Thursday 12/2/26 A swan was in the river beside the bank when we arrived, we also saw two others on our way to the mill. The first job was freeing the seized outer door latch on the wagon, these keep the doors fully open and stop them blowing in the wind. Eddie sprayed the latch with WD40 and hammered it to loosen it. We filled the bird feeders and saw great tits and blue tits eating peanuts again.
The bee box with viewing panels we made would not open, as the wood has expanded in the wet weather, so we took it back for repair. We took the box apart and replaced the laminate flooring strip in the top with thin hardboard, this allows the cores to be pulled out for viewing but still prevents them dropping out.
Bees lay male eggs at the front of the slots which hatch first and leave the nest, female eggs at the rear hibernate in the box for 11 months before hatching. We could see the empty space where males had left, and the female cells are still occupied.
We put extra screws in the stand as two legs were loose, then staked the box and stand down in the meadow. We used mole hill soil to top up the tray on top, when it rains this will turn to mud, which bees use to plug the cells.
Abbie was doing the circular walk with Hector, her red Labrador, they visited us on the way back. Hector found a large branch and ball which he brought with him, so we threw them for him to fetch. They then walked back along the river. Eddie and I had hot sausage rolls for lunch in the wagon by the fire.
In the afternoon we tidied the timber store, we took the wood out and put all the short pieces both sides on the top shelves, these can be accessed from the middle door. We re-arranged the long lengths of wood on the lower shelves.
Some of the wood was wet where the roof leaked, so I got plastic roofing sheets from behind the shed and put them on top of the roof as a temporary repair.
We put broken and mis-shaped pallet wood aside for kindling, I chopped it into lengths and Eddie split it with an axe, this has topped up our kindling tub in the wagon. The last job was putting loose logs into the new logstore which is now full.
Wednesday 18/2/26 We saw a little egret fly up from the river near the maltings and two swans were in the river nearby. At the mill we brought logs in and lit the fire again as it was only 5 degrees and quite windy today, so we warmed up in the wagon with a cup of tea and biscuits before starting work.
Last week we put roofing sheets on top of the timber store as a temporary repair for the leaking roof, today we drilled and screwed the sheets to the wooden frame to hold them in place, we also fitted a catch to hold the end door open, as it kept blowing shut. I repaired the broken Perspex in the door with wide Sellotape.
The timber store used to be a greenhouse and the min/max thermometer was still on the wall, so I took it off and put it in the shed to prevent it being damaged when taking wood in and out of the wood store. The highest recorded temperature was 43.1 and the lowest was minus 6.9 degrees C.
We were running low on bird seed and suet balls so I brought some today which we emptied into our tubs and refilled the feeders, blue tits and great tits started eating straight away. Eddie saw a goldfinch on the nyger seed so I topped both nyger feeders up. I put broken fatballs and crumbs from the bottom of the tub on the bird table.
Camera cables under the wagon were exposed at the end where they enter the wagon, so I put them in a short section of trunking and buried them deeper in the ground to prevent damage from strimming, I also stapled the power cable under the wagon floor.
I went across our bridge as there is a good view of the snowdrop bank from the Nar Valley Way footpath. Primroses are also in flower in the garden around our cherry tree.
The fence keeping visitors away from the damaged trench wall had fallen down again so we made two new fence posts with bases and stapled the fencing tape to them.
The last job was cutting up an awkward shaped log and splitting large logs with our log splitter to fit our woodburner stove, we put them in the old logstore ready for use. All logs are now in the two logstores which has tidied up the site.
Graham Bartlett
Interactive Plan Activity Previous Projects Workers Review 2025
