Land Manager's Diary: Read it here>

BOOK onto one our upcoming workparties>

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Just as the birds and plants are charging around like crazy and appearing all over the place, it feels like we are doing the same in the last week!

Jack and John the maker of bat and bird boxes have been on a flying visit to Hows Wood and Dam Mire Wood putting up the boxes in the woods. On Tuesday we had a workparty in Hows Wood, fixing the bridges, fences and a huge wall gap, and removing the odd conifer seedling that still appear from when it was a Forestry Commission coniferous wood. We joke that at Mazonwath we are often walling with cornflakes, such is the size of some of the stone. Here it was walling with boulders, the first challenge being just to get some of the stone on the wall, especially difficult on one side due to a big drop.

Pictured: Big boulders and steep drops, walling in Hows Wood

This is what we call a ‘Land Manger’s fix’, instead of the perfection that we seek when rebuilding a wall normally, it was a case of get the stone on the wall. The weight of it will hold it together for now. We also spent time doing some short videos which will go in our Virtual Tour of Hows Wood, to be launched later this year. Thank you to everyone who has looked at our first tour, that of High Borrowdale and particular thanks to those of you that have fed back your thoughts. It seems to be something that people are enjoying and welcome, so we will continue with our plans to do another five properties this year. 

On Wednesday we had the first of our new training events for people willing to be trained in specific subjects and then use their knowledge to help us survey our land. We had an amazing day with enthusiastic lichen expert Pete Martin in Sweden Wood. Simple descriptions such as “the one that looks like a wine gum, jam tart, jelly, apple green or bearded” really helped us!

Pictured: Lichens in Hows Wood

Did you know the UK has 2000 types of lichen, that 2-3% of the planet’s surface is lichen, or that the map lichen was sent into space from the International Space Station and survived!  Lichens can be really good indicators, for example of the state of the air in a particular place, with many being pollution intolerant.

Pictured: Chemical testing of lichens at Hows Wood

We still have space on other training events, except for hay meadow flowers. If you want to join us, book here>