Wednesday 21 April 2010

April, Wet and Dry



The first visit in April found us driving into a very wet wood. The track was muddier than ever, not helped by being churned up by persons unknown including those who had increased the size of the rubbish pile by the entrance to the woods. Areas that have previously been, at most, damp, were more than soggy with standing or running water in some places where there was none before. It wasn’t all bad as the steam looked and sounded great with the extra flow. A couple of tasks on this visit were to tidy up the glade and attack some brambles. In the glade trees that had been felled were sawn to length and the logs stacked, the hardest part being moving 10 ft long trunks. Julie and Tom put the new brushcutter to use on some of the brambles that were growing near the path. We just got a cheapo Spear and Jackson one from Argos and its progress is slow but sure so far; easier than a machete or loppers, and cheaper (but of course less effective) than a professional machine. Another job later in the day was to push the car out of the mud.


A couple of weeks later and what was mud had mostly set hard and there was no standing water anywhere to be noticed. The sun was shining and the glade saw further tidying as piles of brash were burnt and some more logs moved to larger piles. While Tom did more debrambleficationing with the brushcutter. There were more anemones out, also primroses, violets and the first few bluebells showing their petals to the sun. The young trees are growing well and generally not getting eaten. Along the wayleave where we had in previous years seen 2 orchids, there were now about half a dozen starting to show through. Making the most of the sun shine (and the gap linking the glade to the field) we saw quite a few butterflies including a pair spiralling together.