Almost exactly a year ago the Marshians foretold a drought warning. By late summer there was a hosepipe ban.
We wrote about it in this article back then:
Marsh and Marshians.
But the little “what if” in that article that the Marshians also foretold actually happened too.
Due to some strategically placed sand bags and other means some water was held back.
Enough to cause an explosion of wildlife, and part of the marsh stayed wet throughout last year’s drought and until the wet season.
Towards the end of the drought though we realised we could do much more. We built some weirs which have no impact on flooding, but they’ll hopefully hold back some water during the next dry season
Then before Christmas the floods came.
For four months the area was inundated with water.
In January a beautiful lake formed.
But we could see it all flowing away to through this culvert. A month later the level had dropped by 2 feet.
The lake was gone
and the path that a month ago needed waders to navigate
is now just muddy.
There’s another drought coming. And with a bit of ingenuity we might be able to hold back a bit more water this year than last and watch what happens to the areas we’ve already managed to keep wet.
That’s our plan. To keep this wetter for longer. So the tadpoles grow into frogs, ducklings grow into ducks and dried fields become marshes. All we have to do is stop the last vestiges of water draining away. It’s not that hard to do but it does involve lugging gravel or clay or rocks to raise the levels of the bottom of the ditches.
So we got some hessian sacks and filled them up with clay that has been dumped in the car park by the canal.
we loaded up a mobility scooter to move them down the towpath and ready to block one of the drains. Much easier than carrying them. They’re heavy!
We’ll put them in the ditch in a few days time to stop more water draining away.
And we can stop wondering what this would be like if it was wet all year round. By this time next year we’ll know!
Hopefully
Rural Reading 