Monday 14/4/25 Anne Marie told me Tulips were in the fields downstream from the bone mill, past the pumping station, so Jan and I did the circular walk to see them, this year they are beside the river on the left. We came back past the bone mill and saw a Pied Wagtail on the river wall.
Janis and Keith have given us a picnic bench for the mill and Fred took it round to The Maltings for us, this will be useful at the open days on 10 & 11 May, also at work parties for volunteers and visitors. I made an open days publicity poster for notice boards and social media, please help us to promote the event by sharing it.
Thursday 17/4/25 We loaded up the picnic bench and took it to the mill where both Cherry trees are now in flower. I switched on the nest cameras, Jackdaws have added more nesting material to the Barn Owl box but there’s no activity in the small box. I put garden wire around the ruffled Daffodils in the grindstones as they were falling over.
Our priority today was making display boards for the open days. We put up the gazebo to make sure the displays will fit inside, it also gave us a shaded area to work under. I brought my mitre saw and set it up ready for making display stands.
Eddie and I got two old doors which I brought a few weeks ago and fixed them together with salvaged wood which I cut to length, then we made a support frame for them. This will be used for the bone mill workers research displays.
Howard and Gabbie joined us for lunch, they did the circular walk to look at the Tulips and came to the mill on their way back. Gabbie’s dogs Tinker and Ziggy enjoyed going in the river and exploring the site. Howard has given us a wildlife camera to monitor the site for activity as there are lots of animal runs.
After lunch I made a stand for the white wooden board which will be used for some of the VE & VJ day displays at the open days. Eddie started rubbing down the new picnic table and painted one of the top planks green to match our bench seat, it dried to a good finish so we’ll paint the rest of it next time.
Debra walked down with Hector who went in the river chasing sticks which I threw for him. We discussed the open days with Debra who is going to print VE Day photos for the old D Day album. Eddie filled the bird feeders then watered the gardens. We went to the wildflower meadow to water the newly seeded areas and Oak trees again.
We had a last cup of tea outside and I tried the tile polish which Anne Marie gave us on a slate ridge cap to see if it would give a gloss finish, it has improved it slightly. We’ll also try the wax polish on slates, ridge caps, tiles and pottery.
We put the display stands away in the visitor centre, took down the gazebo and put it back in the loft, locked the tools away and went back to The Maltings. A Kingfisher flew across in front of us, its metallic light blue feathers were lit up in the sun.
The web page links to what we were doing last year worked well when introduced, as they showed the progress of our projects, but it has got repetitive as we tend to do similar things at the same time each year, so I have now removed this feature. To see what we were doing last year, use the search box with date format MM/YYYY.
Graham Bartlett
Interactive Plan Activity Volunteer Previous Next Mill Workers
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