Living Willow Fence, Lakeside Walk

Yesterday I took some photos of the living willow fence that Jim and I have been trimming plus one or two others. Today we actually finished it, but we only had a short distance to go to the top.


The top section of the fence with brambles to the left of it











Now you can see the real bramble problem! That's our next but one project.













The trimmed living willow fence is on the left, a wire fence is to the right of it then there is a line of big willow trees, then a line of silver birch trees! The previous owner was making sure he had a good barrier here! We are removing the line of willow trees to give the fence and the silver birch more light and air. It'll give us a large amount of firewood too!














This is the line of silver birch trees and we have created an avenue up to the top of the land by removing all the willow that was hanging over this grass. it looks so much better. That bush on the right will have to be removed though.











Haven't we done well? It's great to get a job like that done and it's taken us about half the time it did the first time we did it. We're better at it now and don't worry so much about what we're cutting.

Can you believe this ragged robin in flower on the allotment?












This small holly tree is covered in berries.














Buster disappeared yesterday as usual and returned at tea time. Today Jim determined to keep him home and took him for a run round the meadow first thing to try and use up some of his energy, then we took him for a walk in the woods. You know what that means of course, more photos!



We noticed these new bat boxes on a group of trees at the beginning of the wood. They each had a number on and there were 2 different kinds. Maybe they are trying to see which works best. Or maybe the lantern shaped ones aren't for bats, but something else?












These are for bats as they have the corrugated section at the bottom for the bats to land on then crawl up into the box. They also have a handy picture of a bat on the outside!












The wood was incredibly still today with not a breath of wind. The floor was a real carpet of russet brown - and mud too.

A still, wintry looking lake












This fallen tree has become a garden of moss and ferns




















Buster was mesmerised by the smells round the edge of the lake. We saw some mallards take off so maybe it was their odour













He looks as though he's wondering who's in the water!









Here he is coming towards us, his nose still near the water!







I couldn't resist the bull rushes again:

























Jim valiantly came with me although he is absolutely full of cold. See the red 'boat' still at the lakeside.









The green algae is still in the water very pretty though











My favourite of the day, Buster on the rocks. King of the castle!













Buster and a perfect reflection. Sorry for the excessive number of Buster photos! He is rather gorgeous though









I'm rather pleased with this lovely reflection too












and these fabulous curly grasses still look amazing, especially in the still, silent water




















I must apologise for the quality of the following photo, but we think this is the 'pack' that Buster spends his time with, or some of them. Buster is on the left! He just started to run towards us before I could focus properly. What a motley crew!













So the walk was over and we took Buster home. After about half an hour he asked to go out and then disappeared until 6pm!! So our efforts were in vain.

Jim was pooped, so stayed inside and I went up to finish the long fence. Ten minutes later Jim joined me, unable to resist the pull of the garden. We did finish it - in the drizzling rain.

We had a lovely meal of pasta, flaked salmon steak, peppers, onions and sweetcorn with carbonara sauce. Then about half an hour ago we had a slice of cheese on toast!

I hope you enjoyed seeing our garden's progression and our lake walk. Off to Aldi first thing to buy some wellington boots they have on special offer tomorrow!