Blue Flower

Thursday 9/1/25  On our way to the mill today we saw a Heron and Great White Egret near the frozen fishing lake, we often see a good variety of birds as two branches of the river meet there. A Little Egret flew up near the mill which landed in a field nearby and was there most of the day.

Howard got the incinerator alight and burnt the disused Jackdaw nest from the Barn Owl box, some Ivy from the logs we brought back and some other rubbish. Eddie lit the fire in the wagon and brought in more logs as it was another frosty day.

We logged up wood from the fallen trees with the chainsaw, Howard used the long axe to split logs that were too heavy for the log splitter. The large slab of wood I got from a felled tree down the track makes a good chopping block so we'll keep it.

We all used our foot operated log splitter for the rest of the large logs and Eddie loaded them into the wood store. Eddie also cut and split pallet wood for kindling with the small axe and took it to the wagon as we were running low.

Howard brought sausage rolls from Heacham Lavender which we heated in the oven for lunch, they were nice but we all agreed we like Papworth’s best. We saw a Robin on top of our wildlife habitat from the wagon, Howard got a good photo of it.

In the afternoon Howard cut down Teasels with the long loppers in the Cornfield flower area as a lot had fallen over, while Eddie filled the bird food up and I replaced a missing screw holding the bridge floor down and straightened an insect hotel. Howard brought back a barrow of logs that had been left in a pile by the bridge.

We continued cutting and splitting logs but the saw horse rope holding the bottom rails together came out and it collapsed, so we re-tied the knot with a washer against the hole to stop it coming out. One of the rails broke but we'll repair that next time.

Most of the wood from the fallen trees is now cut up ready for our woodburner stove, it just needs to be left to season. Just as we were packing up to leave, the Swan family appeared in the river next to the mill.

Thursday 16/1/25  We had a visit from Oona who volunteers with The Breckland Fen Edge and Rivers Project, they have published a book about Industrial Rivers and Oona has given us a copy from the recent launch in Thetford. Although The River Nar is not featured as its out of their area, the book has a diagram of our locks and a lot of detail about river structures and barge transport generally, so it will be of great interest to us and our visitors. The book was produced through The Breckland Society who visited the bone mill in 2017.

Oona also gave us a pack of Mince Pies and had a look around the mill, as she has walked past on the footpath many times but never visited. While I was showing Oona around she spotted a Heron flying in the next field, I said we saw an Egret on the way down again today. The Swan and Cygnets swam past while we were by the river.

I brought my mitre saw today as there were several jobs which needed it. I loaded up the insect hotels with broken butterfly compartments from the wildflower meadow and brought them over to the shed. I used some thin plywood we were given to cut two new front panels for the butterfly compartments and Eddie drilled holes and cut slots in them and fitted them to the insect hotels.

I got the broken butterfly box with a hole in the roof and damaged back and cut a new plywood roof section and back panel and fitted them. I made a stand for it from a piece of salvaged wood. Eddie repaired the stand of one of the insect hotels as it was falling apart and we put all three back in the meadow.

Over a year ago, Eddie donated a bench which came from his mum’s garden, we planned to repair it but the ends of the wooden slats were rotten and we couldn’t remove the original damaged fittings. Today Eddie managed to remove all the fittings from one of the metal ends so I trimmed the rotten wood off the slats, as we will now be able to repair the bench for use at the mill or on the footpath opposite.

The last job for my mitre saw was repairing the sawing horse which broke last week, I cut and fitted a wooden plank to hold the broken rail together. We need the sawing horse to cut up a few small branches from the fallen trees for firewood. Beryl gave us more suet balls for the birds today and Eddie filled all the feeders around the site.

There are now eight peoples details on the bone mill employees page, including a photo of one of them, this completes Jan's research. We've had a lot of positive feedback about this and we plan to display the information at the next open days.

Website headings have been re-organised, Sketches and Articles has been renamed Articles as there are very few sketches, and the grant funded project pages have been moved to a new Projects category.

Graham Bartlett  

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