Mud and more mud.

There were three main projects to work on last week and all three involved people from our variously talented team of volunteers.

The first was a maintenance job on a footpath in the Great Wood car park area.  An annual task is to clear such access-for-all paths of accumulating mud, leaves and encroaching vegetation.  If the condition of the paths is allowed to decay, people begin to walk along the side to find firm ground and the area of trampled, damaged ground increases.  That’s not good for the ecology of the area or for the enjoyment of walkers.

Path maintenance

The second project was to continue work on routing water through an old mill pond site to reduce flood risk in the village of Braithwaite.  This is now underway after consultation with Jamie Lund, the Trust’s archaeologist.   The mill pond is of historical significance in the development of the village and we wanted to be sure that we would not irrevocably damage the story it can tell about the past.  To minimize the impact of what we are doing, we are hand digging through the old pond.  We are not expecting to make any exciting discoveries but …

Improving drainage - Reiver supervising!.

The final task for the week was a meeting with staff from the University of Cumbria to plan the next step towards a research partnership between the university and the Trust.  The university has research capacity in many areas that are relevant to the work of the Trust and there is enormous potential for collaboration.  This is a project that won’t come to fruition overnight but each meeting is moving us closer to setting up a good partnership.

Colouring up nicely for Autumn. 

All of this is happening against a backdrop of rich autumn colour – a few sunny days will set the scene for some great images.