Wow - what a day. The weather held out and we had a steady stream of visitors-come-volunteers throughout. We arrived just after 9am and the sun was shining - no adders basking by the stream as hoped, but apparently now is the time they start emerging from their winter sleep.My brother and his family turned up mid morning and set about helping to make stakes for a new set of steps I was putting in to get us safely down yet another slippery bank into camp. Conveniently he had brought along a new axe he wanted to try out, which made the job much easier. The kids went a-wandering and my nephew was getting in some practice for his upcoming survival weekend by making a wall as the first step to his night in the woods - Bear Grylls in the making - I can't wait to see what his final shelter turns out like.
A few brews later and my trusty Rais companion, Tracy, turned up keen to get stuck in, so we finished the steps down the bank and added a final step down to the new loo. The amount of foot-traffic down the path had churned it up so much in the making of the toilet, that it was truly treacherous, but we discovered that almost completely rotten down logs make excellent mulch for steps and so we coated a few key steps and moved back to the fire to get the kettle on. The kettle had been on a good while when my sister and her family turned up - still not boiling though - damn it. It was their first visit to Rais and after a brief tour of the camp area and toad stream we yet again settled in by the fire for coffee and biscuits - sadly my fire-making skills are a long way from being on form and the kettle just refused to boil - storm kettle to the rescue once again. One day I will master this fire-making lark and get it down from my current record of 25 minutes! By the time we had actually made all 7 coffees, it was getting on for 5pm (and wine o'clock) so we packed up and shipped out. We had parked Raymond up on the old rabbit warren which we cleared a few weeks ago and was surprised to see a large freshly dug burrow on it... the hole is horizontally oval shaped and fairly large, with a load of earth, fur and dried grasses in a pile outside the entrance - could it be a badger? the earth is definitely nice and soft there, but I would be surprised if a loan male had chosen such an exposed spot to dig. Will have to set the camera trap in the area and see what is making its home there. If it is a badger we will have to rethink our parking area completely!
