Thursday 9/4/26  Last year we had the driest spring on record resulting in hardly any wildflowers due to lack of water, so today we took the mower & trailer, a length of hose and a bag of fittings to make a sprayer boom using our water tank.

Eddie drilled a row of holes in the hose and I sealed one end with fittings and Duck tape. We made a wooden frame for the tank and fitted a plank to hold the hose, then drilled holes in the plank for fixing the hose to it with cable ties.

The tank was filled with river water using our bucket on a rope, we put the tank on the frame in the mower trailer and pushed the hose onto the tap at the bottom of the tank. We then took the system to the meadow for testing. 

The tank frame was moving around in the trailer so we wedged it in place with bricks and wood. The end of the hose plank was sitting too low, so we loosened the screws and moved it up slightly to clear obstacles, then it worked well with a good flow of water. We only had to refill the tank once to water the entire seeded area. 

When we need to water the meadow the sprayer can be used in the mower trailer or the back of the Gator truck when the mower is not on site. When there is growth in the meadow the tank can be put on the left side of the trailer so the boom overhangs more of the meadow when driven along the mown paths.

Anne Marie walked from Pentney and planted honesty from her garden on the river bank and dwarf tulips from the market around a tree, then watered them all. There are anemones and bluebells in flower on the river bank, ruffled daffodils around the cherry tree and one remaining daffodil in the grindstone.

We switched on the camera screen and saw a stock dove in the barn owl box, we also saw it on the ledge outside the box and we heard it calling. A great tit was adding nesting material to its box. Other birds seen today were goldfinches on the grindstone, pied wagtail and a robin. I filled the bird food and water while Eddie cut all the grass. 

It was a warm sunny day so we had lunch outside and Anne Marie told us the tulip fields are in Pentney this year, so we won't be able to walk down the river and see them as we did previously. Anne Marie said she passed a swan’s nest just down the river bank on her way here, so Eddie and I decided to walk down and see it. Blackthorn is in blossom along the track and we saw fallen trees which we can collect for fire wood.

The male swan was in the river and the female was moving her three eggs around in the nest, they do this to regulate the temperature. Swans lay upto nine eggs over several days so there may be more to come, in 2024 we saw eight cygnets.

Thursday 16/4/26  Anne Marie left plants and compost at The Maltings which we took to the mill. We saw a buzzard fly out of a tree on our way down.

Last week I setup the trail camera pointing at the water wheel as we’ve seen wagtails around it and need to know if they are nesting in it, as this would prevent us turning the wheel at our open days on 9 & 10 May. I took the camera into the wagon and removed the card while having a cup of tea, I’ll take the card home and view the images. We switched on the nest camera and saw two great tit eggs, the female added more nesting material a few times, but we didn’t see the stock dove this week.

We went further down the river bank with saws to collect some fallen wood we found last week, we cut it to fit in the back of the Gator and brought it back for fire wood. We then went along to the swan’s nest but we couldn’t see if any more eggs had been laid as the female was sitting on the nest.

When we got back to the mill I got the saw horse out and we cut the logs small enough to fit our woodburner stove, we decided to fit the new chain on the saw as it was getting blunt, we also cleaned the chainsaw while we had it apart. It now cuts much better, we saved the old chain as we can sharpen it. 

Some of the logs were too thick so we split them with our log splitter. We then put all the logs in the logstores and the rack in the wagon, all of which are now full.

Anne Marie joined us and weeded the gardens, then planted Lobelia around a tree and Viola in the garden by the building, and watered them all in. Bluebells and honesty planted recently are in flower on the river bank as well as both of our cherry trees.

We had lunch outside and saw grey wagtails, a chaffinch, robin and a muntjac in a field. Debra and Hector walked down, Hector went straight in the river and we threw sticks and a football for him. We discussed the open days with Debra, which are only three weeks away.

In the afternoon we filled the bird feeders and Eddie watered more of the gardens using river water in the watering can.

On our way back we saw the greylag geese and their goslings on the fishing lake. I took the trail camera card home and viewed the pictures which show no sign of birds nesting in the water wheel, but we’ll check it again before the open days.

Graham Bartlett  

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