A glorious day at Underhill

 I went down to Underhill yesterday with Greg and Ev and worked non-stop burning off loads of pruning rubbish and weeds that Geoff and Jen had stockpiled last time they were down. At that time the weather was too windy to burn off. The weather was great this time but because there were really only three of us working and we are around our 70s we could only keep one outside fire going while carrying all the stuff to it, only three piles were burnt off. 

The clearing is now looking amazing with all the pruning and weeding that Geoff and Jen did last time.

If we can clear up to the long fallen tree in the picture below it will make a limit to how far we go.

We also had to keep the stove going for our water and dinner. At least it was better than nothing. There are three more piles to be done and they will need to be done by the end of August or wait until a rainy summer visit when there is no chance of the fire spreading. We left at about 4:30 but had a long drive home. The sunset was amazing as we got along the highway a bit.

It usually takes about 2.5 hours max. but there was an accident on the M5 which held us up for more than half an hour so we did not get home until nearly 8pm. Luckily we'd had dinner at 4pm before we left so that we could eat in daylight. It was starting to get quite cold too so we were pleased to be in the car by the time we left. The weather during the day was still and clear and quite warm for mid-winter.