Friday 21st December - Winter Solstice

After what seems like weeks of travelling for work (mainly because it was 4 weeks pretty much solid) it's time for a few days off over the Christmas break.

Friday dawned mild and dry, if cloudy, but with the promise of brighter skies later in the day so, after a leisurely start, I headed up to Rais for a few hours at about 11.

There has obviously been a lot of rain and wind in the last few weeks as there is a lot of dead fall and the ground is pretty wet underfoot. There are a few small trees down, all dead for some time by the look of them so the chainsaw will get a workout next time I am there, but nothing significant new. A bird of some kind had obviously come a cropper on the path down to the Hive but nothing else of note jumped out in a quick walk round

After putting some food out for the birds I did an hour of so digging up stumps in the wayleave. So far the job is much easier than I anticipated and I made good progress, the biggest ones are still to move though.

After a quick break I moved to to chopping for the rest of the day and cleared a good area, stumps and all, in a couple of ours before I called it day at about 3.30, just as the sun was dipping behind the trees.

Once I got home I realised I'm a bit out of shape after a few weeks off, I will be achy tomorrow!

Saturday 1st December

It was my last free day before Christmas, so mother nature helped out by providing a torrential downpour for most of the day! Heavy rain in the morning trailed off to more intermittent bursts interspersed by persistent drizzle after lunch. But I've been stuck in planes and offices for two weeks and really want some time outside so in the afternoon I went to Rais for a couple of hours.





It was a pretty dismal view that greeted me, as you can see from this photo I took of the horses in the field!





It was really not a day for working so after putting out a few nuts for the birds I put my waterproofs on and had a good slow wander round to see what was to be seen.
Since I was last there the last of the leaves have come down from the trees and the whole wood seems so much more open and light. It seemed before that a lot of leaves had fallen but it's amazing how many were still up there.

Cassius is feeling the affects of a years rain around the entrance and will soon want some TLC I think, it would be really good if we could find a way to extend the roof a little?

I think Flee and Tracey must have been there last week as a roll of roofing felt for the wood store has appeared. so there's a job for the new year.







There has been some serious wind while I have been away apparently and up by your tent a fairly large, but obviously dead for some time, tree has fallen from the other side of the boundary into Rais. There was no other major damage apparent though.

The stream was running quite full and it almost looked like you have a pond again!



I crossed the dam and worked my way up the southern boundary. I'm sure you have done it but I have never been able to make my way all the way along that boundary before, the undergrowth always beats me, but this time, by climbing over the fallen trees I managed it. In the process I found another den or burrow under the root of one of the fallen trees.

Your neighbours certainly use all of their wood right to the boundary!

Ant had obviously been up last weekend too as more Rohdie chopping was in evidence (sorry, no spoilers!)

The wet and fairly warm weather obviously agrees with the fungi as there were yet more new ones on show (you may be starting to suspect I have a bit of a thing about mushrooms. and it's possible you are right! but in my defence, they are something that changes pretty much every week that I can get pictures of for you) I think I have identified the  Birch Polypore or Razorstrop fungus (Piptoporus betulinus) which seems dead common but I have had no luck with the ones that look like fried eggs even though I saw them in several places or the really big one, although I guess that may have looked quite different a few days ago.

The Oak saplings have finally pretty much dropped all their leaves and something has had a good go at the rotten tree stump by the stream since last time.

When I got to the two streams by the glove tree I found them totally clogged up with fallen leaves, so even though it was still pretty grim I got the rake and cleared the most northerly one, (which was enough work with my cold still hanging on, the one right by the glove tree will have to wait until next time) It's amazing how just raking out a few leaves changes it from a nearly stagnant pool of water to a flowing stream in just a few minutes. I guess the leaves must kill the momentum of the water and end up slowing it to a virtual standstill.

Once that was done I retired to the yardarm, where we may well want to add chicken wire to a few more boards yet as it was wet and pretty slippery, to sit and have a cup of tea as dusk approached. it was getting noticeably dark by 3.45 so I packed up and headed home, pretty damp but refreshed.

Saturday 17th November 2018

It has been a dark and dismal week with fog and drizzle most of the week but the weekend was forecast sunny and clear so after a challenging week at work I was up early to get to Rais. I arrived a bit after 9 and Ant turned up not much later.

After feeding the birds, checking my tent, (only to find the mice have eaten a hole in the floor!) and finding yet more mushrooms down by the yardarm
we started with a fire to get rid of the last few weeks chopping. While Ant got the fire going I started on the stumps left over from last week which mostly came out quite easily as the earth is pretty soft just there.








The burrow I found last time looks like it has been in use as a lot of the leaves blocking it had been cleared away and when I dug up the first rohdie root, which was a good 10-15 feet away, it seemed to expose a tunnel so it does seem like something has made a home there. So I hastily covered it back up and moved on!

