We are getting close to the fun bit of the year. That time of the year where we can start clearing out the wildflower glades, cutting back, and generally putting in the work for next year. I have a rough plan but more of this later.

Today we welcomed Mitch to the team (thanks for the biscuits) and snipped back brambles between Berrybanks and the Cawston Underpass.

The underpass has had some unnecessary words written on it. We painted over the offending scrawl and colour-matched to cover the rest, next time.

Loads of people have commented on how much better it is, so we want to keep it looking good.

We also replaced a couple of missing geocache containers.

The geocaching trail is complete again with all 12 containers back in place. The caches have been found a total of 1,093 times since we set it up at the start of this year.

Here is the rough plan for the autumn and winter. Nothing is set in stone and everything is changeable…

• Make Potford Dam wildflower glade larger and seed with wildflower seed mix
• Develop the hedge next to the middle round bench
• Develop the hedge and path next to the wildflower meadow
• Open up the tree canopy to let more light in, especially around the benches
• Create a clearing on the south-west side of the Cawston Bridleway bridge and seed with Kidney Vetch to try and attract the endangered Small Blue butterfly
• Cut the path back hard in cuttings to make higher and drier ground available in winter
• Put up new birdboxes and fix damaged boxes
• Increase birdfeeder wildflower glade in size slightly northwards.
• Make underpass wildflower glade slightly larger and seed with wildflower seed mix
• Reset the missing benches in the quadrant
• Set the benches in the triangle

That lot should keep us busy and give us a fantastic path next year. We are going to start keeping the path edge shorter throughout next summer so it doesn’t feel quite so tight as everything starts to fill in.

Next week we are at the southern end hopefully putting in the triangle benches.

Until then!

Paul