Challock 6 Miler

The last 2 English Elms on our Rec have had it, victim of Dutch Elm Disease. The Swale boys will come and fell them soon with their chain saws. The disease, vectored around by beetles kills by blocking or disrupting the water channels within the tree, so the poor things die of drought, not helped this year by the real drought. We've been told that the beetles tend to fly at about 15 feet up, so elms are safe till they get to that tall, and doomed there-after. It's just a matter of time till a beetle happens upon them.

Today, a real treat. Dad is leading the Friends of Kingswood 6 mile walk. Haggis, at 13, is a bit to old for these now, so I'm on my own, but one of the walkers has a 1 year old whippet called Stan who is a superb substitute, racing about and trying to make me chase him. We get on really well and both dogs are severely tired out by the end of the walk. The drought has left the forest nice and dry, so walking is relatively easy, but it's still a bit mountain-goat in places and even the humans long legs are aching a bit by the end.

We drop back via the Cambria for a check up on progress and to take a few pics, Then we hed home (for BLT's if we happen to be human) and a bit of a kip to await the arrival of J-M Silverwood, who is heading this way even as I type.

Deefs

Idiots in 4 by 4's

A real treat today - Haggis and I get to accompany Dad on the Challock Forest 6-mile walk he leads for the Friends of Kings Wood. Before we depart, all three dogs get a quick walk to the Rec to make sure Meggie does her stuff, and then we sneak off while she's sleeping that one off.

There are 12 walkers in the end and Dad takes them round what used to be the 6 mile waymarked trail (dismantled by the Forestry Commission about 10 years ago) but with an added loop down into the bit called "Cutler's Valley" to see the newest pond created by (well, paid for by) the Friends. Created, of course by proper land scape contractors.

That's the 4th pond. Also on the visit we go to look at one near the "Reptile Valley" which has apparently been damaged by some muppets in a Land Rover. These ponds are created on fairly dry chalk and thin soil by digging the bowl with a big excavator, and then puddling in 15 lorry loads of local clay to make a 2 foot thick smear over the chalk. The ponds then fill naturally and we allow them to colonise with plants by the slow process of natural succession.

This one had been a great success, being blessed with a better catchment than the others, and we'd helped that along on a Friends "volunteer day" by cutting gulleys from the nearby forest tracks, which happened to converged there from the local hillsides. It was alive with dragon flies and other water insects, newts and was used frequently by the fallow deer to drink.

Till that is, some bloomin' idiot with a Land Rover decided it would be fun to drive through. Now Dad's as big a "Landie" fan as the next man - grew up with posters on the bedroom wall, was always going to own one and eventually did, used to go "green laning" (responsibly), joined the All-Wheel-Drive-Club, suscribed to LR Owner magazine, eventually sold the beast in an attack of pragmatism (noise, thirst, slowness etc).

So we sympathise with the muppets' desire to get out into the country and get it muddy. Not for us the "Sloane tractor" shininess, where the nearest to off road you got was mounting the kerb. But these tarts have driven it into our pond and then effectively sliced down through the 2 feet of clay spinning the wheels to get out

http://www.friendsofkingswood.org/Gallery/tabid/253/Default.aspx

Either they have, or the tractor they engaged to pull them out has. The pond has now leaked away all it's water and sits there, a dry bowl with cracked African "river bed" floor. The Friends are left looking at the cost of restoring the pond, bringing in more clay, re-engaging the excavator to puddle it in.

Thanks lads. I hope the damage was worth the laugh.

Muppets
Deefski

6 Miler in Challock

A good day for an intrepid exploration of Challock Forest, although the walk gets a very small turn-out presumably because there have been big black clouds threatening and the news is full of floods and land slides, the walk is advertised as "The 6 Miler" - not everyone's cup of tea, and finally everyone's presumably stuck indoors with the new (and final) Harry Potter book.

No matter. We get a lovely walk - none of the threatening rain falls except for a small shower when we are well hidden in a chunk of thick chestnut coppice. These pics are of us mooching around one of the ponds to cool off. You can see from the final pic, that we got fairly manky, but then, what are wood walks for?

Since then we've been to a garden centre for a pruning saw and Dad has had at some of the garden's overgrown bushes and trees - the Vibernum, Bay and Paulownia for a start. I helped by standing under the ladder and breaking the fall of the sawn off bits - in case they should get damaged hitting the concrete.

And the day has gone on getting better - Mum and Dad have just come back from shopping with a bulging pack of meaty raw-pork ribs for us. We do love those and it keeps us quiet for a while - this is "a good thing" apparently, especially now that Mum has been to Tesco and has returned with the aforementioned work of wizardy fiction, in which she will now be buried to the exclusion of all distractions (like cooking food, playing with dogs etc) until completion. 700 pages? ETA Sunday night, if not before. Book will then be handed to Dad who should finish is some time in July 2008

Have a great weekend

Deefs