Ant and I carried on chopping and burning for a couple of hours and then I went down to the gully and  burned all the brash left over from when Helen was clearing in the wayleave a few weeks ago. That didn't take too long to get rid of and while the fire was dying down I dug up the first few stumps that are left in that section. I've been dreading this area as the stumps are huge and look like they are unlikely to move, but the first few came up quite easily. There are plenty more to do though!

Despite clear skies the dusk came quickly even though it's still a month until the shortest day so we called it a day around 4

Saturday 10th November

There was heavy rain overnight on Friday with more forecast for Sunday so Saturday saw me at Rais. It felt like the first proper autumn day, wet and muddy with a cool or even cold breeze all day. The rain had gone by 10 when I arrived but there was broken cloud , with some sun, all day

There has finally been enough rain to restart the stream and for the first few hours everything was very wet. Autumn is well underway elsewhere too with the bracken going over and the oak saplings are finally starting to lose their leaves.

Wandering around I found another tree losing it's bark, so I guess that is in a bad way.











I was not feeling too good so avoided the pickaxe today and just chopped. I probably overdid it but ended up with a good pile at the end of the day. I did come across a burrow of some kind that seemed fairly fresh,

I think all the leaves were from my chopping

















and I also came back across the potential burrow I found earlier in the year in the stream bank again and it looked pretty tidy so I suspect it may well be in use, maybe we can try your trail cam when you're back to see?

This is this week's clue as to where I was working!

The birds may not come down to the food up by the Hive much when I am there, bit there certainly do after I'm gone, I don't think the new suet feeder is going to last long! Now they have been at the bottom hole too

Saturday 3rd November 2018

Visits to Bristol and Shepperton have meant that I've had two week's off from Rais. I've definitely  missed it!

The weather forecast was not so good for Sunday so I went on Saturday. I expected it to be clear and cold but it was actually quite overcast in the morning and surprisingly mild so I ended up quite overdressed and with not really enough water for the day. The clocks have gone back and dusk is around 5pm at the moment so I made what I thought was a fairly early start, although somehow I didn't actually get there until about 10 only to find Ant already hard at work with a good fire going. He's had the last week off work and been at Rais most days and he's been a busy chap! However, I think the odd surprise for when you are back will be nice, so the only picture you can have of what he's been up to is this one.

There was the noise of what sounded like a big earth mover or similar machine coming from what sounded like over by the new pond in the wayleave, although I did not see any actual machinery. Ant said it had been going all week and he thought he had seen two big lorries of hardcore going down that way, So I wonder if they are are putting in a proper road to access the pond?

To start off I finished the strimming in the wayleave now that I have mended the cutting head, including the bank behind the yardarm, where there are lots of tree saplings coming up, and the steps. (Of course I will be buying some new solar lights again after someone hid all the old ones in the long grass!) and raked the wayleave by the dam again.

Then I went to put some feed out for the birds by the Hive. I could see the mouse has been in the paper shreddings in the hive but he has not got to any of the food, but the birds have been busy on my new suet feeder and pecked away all of the side of one hole!

The new feeder is much narrower than the old one so the hole was quite close to the side, but really! it's really hard wood as well.

Once that was done I headed over to help Ant for the rest of the day, and we got a good amount done.
At one point as I pulled out a rohdie root I found half a red house brick underneath it!! Which got me thinking, how interesting it would be to be able to look back in time and see how it got there?

After lunch I got the ladder out and went up to clear out the owl box and got quite a surprise. There was no evidence that the stock doves had nested there at all this year, even though I did see them in and out several times, but something has clearly started a nest and quite recently too as the grasses and twigs lining the bottom of the box are still green. So after a quick look to check all was in good shape I left it all alone.

The main stream is still all but dry despite a reasonable amount of rain on a couple of days, I guess the ground water will take a while to recover after such a dry summer, but after some rohdie chopping again in the afternoon I decided to rake the streams which were pretty clogged up with leaves to finish off the day. Once I started though I realised that not only are there still really a lot of leaves on the trees just waiting to fall in my newly cleared stream, but there is barely a trickle in either stream at the moment so I think I was a little premature.

Wandering around I saw quite a few mushrooms again, at a least a couple of which are likely rather poisonous

and I noticed that the tree that lost all it's bark so suddenly earlier in the year has now definitely died.

The clouds had disappeared during the day and the late afternoon sun was coming through the trees as we called it a day at around 4. The days certainly seem a lot shorter all of a sudden.

Sunday
I didn't have much to do Sunday and it was still mild and cloudy but dry so I went up for a couple of hours in the morning to carry on digging up stumps in the gully. I was there just after 9 and two hours was long enough to police the area from the hive to the cars and take out about 10 rhodie shoots that were coming back up and also get 15 smaller stumps removed in the gully, which felt like good progress. Next step will be the really big ones just there though and I doubt they will come out quite as easily as today's ones did.

On the way out I drove up the lane a little way to the wood with the pond and sure enough, it looks like a decent road is going in to access it