The Stile Style Challenge
On arrival back from a lovely Cornish holiday, I popped up to see what was going on at the field/woodland. The grass growth has thankfully slowed and tree growth is going at a fair pace. Sadly, so is deer damage. A number of (apparently totally random) attacks on specific trees almost entirely voiding them of bark - while remarkably not killing the poor trees (mostly). Anyway, inspection complete, I set off back to the car, over the stile at the top of the field, and after a brief wobble, and a second "test the stile with a more deliberate wobble", I snapped the stile. One of the vertical posts was totally rotted through. Thankfully it didn't hurt a walker when it broke - it failed while I was testing its strength. I am thankful I was there. My plans to mow the grass and spray the trees this week were hastily re-arranged and a few days of timber-work began. I decided to use thicker timber on the new model, a sleeper in fact, figuring it will hopefully outlive me....