The Hole in the Bank

You may remember that in the last work party blog (Some Odd Jobs); I said that - 

 'The last job of the day was to investigate some erosion of the stream bed near the tool store. We will fix it when the stream has dried up.' 

Well, by the time the work party was held on Wednesday this week the stream had stopped running so we began the repair.

This was the hole we needed to deal with. It was partly caused by erosion from the water swirling around in the pool below the pipe carrying the stream under the path but a lot of 'hole' was the result of our canine visitors using it to get into the water.

Our plan was to stack some logs at the front of the hole, like the one in the photo above, fix them place with stakes, then backfill the hole with stone and earth.

The first job was to collect the stones. There were a reasonable number of them by the hedge near the bottom of the pylon field and these were collected and brought to the hole.

The first stakes being driven into the ground by Pete and Joe.

With the stakes firmly in place thinner logs were laid behind them then Pete and Jim began filling the hole with the stones we collected.

More logs went on top of the stones and another stake put in.

We weaved some thinner poles around the stakes to hold everything together and filled the remainder of the hole with earth and grass. The larger stones collected were placed to support the stakes, and a big one put under the pipe outlet to reduce the force of the water hitting the stream bed. Hopefully that will reduce the erosion a bit as well.

Another good job done by these hard working volunteers.

Erika's Springtime Walk

Erika is one of the volunteers who help to maintain Filnore Woods. Walking in the woods last Sunday for our work party she took these photographs to show what she saw.

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Filnore Woods, 14th April 2024.

The volunteer day for the work party was welcomely warm, dry and calm. Here are some photos of Filnore Woods today. I love the hart's tongue fern unfurling, the cuckooflower, primroses next to the stream, an oak apple gall wasp has interesting growth, bluebells in the wooded areas and some cowslips in the grassland.

We had our coffee punctuated by a blackcap's loud call and being a warbler, its song consists of scratchy and clear flutey notes. Another loud call we heard was from a wren with its repetitious trilling call. A peacock butterfly fluttered by and someone saw a blue butterfly that was probably a holly blue at this time of year. All lovely signs of the season.

 

       

       

                       all photos by Erika Booth

Some Odd Jobs

At our work party last Sunday we did a number of the smaller tasks that have been on the jobs list for a while. We spread wood chip on parts of the muddier paths and used some to build up the section of path just before post 15. We raised the bed of this section a few years ago because it was getting so muddy and it was time to build it up again. Another job was to clear away some branches that were hanging over the path near the Jubilee Way. They were hanging down below head height right in the middle of the path.

While this was going on Erika and I re-seated a couple of our marker posts - 8 and 14.

Once we had completed these tasks we all got together and moved up to the new plantation to retrieve the bench that was taken from the welcome area at the main entrance some time ago and had been used for some 'group get-togethers' by persons unknown! It had been left up there over the winter because we needed to slide it down some steep slopes that were very muddy and I thought this would be too risky a job. 

When we got to the new plantation the bench had been moved again and it took a while to find it. They had put behind the vegetation to the left of the pond. It was quite a struggle to extricate it but we managed to get it out ...

... then made sure it was still 'safe' to use! 

We then took it back to the welcome area by sliding it down the hill on a tarpaulin sheet.

The last job of the day was to investigate some erosion of the stream bed near the tool store. We will fix it when the stream has dried up.