The weather has been unseasonably warm so for last three weeks I have been trying to find a day to stay over and camp. Unfortunately, although the weather in the week has been good the weekends have been wet or cold on at least one day and after a glorious few days during the week this weekend was no exception. The opportunities to camp this year are rapidly reducing!
Helen was up for a day at Rais and Saturday was forecast to be the best day of the weekend, although the forecast for Sunday seemed to be changing every few hours. It was warm with some cloud and quite windy so we headed up about 10am.
After parking up we walked down and I noticed that one of the oak saplings that had looked really very dead actually has some new shoots on it.
Slightly further down we disturbed three squirrels by the hive, there seem to be plenty of them around at the moment. Arriving down at the Yardarm we saw that the woodpecker has been back at the tree by the yardarm and started a third hole
Once we got set up Helen trimmed back the rhodies in the wayleave, not reducing any of the area where the deer hide but trimming back one side where it was encroaching into the wayleave. There turned out to be a lot of bramble and straggly rohdie and took most of the day to clear
My plan was to spend a few hours strimming the wayleave but the first setback was that the fuel can I thought was nearly full, was actually nearly empty, necessitating a visit to the services half way through the day. Wow their fuel is expensive!
The second setback was how long it took. I strimmed, and strimmed, and strimmed and still there was more to do. A few weeks ago Flee suggested bringing in a lawn mower, so we could give the wayleave some nice stripes. I think I (probably) talked him out of it at the time but after 4 hours of solid strimming and the main wayleave was still not done I was wondering why I had bothered! It was a really big job and by the end of the day I had finished the main part of the wayleave but had no chance to start over by the dam.
I did some research a while ago on how to encourage wildflowers, and all the advice I saw said to rake away the cuttings when the meadow is cut, to make sure the nutrients do not go back into the soil, wild flowers apparently prefer very poor soil. But it's such a big job that it's beaten me mentally before I even start so the cuttings remain where they lay!
As we put the tools away at the end of the day I noticed a small chicken wire enclosure where Ant has been working, which on closer inspection turned out to be sheltering a tiny yew sapling!
Sunday
On Saturday night the forecast for Sunday was wet in the morning and drying up later in the afternoon so I thought my weekend was over, and I had a good lie in on Sunday morning. But when I woke it was to grey skies but no rain, despite the forecast telling me it was raining heavily at that very moment! As the forecast was for a drier afternoon I set off to Rais to try and finish the strimming by doing the section of the wayleave by the dam.
It was dark and dull at Rais and of course, not long after I arrived it started raining, but it was just a drizzle so I carried on. Firstly with the metal brush cutter blade and then with the plastic strimmer head. This section of the wayleave is smaller and the grass not so well established so I did rake it this time.
Unfortunately about two thirds of the way through I had to fix the cutter blade, only to find I had tightened the head so much I could not get it undone, so that was the end of my strimming for the weekend. It was very frustrating not to be able to finish it after so much effort!
It was still raining so I had some lunch and then
trimmed the rohdies on the bank by Immac a bit, just to take off some of the new growth and height. They have grown quite a bit since you last trimmed them. The rain was getting really set in, despite the forecast, so I called it day around three and headed home, complete with the strimmer to fix the head.
So much focus on striming meant I had no bramble scratches this week, but I more than made up for it with a burn from the strimmer on my arm and a blister from the rake!
