This week we started to try and transfer what is rattling around in my head, and see if we can create it in real life.

In my head it’s something like this…

At the moment it seems like a bit of a crazy pipe-dream, but I think it will take a giant leap forward next week, if it ever stops raining.

This is kinda where we are at.

It does seem a million miles away from what we want, but a couple of dry weeks and we should start to shape up with a much better defined path edge.

Our YouTube of the first bit.

We haven’t really pushed the scrub on the edges out as far as we needed to. A job for September. But as we can see, there is a decent width to the path. We just need a slightly more gradual transition from path to wildflower verge to scrubby edge.

Looking northwards, the natural kinks and curves are more pronounced as the path navigates mature trees.

Gosh, it really sounds like I am trying to convince myself.

We had our little helper again this week, due to the Easter school holidays.

Me and our little helper litter-picked whilst everyone else had a first go with our new strimmers from Wickes DIY, and then we regrouped for coffee and cookies.

It certainly feels like we have the right tools for the job, and I’m looking forward to when I can fully engage next week to see how it pans out.

You might have noticed the new tab above called “September Jobs”. This is a sort of notepad for jobs that we see need doing, but have to wait until the end of the bird nesting season. There is always plenty of stuff that we agree to do in the summer and by autumn, we have totally forgotten about, so hopefully this will keep us focused.

Lastly, I was going to put up the blog stats for March for the fellow geek-heads like myself, but nothing ever really changes with the views, visitors and visitor countries, so I would be padding the blog out just for the sake of it.

Instead, I found this geeky little app on my phone that maps out the area of fields. I think it is aimed at farmers, so I can pretend to be a wildflower farmer, or even one of those people who live in the woods. Loggers or lumberjacks, or something like…

But anyway, the area of the bit of the railway line that we work on is 9.44 hectares.

That’s just over 23.3 acres. With the average price of woodland being £4,696 per acre, we can see that the asset value does not just extend to the wildlife and the fantastic amenity for local residents. Although the commercial value of our trees is probably at log-burner/kindling level, due to the lack of woodland management and high density of everything, which is why we keep banging on about thinning the trees so that they can grow straight and to maturity.

And no, we are not going to start chopping all the trees down and flogging off the timber, before anyone panics and starts banging out a flurry of fiery emails to our local MP.

Some exciting news to share in a week or two so watch this space.

Until next time!

Paul