Land Manager's Diary: Read it here>

---

On Monday we returned to Dam Mire Wood at Threlkeld for a workparty. What a different place to two weeks ago when we had our grand opening.  There were no school children rushing around, tents or marquees, all was quiet except for the birds singing and insects buzzing. It is nice to see the painted stones that the school children did though just inside the gate, look out for them if you do visit.

We had an equally good day and left with a real sense of achievement after having weeded all the grass from around and in all the trees and the hedge, and began some initial strimming and marking of a path round. Weeding the hedge felt like being in a rain forest at times.

There has been a lot of growth in the ground flora and it was good to see the marsh marigolds, may flowers, pignut and ajuga coming through. This summer we are having an ecological survey of the wood. This is something we do with each new property. Not only does it tell us what is there, but it gives us a good baseline going forward to see the impacts of any changes we make. 

We have had lots of surveys returned with people telling us what they would like to see and do on the land. Generally they fit with our thinking, something informal and natural, more habitat creation and something to sit on to watch the wildlife or look at the views. The ‘marmite’ question is whether to have any form of art work or not. This seems to cause extreme reactions either vehement yes or no! We will be taking forward the results of the surveys, starting to plan what we will do and how. We would still love to hear your views, so if you would like to fill in the survey, you can do so online here>

On Wed we return to Mazonwath to do some more dry stone walling. Next week is a brand new site for us, our new land near Broughton in Furness where we will be removing tree guards and doing a tidy up. The week after, 24^th we need lots of hands for our second plug planting day at High Borrowdale. No skills needed for either and we would love to have anyone and everyone to help. Book for all of our upcoming workparties here>