You could have been forgiven for thinking a splash of colour was hard to come by today, heavy rain and weighty clouds have consumed us. But having watched the Met Office rainfall radar for a window of opportunity, Spud the dog and I grabbed it with enthusiasm.
We made it to the post box today, another milestone for Spuds recovery, and its the first time he’s been a muddy dog for many a month. The ‘new’ post box is a more useful size than the old one, but its sad to have lost the heritage of the old one.
We did find some colour, in the understory of a wooded area, from where we recovered the yew tree. I’ didn’t know (or hadn’t thought about) that woods have four distinct levels, canopy,understory, field layer and ground layer (todays blog learning objective has been met).
The understory of young beech trees, have kept their Autumn leaves, why do they do that when the mature trees don’t I wonder? I’m also not sure why suddenly their are so many of them either, maybe the grazing sheep have been absent long enough for them to become established, or maybe it was the result of what a farming friend would call a mast year?
The sycamore soaked by the rain, showed off its beautifully textured bark to good effect
The lichens, seemed to have drawn up the lovely pink hue of the local grit stone; dressed, this stone is very a very precious commodity to us and our neighbours, and any that becomes available for sale, is snapped up and kept on the hill from whence it came for any building projects.
Uphilldowndale 
Lovely lichen. The beech leaf conundrum has exercised my mind too. Mrs T says that it is all about youth.
I’ve known canopy and understory, but the other terms were new to me. I have learned something! I’m completely taken with the sycamore bark. It is beautiful. Our sycamores tend to have white bark, which makes them easy to spot in the middle of a wood. They are wonderful trees.
A most enjoyable, and interesting, post and good pictures. I’ll have another read later on and check out the links. xx