Thursday 1/12/22  On our way to the mill we saw a Heron flying near the railway piers. Two escaped Cows were blocking the footpath near the mill on the other side of the river again, the farmer was informed. A dog walker was unable to pass the Cows, so we put our swinging footbridge across to let him walk back on our side. 

The shed door wouldn’t open or close properly as it had expanded in the wet weather, so our first job was taking the batten off the edge which Eddie trimmed down using his Dad’s plane.

I made and fitted metal mounting plates to the insect habitat that Ryan and I made last Saturday, then fixed it to the end of the visitor centre wall, which involved standing on the log store so I made sure I stood on the strongest part.

My next job was clearing up the shed as it was untidy. I re-arranged things under the bench which gave more floor space, cleared the worktop and put more hooks and screws up to hold things on the wall, then swept the bench and floor. I sorted things into categories - gutter and water butt fittings in a bag, electrical items in a crate on the shelving rack, gardening things in the bucket, paint & brushes on the top shelf. I had the new shed lights on, as Eddie had to keep closing the door to see how much more wood to plane off.

I also tidied the visitor centre by moving bags of building lime under the display table and stacking the information signs around them, which gives more space and better views of displays. Building lime is stored in the visitor centre as its too bulky for the shed, its needed for mortar to repair loose brickwork.

I re-fitted the photo panel in the corner of the new display room which was taken down when we wired in the solar panels, I also pinned pictures back which had fallen off.

Eddie spent most of the day planing down the shed door batten but it still didn’t fit, so we found some thinner pieces of wood and cut them to fit the shed door.

Debra and Abbie walked to the mill with Labradors Hector and Henry in the afternoon, Hector went straight in the river as usual. The dogs wanted to play with the strips of wood for the shed door, so we threw logs for them to fetch instead which they enjoyed. We discussed progress of the Green Grant project which is nearing completion.

We screwed the wooden strips to the edge of the shed door which fitted well and allowed us to close and lock the door easily and securely. On our way back we viewed the Kestrel box which Ryan and I fitted last Saturday. At the railway piers we saw the Heron again.

Thursday 8/12/22  The frozen fishing lake on our way to the mill looked very picturesque, the old container from the mill has been moved behind trees which improves the view. We saw an Egret fly up from the river and land in a tree, then we saw the Heron flying. 

At the mill we lit the fire in the railway wagon as it was cold and frosty, so the first jobs were in the wagon checking the voltage at the nest cameras which was ok, putting up laminated pictures of the Jackdaws and Great Tit chicks in their nest boxes, and unpacking our new supplies - a bowsaw, woodwork clamps and 12 Volt splitter which I installed in the wagon for powering the fridge and inverter.

Then Eddie and I ventured out and made shelves above the bench in the shed to store things that were piled up in the corner, the wood we used was salvaged from my old summerhouse. The compost bay is now a year old, Anne Marie cleared the area next to it which was heaped up with weeds because the compost bay was full and a lot of weeding has been done recently. The bottom layer had rotted down and will be used on the gardens.

We noticed one of the water butts was leaning over now that its full, so we wedged a piece of wood under the front of the stand to level it. We saw a Cygnet walking around in the field opposite the mill.

We had several coffee breaks and lunch in the wagon with a roaring fire. In the afternoon we all went for a walk along the river banks looking for a suitable location for the Kingfisher tunnel, they need to be in a steep or vertical bank by slow flowing water. We saw a Cygnet in the river and we kept hearing a Muntjac barking nearby, then Anne Marie saw it on the river bank near the mill, where we also found a site to install the Kingfisher tunnel, but the ground was too frosty and hard to fit it today.

Graham Bartlett  

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