Home Improvement!

After a few weeks of working with the Gorse the volunteers were delighted this morning to have a change of scenery and to do something different. Today's jobs were to improve the bug hotel at the Outdoor Classroom area and to mend some of the boardwalks and bridges through the reserve.

The bug hotel team headed off to forage for natural items to fill the spaces and make all sorts of nice nooks and crannies for the bugs, this included pinecones, sticks, stones, woodchip, leaves and small stems of conifer needles.

Once the hoard was bought back to the workshop work began on making containers to hold these items together, tree tubes, string, broken bird boxes and hessian sacks were all used.

Rustic emergency sewing was called for to make smaller bags from the hessian sacks!

A few of the team took apart the old bug hotel, keeping some of the material to refill it later.

The sunshine was a very welcome sight and for the first time this year we were able to sit outside and enjoy our lunch.

After lunch Ken and Eddie began re-assembling the pallets which are being used as the frame and filling in the gaps with all the materials gathered this morning.

It soon filled up and by mid-afternoon great progress had been made and the bug hotel (named Bugingham Palace!) was really starting to take shape.

Meanwhile, another two teams worked on the boardwalks around the scrapes and up in the woodland. Any broken boards were replaced, bridges were levelled up and any loose wire firmly re-attached.

Well done everyone for your hard work today, we hope you enjoyed the change!