Thursday 31 May 2012

Plenty of work and we get ready for the Strawberry Fair.

Firstly the Strawberry Fair

We have a stall down there for so if you are about do pop in and say hello. Maybe make a dragonfly if you like too. I haven’t got a massive sound system rigged up so music from the Reggae tent will have to suffice.


Work on the Fen

I haven’t blogged for a while as much of my time has been spent managing the paperwork relating to the practical side of weed control. So lots or risk assessments COSHH and so on for me.

We have been getting up to date with our tree care at the Community Wood at White Fen and getting the front of house work like picnic areas up to scratch. Maddy has been working on Burwell Fen, Reach Lode Bridge and Hurdle Hall where we are finally beginning to catch up and get things looking better.

The tree care at White Fen ties into our weed control. In simple terms we are duty bound to control the spread of weeds such as Ragwort and Creeping Thistle. We do this in a number of ways including spraying and topping. When we are topping we cut the area prior to the nesting season and then keep the sward low to deter birds from nesting during the season. The cutting is then continued to prevent the weeds from growing and seeding. This ties in to the tree care on White Fen as we don’t want the saplings to get swamped by the vegetation growing next to them. The gardeners at Anglesey Abbey kindly lent us their Agria so we could get up and down the rows as they are too small for our usual mower.



Today we went out and gave the Wild Campsite some much needed TLC including some new barriers on the toilet ramp and handles for the shutters inside. Lois and Lizzie can been seen here working away.





We then popped down to Tubney Fen to get some front of house work and mowing done.

Have a good long weekend J



Monday 14 May 2012

Slowly catching up with all the small jobs..... and a picnic!

Sadly with so much time being spent on other projects where deadlines loomed I got a bit behind on things. So sorry about that, not sure anyone would fancy stopping for a break at the Hurdle Hall picnic tables as they were.

We have started mowing again, and hope to get a load of small jobs ticked off. With the missing Omega signs being somewhere near the top of that list. Lizzie and Shaun came out last week, which was most helpful. Check out Lizzie’s blog here http://wickengrazing.blogspot.co.uk/ lots of interesting stuff about our extensive grazing programme. Some pics of us getting the bridge ready for the grand opening of the Portrait Bench are below. Still much more work to do there.


Oh and this one just to show we made a start, but much more regular mowing is needed to get it back to its best.


More on the Portrait Bench Opening

The Lodes way is project we have been working on with Sustrans and part of the grand national plan is to create what they call a portrait bench on each new route. Each of the projects identifies some historically or socially significant figures and these are cast in steel and set behind a bench. This is an example of one from Cardiff:

You can have your picture taken with them and learn a little more about the figures.

Our grand opening is on Saturday the 20th of May and we have put on some cycle rides to celebrate culminating in the grand unveiling at 13.30. Times below:

Wicken Fen Visitor Centre 12.15 (Bikes available to hire)
Lode High Street opposite the church 12.00
Burwell Post Office 12.30

Bring a picnic if the sun is out and enjoy a nice trip out across the fens.