Cutting a woodland path

Three friends from other projects joined me today at Wild Acres to help with creating the woodland path along the bottom of the meadow. The idea is to create a safe circular walk around the perimeter, but there are quite a few challenges at the far end which hasn’t been managed much in the last few years.

We had a quick tour and briefing and then everyone got stuck in with different tasks. I have done extensive habitat management work with them elsewhere, so I knew they’d have the right skills to get this area sorted out.

Chris and Martin worked on carving out some steps from the existing path up into the meadow. We now have a safe set of steps that will be easy to maintain in future years and lead nicely to the next section.

Graham and Lisa worked in the areas around the previously coppiced hazel to cut back more shading canopy and clear the material into a dead hedge alongside where the new path will go.

As ever with these activities, they soon make a lot of progress over a short period when a few people beaver away.

We finished at 1pm for lunch. This is always the highlight of a Wild Acres day, so I knew it wouldn’t disappoint. There was a delicious vegetable curry and rice cooked by Cherie, with ingredients from the polytunnel. Showcased the best of Wild Acres.

In the afternoon, I headed down to the library for the second Dursley Code Club of the week. Only 5 instead of the usual 8 today, so I need to check what’s happened to the bookings. I’m sure they were all booked out, so there must have been some late cancellations.

Managed to get through almost all the session before the children started playing games. I have put a new rule in place where they have to show me their project before they can play games. And I’ve become pretty good at suggesting a change or two which gets them writing a bit more code.