At one point we had six of us working today. Aaron, Mick, Mike, John, me and a cameo from Sarah.
Boy-oh-boy was it such hard work today. Butterfly Conservation cleared the area last year and the contractors put all the felled trees through a shredder. This has left the whole area covered in rough chippings. Today we started to rake it all off the bank to get back to bare earth.
My initial thoughts were to cover the path with all the chippings, but ended up just heaping up piles, so that all sorts of insects can use them for habitat.
The end result was very satisfying to look at though.
The plan is for Butterfly Conservation to seed the bank with a wildflower called Kidney Vetch, which is the sole food plant for the endangered butterfly called the Small Blue. If we can get a colony established it will ratchet up our importance massively.
NEXT WORKDAY IS OUR FAMILY WEEKENDER ON SATURDAY 9th APRIL at 12:00.
Same location, just burning off a load of the brash dumped into the bottom of the north facing side.
Massive thanks to everyone today. It was tough. Special thanks to Aaron who fixed two of the three broken rakes. It will be good to get another six years service out of them.
Paul