Saturday 28th July

There was finally a bit of rain on Friday night, with more forecast for Sunday so I headed to Rais on Saturday.It was leisurely start so I did not get there until about 11.

It was slightly cooler, and really windy!  It was also really quiet. it may have been partly due to the wind masking the noise but I did not hear a single bird call, apart from the buzzards overhead, for most of the day.

As it was, slightly, cooler I spent the first hour or so digging out stumps in the gully behind the Yardarm. It's hard work with the ground so dry and the first one I tackled put up a lot of resistance but eventually I made some progress, although an ants nest that had taken up residence underneath one of the rhodie stumps was quite disappointed when I dug it up!

Despite the rain on Friday it is still very dry everywhere. The stream is down to a trickle, the trees have dropped so many leaves that it's much lighter under the canopy than a few months ago and and even the rhodies are wilting. In several places the earth is so dry it is shrinking away from the steps.

The mice were not deterred by my efforts on the shutters to stop them getting into Immac, and there were plenty of droppings as evidence! I'm actually quite impressed they can  get in as there are really not many spaces for them to fit through. The good news though was that they have not got into any of the food (so far!)

After some lunch I cleared brambles and bracken in the wayleave by the dam, and found a dead pheasant in the process. It had no obvious damage so no idea what killed it. It turned out to be a bigger job than it looked (just for a change). After an hour I had a huge pile of brambles and bracken but it really did not look much different. I guess that's actually a good thing as the grass and other plants are getting established too.

Before

After!!

To finish off I added chicken wire to another plank on the yardarm deck. 7 down 1 to go!

Sunday 22nd July

I'm almost getting bored of reporting that it was hot and sunny at Rais again this weekend. Almost, but not quite!

Another sunny Sunday, with the temperature pushing 30 degrees meant I had no plans to do any digging this weekend, but when I got there I found Ant hard at work up by the top shed digging out rohie roots. It's cooler under the trees up there and the horse flies have largely found somewhere else to be but it was still a hot day and hard work. The trees up there are making the most of the extra light now the rohdies are gone though, and it is really "greening up" with new growth visible all around. He stuck at it until about 2, bending his pickax in the process, and then, after a catch up, headed off.

My main task for the day was to clear out Immac and try and try to make it a bit less attractive for the mice who have been making themselves at home in there. It was not a very pleasant job, even my limited sense of smell could tell it was pretty whiffy in there and there were a lot of droppings and seeds scattered everywhere. I found two nests, one in the netting by the window and one under the seats and disturbed one very annoyed mouse who hid under the seats when I saw him but managed to make himself scarce by the time I got to cleaning that section.

After a couple of hours the shed was tidy again, the food was all in metal boxes (except the barley that they have so far shown no interest in, and all of the attractive nesting materials were put away to make them harder to get at. I had a look round to see where they were getting in and added a few pieces to the shutters to dissuade them from that route and put a patch of hardwood over the hole in the door, it's ugly but hopefully will slow them down.

I had brought some pieces from the crates our patio slabs came in to see if they would work as "sides" on the wood store, I think they probably will so that will be a future job.






After lunch I added chicken wire to another plank on the yardarm deck, only two to go now, and then got the strimmer out. the grass and other greenery is growing slowly as there has been no rain, but it is still growing and a couple of the paths and steps were not navigable so I went round and cleared them to end the day.

Sunday 15th July

Yet another hot and sunny day in Sussex. 30 degrees and barely a cloud in the sky. It really is too hot to do much so I did something that is actually quite usual, and just went to Rais to chill out for a bit.

It's really dry at the moment. it must be a month since we last had any rain and quite likely nearly two and whilst Rais is still quite green the streams have reduced to barely a trickle, the grass in the surrounding fields is all very brown and the paths are very noisy underfoot from the rustling of leaves sacrificed by the trees.

It was eerily quiet all day, long periods with no birdsong or any insects buzzing around. That did mean I could hear the occasional running of the new machine by the pond very well though. By the end of the day there seemed to be some piles driven into one side of the pond so I wonder if there will be a dock or a jetty there soon. I'm still thinking at a fishing lake is the most likely thing they are working towards.

I went to Immac to get a chair and the mice really are making a mess in there now. They have been very visible for the last few weeks but I think we're going to really have to remove the food source and make it less attractive to them. The seeds container has been eaten through and they have been making off with a lot of them! The seats and all the surfaces are covered in droppings and they have even made themselves a new front door!

I have an old metal ammo box that some of the seeds can be transferred to so next week's job will be to try and clean up a bit in there and see if I can do something about the door.


I needed a phone signal today so made my camp up at the Hive, I cleared off the deck behind and set up my chair. Inside there was more mouse evidence, although nothing like as bad as down in Immac, with a nest being started in the box of nibs so I cleared that out and will think about storage up there too.

I had a wander around and the rohdies I sprayed with weed killer are looking limp, but by no means down yet so I think they will need a few more sprays. The stumps by the stream are also sprouting again so either it's the wrong time to use weedkiller or this one is not as good as the roundup. They have definitely been slowed down though even if some more applications will be needed.

