The better weather had brought the insects, and horse flies, back out in force and I started in the gully behind the yardarm in a cloud of bugs. Luckily none of them seemed to be of the biting kind just there! I spent an hour in the shade and cleared stingers and some rohdie stumps, there is still quite a bit to do up there though and probably 20 stumps still to get out, slow and steady is the way forward in such hot weather though. Despite being chopped only a couple of months ago all of the stumps have all sprouted new leaves like crazy so I am going to try weedkiller sprayed on the leaves to at least slow them down a bit.
Ant arrived about half 10 and after a chat he headed up to dig stumps by the top shed. I went next to the wayleave at the top of the steps and pulled bracken and brambles, it was hot going in the sun but once again there was plenty of green left once it was done.
Helen arrived, for a 30 minute half way pit stop, about 1 so I stopped for lunch while she was there and then wrapped chicken wire on the next plank of the yardarm deck while chatting to Ant. Four down, five to go! The horse flies definitely like the area around the yardarm and especially when you are hot and sweaty (as you cool down they seem to lose interest a bit.) Interestingly they are also really bad up by the top shed but up by the Hive there are none at all. I guess it is dryer and more open so doesn't appeal to them so much. I had been quite thorough with the insect repellent and it mostly worked but I did get one bite on my hand, the minute I took my glove off! and another on my cheek while I was concentrating on the chicken wire. I will need to be still more thorough next week because I don't want to be at Helen's sisters wedding the week after with a huge swollen insect bite on my cheek!
Ant left about 2 and I sat quietly for 10 mins or so and before I knew it a pair of squirrels were down on the bird food! They bolted the moment I moved though.
To finish the day I had another hour in the wayleave and cleared all the stumps and brambles (for now) on the right side of the path from the top of the steps to the dam. I did notice that there are plenty of brambles, a tree and a holly mixed in with the rohdie behind the wood stores so maybe if they were encouraged we would eventually not need so much rohdie as a windbreak there?
On the way home I checked in my tent for the first time in a few weeks, it looks like something has been trying to get in! although there is no obvious sign inside that they managed it. I will make a better check next week.
I had to pause at the hive on the way out and just take it in. It was a beautiful afternoon, warm and sunny the birds were singing, the oak saplings are doing well (soon they will need bigger enclosures) and some foxgloves getting established. There is definitely a pair of Chaffinches who are quite brave hanging around the Hive and I have caught a couple of glimpses of another bird leaving from the grounds in the wayleave as I approach over the last few weeks that I want to get a better look at. So far I have medium sized, bigger than a blackbird, maybe about the size of a Jay and probably grey. Maybe a Cuckoo? The bins will need to be added back to the Rais kit bag!
Away from Rais, we have clearly had some busy squirrels at home over the winter because this week we had ten! Oak saplings coming up through out the front lawn. An Oak forest would be quite a cool thing to have on the front lawn but they might just overshadow the house a bit after a while, and they do make mowing it rather tricky. Inspired by the success of the saplings at Rais Helen saved two of them before mowing the lawn, so we'll see how they do.
