Ok, so it's been a while, I must have been busy! Well, I have I guess. I did eventually manage to get a plant survey done on the hill. Really quite interesting actually, but will be going back to look again as spring brings in more variety and developments. I've also been working really hard on finding out about badgers, and how much of a problem they are going to be with fencing etc. The amount of paths they have crisscrossing the hill is incredible, and I don't want to be installing a hundred badger gates. Also the fencing near the main sett needs replacing so I needed to find out about legalities of digging near setts. Apparently, if you are caught near a badger sett with spade you are assumed to be badger digging and will be prosecuted as such! Licences to carry outs works near badger setts are recommended!
Aside from that, we have started work on our practical project at uni. We have a footpath to restore. A lot of clearance work, the replacement of four gates and a footbridge to rebuild! It's a great project, but after all the rain we've had the site is an absolute quagmire! Yesterday, even though it wasn't raining, I wore waterproofs for mud limitation, I was still filthy and had condensation all up inside them! Not very pleasant. Tomorrow, we are back on site and the weather is meant to be sunny and fairly warm, so I'm going to go with spare trousers instead! No photos yet, I'll do a before and after of the entire project when we've finished.
Instead, here's a new fungus for me that I found at the footpath site during a break. It's an Earthfan, a member of the Thelephora species. I've not found one before, so nice find for me. Sorry, second picture is a little blurry!
I'm very frustrated at the weather currently, I wanted to do a plant survey on the hill. I also have an overwhelming urge to get out wild camping. That's not going to happen right now, with gale force winds and torrential rain. So I've been working on my woodland assignment for Uni. That's frustrating me too, not the assignment, but the fact that a book I'd really like for both uni work and personal interest is so bloody expensive. I guess it's because so much work goes into these scientific works, but still, an old book, many years out of date, second hand, still costs a fortune! We have a great library at the uni, but sometimes you just want them on your own bookshelf. I love books. I had a Kindle for a while, and they certainly have their place, but you just can't beat an actual book!
Oh and another thing! I spent ages the other day, trawling through Blogger, trying to find blogs to follow. Finding a current, active blog, with similar topics and interests as me, is nigh impossible! So, if you drop by, and you think I may like your blog, please drop me a comment, and I will pop over and take a look. Thank you :)
It was my first day back in lectures yesterday. I was tired, back to 6.30 starts again, and sore! PES on Tuesday found a few muscles I hadn't used for a while! So starting at nine yesterday morning, I had four lectures back to back. No breaks, just enough time to get from one to the next! Ye, I know, poor student having to sit around for four hours, but with three brand new modules introduced and our first assignment set, it was hard to concentrate. The new modules are;
Land Use: Most of our land use in this country is agriculture, so this module will be a lot of that!
People & the Countryside: This covers everything from legal stuff, to funding. May be a bit boring at times, but useful stuff to know.
British Habitats: This is the one I am really looking forward to. We'll be studying all the different types of habitat, what they mean and what's happening to them.
Our first assignment is a presentation on agriculture for Land Use. Shouldn't be too bad to do, easy enough, but shocked to have been given it in the first lecture!
On Thursdays I am meant to have a lecture, but I've told them I won't be going in. Because I have to commute, an hour each way on the bus, I have to leave the house at 7.15 every morning and don't get back until 5, and some days 7. It's not worth giving up my whole day for a one hour lecture. Lectures are recorded so I can catch up with what I have missed tomorrow morning, before lectures start again.
So my plan today was to get out and about, maybe try and find some more Oyster mushrooms in the woods, to start a big outdoor straw bed. But the weather is awful, the wind is howling a gale, and I'm not sure that the woods would be the best place right now. I'll see if it improves at all, but in the meantime, there is plenty of other interesting things I can do!
