Wassail: Pagan festivities at Snowshill Manor

On a  great January afternoon the second Snowshill 'orchard visiting' Wassail took place and its fair to say an enjoyable time was had by all! Hopefully supported by the video of this pagan celebration above.

The grass 'is' greener on the other side!

Littleworth wood viewed from Snowshill Manor

Sadly no NT work experiences this week, and for as yet an undetermined period, as I appear to have damaged a tendon connected to my right knee (this to be confirmed by the Dr today).  I may have made this unexpected injury worse by working at Snowshill Manor on Sunday but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Sunday did however provide two new experiences. One was working with the Coventry garden volunteers which was rewarding and the second involved some animal husbandry. This involved escorting a rogue goat off the premises and back to its mate on an adjoining property. Helped by Katie we scrambled down the shelter belt, crossed a small stream, gently pulling the goat with us, and then lifted the goat over the boundary fence back into its field. There was no doubt the grass in its field was inferior to ours so no surprise that it had, via an as yet undetermined route , decided to pay Snowshill Manor a visit!

In the ongoing 'bee' saga and 'neonics' I thought this NT blog {NT Pressoffice} provides a good perspective, especially why is the temporary ban only 2 years when this particular pesticide lingers around for ~4 years. Slightly odd connection with the Chelsea flower show but this NT blog reminds us of the ongoing threat to our trees.

Gardening at the Lodge!

Lodge Park Sherborne

Another deadline, this time the season opening of Lodge Park next week , meant a slight change and somewhat surprising days work with Mike this week. Wasn't sure what was in store to start with but didn't expect to be wielding a hoe and rake this morning. First job was to weed the old gravel path in readiness for the delivery of fresh gravel. My jaw dropped when I witnessed the ten tons of gravel being delivered and the area Mike hoped to cover. Two positive things in my favour, similar gardening experience at Chastleton,  and the other, Mike's expert use of his tractor to help position the piles of gravel. Between us we made a decent start on the paths, see below, before all ten tons was used up. We finished the day clearing the woodland path using the leaf blower and bow saw plus loppers. Really must get the Park garden volunteers, who are more than capable of doing this,  organised to help do this in the future. 

Freshly gravelled  & weeded path

Meanwhile earlier in the week more 'ranger' like duties with Martin, fence clearing at Clump Farm. Didn't  manage to complete but other important liaison duties intervened. First Martin had to fit in a side trip to Snowshill manor to help direct the drystone wallers and the second was to gain agreement with the tenant farmer at Clump Farm to plant some  oak & ash trees on new ground. Hope to be involved in this planting which along with Mike's planned ash tree planting will balance the winter's more destructive but necessary thinning & clearing work.

Batmen and Robin...

The Bat cave/residence!,  postcode a secret

A surprise from Mike {Batman 1} when he and Morris,  the North Cotswold caver and batman extraordinaire took me to the local Quarry 'cave' system this morning. I remained {as Robin !}  as the safety man outside whilst they conducted the bat count inside. I got my chance after the official count, to explore the inside with Morris as my guide. Hugely impressed to see the lesser horseshoe bats [~100] which looked like 'black leaves' suspended from the cotswold stone ceilings. Also one of the bats was clearly aware of the warm temperature outside and was flying around. Oddly there was also a single greater horseshoe bat happy to roost alongside its cousins. It transpires that this bat conservation project of the NT and the Bat Trust has kept Mike and Morris busy for over 8 years which included a good deal of 'building' work carried out by the two of them to shore up the cave system. A cracking effort. We finished this part of the day by examining other bat roosts in various Sherborne buildings/cellars. Small number of lesser horseshoes were spotted but come the spring these roosts will be busier as the bats from the quarry roost make their migration from the main winter roost.

Just a days work for super volunteer?

Rest of the day with Mike and previous day with Martin was on 'thinning' activities at Sherborne east belt and Dovers hill! Always difficult to predict what may happen on any given day with a ranger and this week certainly illustrated this. For example with Martin we visited Snowshill first thing where Linda the head gardener provided a couple more jobs for Martins long list i.e. planning for new drystone wall and removal of some difficult tree roots.   Added  to this was the job of cutting up a large Mulberry tree root which I and L &L {Linda and Lisa assistant gardener} had dug out over the last 2 days.

Having done this martin & I  moved onto Dovers hill where some early 'olympicks' preparation was done to allow the audience increased viewing for these original local games! More conventional thinning took place in lynch wood where in  particular a very accurate tree felling was carried out by Martin. With buckets of skill and little room for error she fell without damaging any of the trees in the fall line. I would have awarded Martin the gold but Mike just pipped him with an even finer { even less margin for error} tree felling feat in the east belt today. Either way M&M certainly make tree felling look easy {it isn't!} but of course the real work falls to me in stacking and clearing up the tons of wood all ready for blocking, splitting and selling!.