Land Manager's Diary: Read it here>

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Well it’s been another busy week as well as a beautiful, sunny one on Friend’s of the Lake District’s land.

Monday saw us checking arrangements for the opening of our new northern property, Dam Mire Wood at Threlkeld, on Friday 29^th April.

Tuesday through to Thursday we had Dan Boardley from DB Contracts working for us again at High Borrowdale, clearing ditches and renewing storm damaged fencing. Wednesday was busy. Two volunteers Jeremy and Nick have taken it on themselves to clear masses of bramble from the historic ha ha walls at Sweden Wood enabling us to see the walls but also protect them from potential damage from roots. They are making an amazing difference. Wednesday also saw our volunteers back dry stone walling at Mazonwath. 

We are nearing the end of the section of internal wall rebuild at Mazonwath. This is a limestone wall and the stone is either huge or tiny which makes for interesting walling. We welcomed some new volunteers and took our time working on skills development and discussing challenges and how to solve them. The curlews and lapwings were calling and the area looked stunning.

We also welcomed our friends from Cumbria Wildlife Trust who are going to be working with us a hay meadow restoration of our top field this summer. We are discussing arrangements for the work, stocking levels and future management. We also took time out to ponder how we could enhance the other two fields at Mazonwath. Particularly exciting could be some work to help breeding waders such as the curlew and snipe. It is early days but it is good to understand what we could do to help both nature and the landscape a bit more.