Rural Reading

A couple of things have coincided. Extraordinary heat. The hottest two days in May ever and back to back. Temperature records are usually broken by slender margins but these two days broke records by scarily big margins.

One day we’re going to look back on these times and wonder where our leaders were when the world began to overheat.

Meanwhile on the Marsh we’re frantically trying to slow the flow of water. If the marsh dries out a lot of life drains away with it. We don’t want that. We’re doing all we can to keep it moist.

The combination of heat and water though has seen the vegetation put on a growth spurt and the grasses are already head height in places.

In among the wildflowers and grasses are some that are a bit more special. False fox sedge.

And meadow rue.

Neither were known on the marsh until recently. They’ve always been there somewhere but the combination of the lack of intensive grazing and the increasing moisture have given them conditions and space to thrive.

They’re indicators. Something is going right. Unlike the changing climate which is clearly going badly, it’s nice to see that perhaps our efforts are making a difference.

What’s really uplifting is the rate at which these plants (and many more besides) is increasing. One or two plants have become hundreds in the space of a few years.

And Painted Ladies have appeared on the marsh in great numbers. Every heatwave has a cool side effect.

The warmth and moisture has benefited our iconic willow pollard.

It’s incredible to see how much new growth the tree has made. I knew it would grow well but it’s really lovely to see just how well. Not everything does this well.

With the heat and the end of term for some came great disillusionment. Someone’s school had come to an end. They didn’t benefit much from academia but they did show some initiative in dragging a bench made from railway sleepers down to their preferred spot to deal with their angst.

And there they ritually destroyed their school books and even tried to set fire to them. They failed at fire lighting. It was just a sea of torn up work.

But that bench might be in a better spot now than we chose when we made it. So we left it once we’d tidied the mess. Who knows that failed student might have done something right.

Tidying it all up didn’t take too long but what we’d planned next took a lot more effort than we expected.

The heat had baked the earth into concrete.

We seem to coexist with the badgers really well. We walk over the top of the sett all the time. But we’d like to level the mounds out so it’s easier for folks with mobility scooters to pass. The sett is in the old railway line. The sand they’ve dug out is what we’d planned to level.

So we filled in the holes the badgers don’t use and tried to level the mounds a bit. We did a shoddy job. That sand had set hard. We’ll come back when it’s a bit more moist.

So instead we collected the last of the rubbish and dragged it to the big pile we made last week.

I can hardly believe it but years and years of accumulated detritus had been cleared away. That has to be one of our crowning achievements. It’s taken two years and so much effort but finally we’ve done it. If nothing else gets done ………

But of course something else gets done. We’re Marshians.

Talking of moisture, Otterdam is a little low.

We let it leak a bit. We had a walk planned and we were curious. What would Marshian’s way be like if we let it dry out a little?

Well it means we can walk it without wellies! And that was nice because wellies on a hot day are uncomfortable. And our visitors comfort was important.