useful at some point:
2014-11-01 14.46.48

I also turned some of the logs from windblown trees into benches for the community garden in Rye. There's a video of how to make the benches here.
2014-11-01 14.45.29

I also made a couple of stools (again, video here), one for use at the wood, the other to sell:
2014-11-01 14.46.15

Finally, when I got home I found this bizarre sight  a mushroom had been growing under my car! Presumably it's feeding on the wood chips lying on the drive, left from cutting logs up with the Truncator (video here):
2014-11-01 15.42.21

It looks like the weather is turning colder soon - it'd be nice to have a frosty day to work in the woods, it's a bit warm at the moment when wearing chainsaw trousers!

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.