I couldn't quite bring myself to do nothing all day so I spent a couple of hours intermittently pulling bracken down from the twisted oak toward the shower. There is some greenery coming aside from the bracken there, especially foxgloves but it has some way to go to catch up the other sections of the wayleave so it looked quite bare by the time I had finished. In between bracken pulling I just sat and listened or read my book. It's mostly shady where I was and an occasional breeze helped keep it a fraction cooler. I am starting to recognise a few of the bird calls, or at least to be able to group them and while they were mostly at least familiar I was surprised to hear two I had not heard before. It seems the population up by the hive is perhaps a bit different to down by the Yardarm.

Great news was that the buzzards (or some Buzzards at least) were back and spent a good part of the day circling and calling right overhead

Wednesday 11th July 2018 - New Camera

I took the opportunity of yet another warm dry and sunny day to go to Rais for half an hour at lunchtime to try out my new toy. A Canon SX-60. It had performed quite well for Jo's wedding but how would it do at Rais? (and could I get out of the office for an hour on a nice day!)



Unfortunately it seems that the middle of a hot summers day is clearly not the best time to see birds and after half an hour not a single bird had come down to any of the feeders and even the trees were almost silent with an absence of birdsong. There were a few butterflies and other insects, but not nearly as many as the last few weeks and Forrest was rustling around under the tree stump but the closest I got to a shot was the unoccupied feeder post!



A walk round by the dam on the way back to the car found the biggest sign of animal life (that stayed still enough for a photo.) A caterpillar which turns out to be, I think, a Cinnabar moth caterpillar. It's  a day flying moth once it transforms, and quite distinctive, so one to watch out for in the next weeks.

Sunday 1st July

What to do on the hottest day of the year so far? Why, have a huge bonfire of course! it's almost a tradition now.

The last few weeks have been unbroken sunshine and unusually warm, but Sunday took it to a new level. It dawned hot and sunny with 30 degrees promised by the forecasters. The good breeze that has mitigated the heat the last few days was still around but somewhat reduced so it was a very Mediterranean feel to the morning in Sussex.

Helen was up early to walk, so seeing as I was awake anyway I was at Rais for 9.30 to try and get some digging done before it got too hot. The stumps in the gully behind the yardarm that were the last ones cut back this year are rampant in regrowth now making them quite difficult to dig, due to all the new shoots. The digging has been quite slow the last few weeks because of the heat and there are still around 15 stumps to get out so I decided to try the weedkiller, sprayed on the leaves, in an attempt to kill them off. The packaging did say do not use in drought conditions so we will see how well it works, hopefully will at least slow them done a bit!

Spraying done I dug three stumps from the gully, but it was way too hot for digging, even in the shade of the gully so I called it a day after only half an hour. there were a lot of insects around but very few horseflies this week which was a relief. I was pretty well covered in deet and with long trousers and sleeves but they were noticeably absent compared to last week. Maybe it was too hot for them, or maybe it really is Ant who attracts them!!


Next up was the fire. A pretty big pile of bracken and bramble brash and rohdie roots has accumulated over the last month or so and I had been meaning to burn it for the last couple of weeks. It was bone dry, and the dry weather cannot last for ever, so on the fire it went.
It was without doubt the easiest fire I have ever lit, after only 1 min it was going well and only took 40 mins to burn the lot. It was all very dry and even though the wayleave is still looking very green I was conscious it has not rained for a while so I was very careful to load the fire up gradually and make sure it did not spread.

Tracey arrived about midday, just as I finished the burning pile and Finn scared the life out of me for good measure when he appeared just before her. I was sitting on a stump at the edge of the wayleave watching the fire burn down and heard what I thought a deer behind me only to turn and find a black dog charging towards me to say hello! It was quite a surprise. I haven't seen Tracey for a few weeks so it was nice to sit in the yardarm, have a good chat and chill out a bit.

After a bit of lunch I wrapped another plank on the yardarm deck with chicken wire, with Tracey's help, and we had a bit of a wander up by the hive thinking about summer holiday jobs. We checked out the tree that lost all it's bark a few weeks ago and on one side it looks healthy with good leaves and the bark seeming to start to look like bark again but on the other it looks quite ill with leaves curled up and dying so we're not sure it is going to make it. I think it is a Hornbeam? or maybe a Sweet Chestnut but most likely a Hornbeam judging by a Google of the leaves.

We did a bit of bracken clearing by the Hive and it was apparent that I was too slow to save a couple of the Oak and Holly saplings from being someones lunch. I need to try and protect them as soon as I see them from now on. Just as we finished that, at about 4, Flee arrived and I left shortly afterwards to go and watch the F1

Update on the oak saplings from our garden.The hot weather has been a trial and both were badly burned by the sun and are looking quite poorly right now. they have been moved to a shadier spot so fingers crossed they will recover!