January 2nd. We have been lucky enough to receive a Lottery grant for £1539.00 pounds and it has been spent on fencing for the road edge of Foxborough wood. There are a lot of gaps in the hedge bordering the main road and the heavy gang has been busy putting in fence posts and errecting new fencing. I think this job is now nearly finished.
January 9th. With a lot of wind and heavy rain we have had to carry out a lot of demolition on dangerous trees and fallen branches.
A large branch came off the big willow tree on the large field and this has now been cleared up. A few branches have come off some willows in Moores lane and a tree had to be cleared up in the main wood. Several trees had come down over the main path further down the lane and these too have been cleared away. The smaller branches will be used as path edgings and the twiggy bits put into a pile as a
habitat for wildlife.
January 16th. We are still using our piles of chippings, the paths are very muddy after all the rain. The main path has one fairly dry side where we put the road planings but the other half has not drained as well as expected. It is time we were cleaning the bird boxes, with this strange weather birds are already looking for nesting sites. Unfortunately we have a lot of people off sick with this awful virus that is going around so we are getting behind with some of our jobs.
January23rd. We have a good band of willing women workers each week and they have been clearing up the debris left after the tree clearance and forming another habitat.
The men have been putting in way-markers to show the foot paths from Foxborough wood around the green belt and the nature reserve to meet up with the footpaths in the Gunton wood, this will be finished next week. Barry has been re-staking the hedging we put in along the main footpath because these were blown over in the wind Luckily, the weather has not stopped us from carrying on our work each Thursday.
January 30th. The men have been cutting short stakes to pin down the new path edgings and David has been clearing up dead elms,brought down by the wind because of the ivy clinging to them. This makes them top heavy and in strong winds they soon fall over. In doing this, some habitats were exposed showing where , perhaps, deer have been lying up. Not many people out today, so , get well soon all of you!
We now have a new notice board at the entrance to the wood and this was donated by Mrs. Rosewin Read, who also came to unveil it for us. Unfortunately, Mr. Read passed away some time ago and the board was donated in his memory. They used to enjoy the trips with us woodland folk when they were able and, apparently, did some courting in the wood .
Look out for the snowdrops and aconites which are coming up fast and will soon be a picture again.
B.C.