Tuesday's Work Party

On Tuesday we were on our weekly work party. Andy was tree planting on Heckbarley whilst Karen & Crag went to take another fixed point panorama.

Heckbarley has been stripped of its conifers in the past couple of years

Karen & Crag follow the forest track up, Crag Fell ahead, we will not get to the summit but go around it to meet the wall that runs along the top of the south side of the lake.

In the shade here are some small patches of snow, Crag wastes no time & goes for a roll in it.

Then the fells to the north side of Ennerdale come into view

We have reached the wall & with no trees here an old fence post has to do as a stick

The wall runs for 6miles along the top

Looking back to where we have walked

Ahead of us Caw Fell, our photo needs to be taken in the dip before the snow line

This is the location where 3 walls meet

The first panorama

And the second

On the way back tufts of grass become "sticks"

We stop for lunch using the wall as a shelter from the wind

Before retracing our steps back

Some conifers do still exist on Heckbarley

And back on the forest track again

And down to the area that Andy & the other volunteers are planting trees. See the trees on the skyline

Zooming in, that is typical Cumbria the trees leaning to the East

A Few Days In Oxfordshire

Last week we had a few days in Oxfordshire, catching up with family & friends. On Wednesday we walked with Anne & Ian to Bucknell.

We detoured to have a look at the nearby Water Tower

Built in 1909 & is a grade II listed building

We then walked around one of the ponds at Trow Pool

In the village of Bucknell the snowdrops are flourishing

We then had lunch at The Trigger Pond pub. Now that's what I call a prawn baguette!

On Thursday we went to see Julie & her new addition Eireann

We then went over to stay with Andy's mum & took Crag for a walk on Port Meadow

On the Friday night we met up with friends in Oxford, this is the bar in The Bookbinders pub

On Saturday we moved again to Witney to see Lisa, Stuart & Katie. They threw a surprise early 40th birthday for Karen

Karen had to open the bubbly

And then a 40th birthday carrot cake, yummy

Lisa & Karen

Andy wishing he was 40 again!

Dry Stone Walling

Just a few pictures from a couple of weeks ago when we were dry stone walling in Ennerdale. As you can see from this shot as we drove down the valley, it was a pretty miserable day The mist was down so there were no fells visible

Very gloomy looking down the lake

We set to work on the first section

Nearly finished

We repaired 3 sections before heading back to the car. The rain meant the Liza was lapping against Irish Bridge

Two Work Parties

Just a few pictures from last weeks work party & todays. Last week for a change we were putting up a fence rather than removing one. The reason was they want to keep the two herds of Galloway's separate. Where we parked we were greeted by one herd who thought we were the farmer coming to feed them.

It was a cold & frosty morning

But it promised to be a lovely day once the sun reached us

We were "recycling" fencing we had taken down in another part of the valley

So how many volunteers does it take to put up a fence? We are getting more than a dozen each week which is great

Today was a grey day, but with no wind so the lake looked great

Until someone decided to cause some ripples

We are planting Juniper in the same area that Countryfile filmed us a couple of weeks ago, the valley doesn't look so stunning today as a lot of the snow has melted & the cloud is down

It's not a great surface to work on (it's a big area you can see two volunteers on the skyline)

Andy planting

Crag however prefers to play/flirt with Barbara's female dog Lou

A different angle of the valley

From here you can just make out some of the western end of the lake

We had finished with time to spare so set about freeing some of the debris that had collected under Irish bridge

Unfortunately as this wasn't a planned job the forestry commission lads hadn't put a chainsaw in, so after clearing some of it we gave in & they will return tomorrow to finish off with chainsaws

Two really enjoyable days with great company