Land Manager's Diary: Read it here>

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It was a lovely change to be out with the volunteers and have sunshine and no rain at Dam Mire Wood at Threlkeld on Monday! Our volunteers worked hard all morning trimming the tops back of a new hawthorn hedge planted about three years ago, to encourage it to thicken and bush out; and checking all the young trees.

We were very excited to be joined by Class 3 from Threlkeld School in the afternoon to plant a new 60m hedge with us. Threlkeld School have a wonderful new outdoor learning programme, each child and class will be spending at least one afternoon a week doing outdoor learning, and with Dam Mire Wood being a very short walk up the hill from school, we hope it will be a brilliant new outdoor classroom for the school to use whenever they wish.

The children worked really hard and we now have a nice new hedge. Some plants were left over so we hope Class 1 or 2 may join us to add them to be wood. Local member Carol Smith has also been busy growing oak trees nearby and kindly dropped a stash off for us to plant, perhaps another job for the children!! 

Pictured: Finished hedge

We asked Finn, one of the 9 year olds who joined us yesterday to write us a guest blog about the hedge planting: this is what he had to say… 

“Yesterday Threlkeld School went up to Dam Mire Wood to plant a new hedge. We planted a hedge for the wildlife, creating a new wildlife corridor and also so that when the fence goes rotten the hedge can keep the livestock out. I enjoyed planting the hedge because it was a change from being in the classroom and I enjoyed getting my hands dirty. We also learnt some interesting facts, here is one:  

Why is a dog rose named a dog rose? = Its roots cure dogs of rabies!

We also learnt the different types of plant that we put in – crab apple, elder, hazel, blackthorn, rowan and dog rose, and what the flowers or fruits look like and we now know how to plant a successful tree or hedge 😊😊😊”

THANK YOU, FINN! 

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In other Dam Mire news, contractor Dan Boardley will be back on site hopefully this week, doing the path extension. Since the path was put in last year we have planned a short extension to make access to the land easier. It was due to be done before our grand opening in April, but unfortunately Threlkeld Quarry has been closed for aggregates so we could not risk using a different surfacing and it not fitting in. It has now re-opened so we can crack on once more!