Thursday 11/8/22  The first job was refitting the bracket onto our swinging footbridge, Ryan had welded the nut back on, so I assembled the foot and bolted it back onto the bridge. We tested it by putting the bridge across, I went over and put up a sign on the Gate Frame Arch about the Grey Wagtail boxes on the river wall, so walkers know what they are. I also checked the boxes were still clear of tall weeds so birds can fly directly into them.

We then removed weeds from a section of the wildflower area, they pulled up easily, but there are lots more. This needs to be completed before we can sow wildflower seeds in September. Weeds were put in the compost bay, which is overflowing, but the contents will soon break down.

At home I printed and laminated pictures of the exposed brick floor which is now being covered, so I put them on the wall in the new display area with an explanation sign. I refitted one of the display cabinet lights with silicone sealant as it kept falling down. While using sealant I also fixed down screw cap covers on our glass panel over the downstream brick floor, and stuck spirit levels back in our Carpenters level as they had come loose again.

Eddie bought new suet balls as we were running low, it was so hot they were melting, we put them in the shade after filling all the bird feeders around the site. The long seed feeder was empty so we filled it which should give several days supply for the birds. There was a Swan on the river on the way back, we have not seen any Cygnets at all this year.

Thursday 18/8/22  A replacement table top for our picnic bench arrived, as the original one had several badly twisted planks. We took it to the mill, unpacked it and fitted it to the bench which is part of our Wildflower Meadow project. We put strong screws in the old table top to try and pull the planks back straight, we will keep gradually tightening the screws, if this works we will make it into another outside table by fitting legs to it.

More Lupins are in flower along the wall and Pansies are coming up in the garden around the Cherry tree. It rained a few times today, so we didn’t need to water the gardens for a change. The grass has not grown at all during this hot weather, we haven’t had to cut it since July. Eddie topped up the bird feeders again and we drilled holes in the bird table base so we could stake it down better, but the soil is like concrete after the dry spell, so we had to soak the area with river water before we could drive in the ground stakes. Bird table, feeders, nest boxes and food are part of our Green Community grant.

We had a visit by three ladies from Wissey U3A Ramblers Group, they were reading our sign on the footpath so I invited them over and they had a look around the mill and visitor centre. They were walking the Nar Valley Way to see if its suitable for a group ramble and saw a Kingfisher upstream. They asked about our next open days which are on 17 & 18 September.

I surveyed the site to see how many loose bricks need replacing around the tunnel entrances and features. There are plenty of bricks on site and we can re-use bricks which have fallen into the trench, there are also some whole bricks in the rubble which we can salvage.

The last job was loading up the small trailer, roller, seed spreader and sweeper from the shed and taking them to a more secure building where they will be kept until needed for making the wildflower meadow. Most of our equipment is now kept off site for security and taken to the mill when needed.

Graham Bartlett 

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