Dear me and deer me!

So the dry, hot period has broken. Pop’s wood is soaking up the rain and breathing a sigh of relief I would imagine. I am pleasantly surprised at how well the trees have coped but will be watchful over the autumn as the trees will remain brittle and susceptible to wind damage for some time I would imagine.

During the week I managed to take the broken retort part and remove the burner tube. My brother had made it in such a way that there were only two bolts to remove and then after a bit of wriggling and pulling the whole thing was free. Looks in worse condition now when removed but the good news is that it can be repaired or more likely replaced.

It is fairly easy to determine from where the damage is on the pipe where the hottest part of the flame is once the retort is in full flow. My brother was surprised how quickly it had burned through particularly as the pipe that he used was originally designed to be used as bus exhaust pipe. A closer look at the damaged area shows that the metal appears to be laminated suggesting that there may have been a manufacturing fault in the metal wall itself.

The replacement is to be made out of mild steel and we will monitor how well it performs. Using mild steel keeps the cost down from the expensive £60/m exhaust pipe whilst still retaining the strength and good heat transfer properties. I look forward to getting the retort back up and running.

Periodically I set up the motion sensor camera at a point in the wood to capture images of the regular inhabitants of the wood going about their business without me in the way.

At the top of the wood near the edge of the field is a spot where there is always evidence of deer having congregated. This seemed a good spot to set the camera up and leave it running for a couple of days.

A few things that the pictures reveal. Firstly that the deer are roe deer with their distinctive spotty markings. Secondly the books all say that roe deer don’t form into herds but these pictures seem to give the lie to that as there are about 20 or so in the group. Thirdly I always assumed that the deer came to the wood at night and lay down and slept. However, it would seem that over this two night period, they don’t start to settle down until the sun has long risen, say at about 9am. At around that time each day, a small group of does and their young can be seen gathering and lying down.