Building Bridges!

John thinking hard about how to plug the hole in the bridge

Out with the Wildlife Trust thursday with the weather looking particularly good. Nearly made my first visit to the Slinket on the river Dikler but other factors intervened. Instead I volunteered to go with John back to Snipe Moss to carry out some fencing work on the bridge which spans the river Dikler and used to support a railway line. While we spent todays session on this work two teams of volunteers headed for the Slinket to carry out the main work of the day.

Its all about the ponies!

The work at Snipe Moss was more of an owner engagement exercise so that the current relationship with the landowner remained healthy so that future work the Wildlife Trust needed to do on the river Dikler would hopefully not be obstructed. The aim was to make as safe as possible the bridge area for grazing of the Shetland ponies. In view of the 'run down' nature of the area this was not going to be easy.  However with the mighty metal bar, drival , posts and wooden rails we set to. In spite of the tricky terrain we had the fencing up by lunchtime and even solved some potential dangers on the bridge edge by moving previously felled wood to fill the gaps. One tricky problem had to remain unresolved however, concerning a dangerous hole on the bridge itself, badgers and natural erosion being the cause. To end the day we put up some more fencing to fill a gap in the fencing line along the Dikler and just to the side of the bridge. Hopefully the days efforts will prove worthwhile and be appreciated by the landowner.

Fallen ash in South Park, Sherborne house in the background

Bit of mixed bag at Sherborne today, with contrast in weather conditions and some varied tasks. Started off with more 'bridge building' at South Park, by the pond, tending to a fallen ash tree. This was to help out one of the tenant farmers and hopefully keep him onside with regards 'high level scheme' work in the future. Good view of Sherborne House from this wet spot and Mike was relieved the weather was dry as getting a loaded trailer out of this area if the weather was wet would prove difficult. In the pleasant weather we soon had the trailer filled leaving some hefty cord wood to be picked up by the tractor later.   At this point Mike got a phone call from Lodge Park holiday cottages where our services were called on to move a new cooker into place before the new visitors arrived.  We set off directly from South Park to the Lodge gate cottage and successfully escaped the wet pasture just as the heavy rain hit. This made moving the cooker in the wet more difficult but nothing we couldn't manage. Little did we know we would back at the end of the day, in the rain, removing the old cooker!  The afternoon,  fortunately with less heavy rain, was spent on the A40 side of West Belt clearing the area adjacent to the dry stone wall. This involved me doing the 'brush cutting' and Mike on pole saw removing overhanging branches. So quite a varied, productive day but I was pleased to get home and get into to some dry warm clothes!

Update on CAP by Martin Harper.