mid-July

It’s been really hot lately – especially when we’ve been burning charcoal and working hard in the meadow. Eric and his band of willing helpers have made great progress on the wooden shelter they’re building.  The damaged ash tree has been safely removed and the jetty has been repaired. We’ve also had a stab at removing the bracken from the hillside which was pretty difficult.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL NOTES

There was great excitement last week when we surprised a grass-snake which wa probably about two and a half to three feet long. It promptly slithered into the canal and swam to the other side. Bob found the home of a Leaf Cutter Bee and we also saw a Green Orb-Weaver spider with her egg-sac on the leaves of one of our trees. This has been a great summer for butterflies, moths and other insects, such as the Common Red Soldier beetles on the hogweed in the meadow – they are also apparently called the Hogweed Bonking Beetle…

 

 This week’s work plan:                                        
1. Continue working on roof of the shelter which is now in place
2. Prepare hedgehog huts and templates for other wildlife boxes
3. Charcoal burn & sift – Lots of customers waiting for charcoal
4. Get shave horses out and re-stock labels etc.
5. Check the pod roofs

At 1.00 we’ll break for lunch, which this week will be a curry and a vegetable tagine.

This will be followed by our AGM