Icelandic visitors

18th May 2023

A lovely hot sunny day for our Icelandic visitors.  It is also a day when our resident population of green tiger beetles are at their most active.  Walking down the cross ride there must be a dozen or more of these agile and voracious predators flying, practically hopping, short distances along the path. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/beetles/green-tiger-beetle

Yesterday and today has seen the creation of 10 further leaky dams down the cross ride, each and everyone of them the product of imported Icelandic labour (“slave labour” as one of the teachers' described it).  All but two of the 18 dams built down the hill have been created by our Northern friends.  We may have to rename the path Hekla Hill after the highly energetic Icelandic volcano of that name.

Hybrid leaky dam - log base for steep-sided ditches, topped off with a woven dam and top log

We have developed a new kind of hybrid leaky dam for the smaller vertical sided ditches alongside the Cross Ride.  It is a hybrid between the 'woven beauties' and the log dams created elsewhere.  Logs are inserted into the ditch and then they are topped-off with a woven chestnut hurdle.  We may have to host the World Leaky Dam Games one day. 

Close-up of a hybrid leaky dam

Apologies to nearby residents for the loud whooping when I let our visiting teachers loose on the big swing.  Teachers world-wide are after all just big kids!