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12th February. A cold but sunny and bright walk with our friend and fellow Walkmill Action Group founder Sue (and her dog Barney aka Mr Barnes). Rowan age 4 is usually very reluctant to go for walks and wrapping him up in many layers and cocooning him in the pushchair helps. Here he is wearing his dragon gloves he was gifted for his birthday by another friend who is a talented crocheted! In time he will usually want to emerge and play! On this occasion by the time we reached the pond (having entered Walkmill from the rugby club) we realised we had lost one of his wellies en route. Sue stayed with the children exploring the pond while I made the 5 minute journey retracing my steps to retrieve the welly. Seen in the distance along the empty, now quiet path. I noticed the difference walking alone.. A chance to hear the birds. Welly retrieved I rejoined our party and we headed on. When we reached the bridge at the end of the pond path the girls enjoyed a noisy game of "What time is it Mr Wolf" in the water. A new environment for an old game :)

Oh my word, the sun is shining, and how uplifting that is. I spent some time watching a pair of Goosanders on the Union Canal (route 75) - I've noticed them a few times as I scurried along in the recent rains and winds, giving them barely a glance, but today I had a chance to take them in. I had been admiring the sleek fawn mohican of the female, so was amused to see that she was described in one of my bird books with the simple 'Mane unkempt'. A bit judgy, no? But I do quite like when bird books anthropomorphise a species, rather than stick to plain plumage or distribution facts. The very lovely 'Birds By Character' book, written 30 years ago, asks its reader to "Forget for a moment its field marks and colours, and look afresh at the bird's shape, behaviour and essential character". It goes on to describe various species as 'peculiar', 'loose', 'swaggering' or 'gawky'. For the Goosander..."Large, cigar-shaped, weighty. Gorgeous male. Harsh expression. Flight quick & direct with blob head and neck outstretched." I think I'd rather have an unkempt mane than a blob head, but I'll look out for both next time I pass them.

5th Feb. Another meeting of the Walkmilk sub-committee of Moresby Parish Council. This committee consists of members of the Parish Council, councillors, Jodie from the West Cumbria Rivers Trust and WAG (Walkmill Action/Activity Group). I attended along with Sue from WAG. We were delighted to hear that at a local level our business case and plan for a community asset transfer (of ownership for the woodland from County to Parish Council) had full support. Now we were just waiting for the application to go in front of a panel for approval. Yesterday (3rd March ) I heard that our application hadn't been on the agenda for February's panel. The storms and adverse weather conditions have added priority items for discussion and less pressing issues may have to wait. I understand there will be another panel meeting mid-March. I hope Walkmill will be on the agenda. Hopefully we will soon have a decision in our favour and we will know that the last 15 months of work and hope will have been successful and Walkmill Community Woodland will remain just that..a Community Woodland rather being in private ownership! We discussed making a lottery bid for funds for Walkmill to promote social inclusion and to conserve it as a special environment for wildlife to thrive and people to enjoy. Exciting times...watch this space :)

The rain doesn't put us off! We continued working on clearing the weeds from our raised bed and the rain was pouring down! L noticed that it actually made the soil softer and therefore was an easier job to clear the weeds. Nicky held a worm which was a personal challenge for her! We talked lots about what the potatoes will need to grow and how the weeds all need to be gone so that the goodness in the soil can go into the potatoes.

Today we looked at the woodland in a different way. We thought of words to describe one of the oldest trees at our local community garden. Looking at the tree from different angles helped inspire us. We then went on to create small pieces of artwork made by collecting similar items from the woodland floor. Our artwork was inspired by pictures we had seen from by artist Andy Goldsworthy.

This activity was to discover life on the beach. We found evidence of birds on the sand by their footprints. One of them we researched and found it was an Oyster Catcher. We also found a beach crab, muscles, cockles and barnacles lying under the bladderwrack sea weed.

This is our class, busy making the bird feeders using cardboard cups, a willow stick for the birds to rest on and paper string. Everything was natural and would biodegrade. We hung them out around the college wood for the local birds. The following week we visited the same spot and every feeder had completely vanished!