tackling the second pond

The army has been firing some very heavy artillery for the past three days, four guns one after another in rapid succession, in vollies that make the house shake.  The Systems Administrator said that it sounded like practice battery firing, and that it is usually done on the ranges up in Northumberland but moves to Essex during the grouse shooting season.  I asked if the sound of gunfire disturbed the grouse particularly, and the S.A. said that it was more a question of not shelling the shooting parties.

I put on my waders and set out to tackle the wildlife pond in the meadow, but soon discovered that it was so dry that the waders were de trop.  I hope the water has simply evaporated, and the pond hasn't sprung a leak.  It has a butyl liner, but I have allowed a lot of brambles and shrubs to grow around it.  Indeed, it has alder trees growing in it, plus so many reeds and iris that I haven't made it to the far side yet.  Things seem to be getting slightly damper as I go downhill, and I haven't seen any holes or damage to the liner, so I'm reasonably optimistic so far that it will hold water when refilled.

I had assumed that I would be scooping out wet gloop, but it turned out that the layer of soil covering the liner was held together with a very solid matrix of roots.  Instead I found I had to cut through the roots with secateurs, and remove the soil in slabs, almost like lifting turf.   Using the secateurs, and occassionally the loppers, I am careful to hold the mat of roots and earth clear of the liner as I cut, to avoid stabbing it.  Progress has been impeded around the edges by the ornamental cobbles originally used to cover the liner, which are now embedded in the root mat, invisible until I hit them with the secateurs.  This is the first time I've ever cleared the pond out, and we made it over a decade ago.  The soil and roots accumulated since then measures between 5cm and 15cm thick.  It is, I think, an example of a hydrosere, the process whereby bodies of fresh water tend to convert to dry land, without intervention to maintain them as open water.  Whenever I've asked wildlife experts from the Essex Wildlife Trust the best time to clear out a pond, they've always said that ideally you don't, just dig another.  But that isn't really an option in a domestic garden with limited space, and if I don't clear the pond then at some point in the future I won't have one any more, just a butyl lined bed filled with alder trees.

The chickens are great creatures of habit.  Yesterday I let them out early, in mid afternoon, as it was such a lovely day and I was working in the front garden to keep an eye on them.  I thought it would be a treat for them, instead of which they were intensely suspicious, took a long time to come out, and after eating some grass retreated back into their run.  The Systems Administrator tempted them out with Value Sultanas (the rooster can recognise the sultana container at a considerable distance) but soon after eating their snack they went back into the run, until it got to proper chicken letting out time, a couple of hours before sunset, at which point they came out happily under the S.A.'s supervision.  Right person, right time.  I consoled myself that at least they weren't pining all day in their run for the final bit of the afternoon when they would be allowed out.  Final bit of the afternoon seems to be all that they want.

bang bang

The army were firing some heavy stuff this morning.  That'll have been the ranges at Shoeburyness, causing the deep, reverberative thumps that make the house shake.  They have test ranges down there, at the tip of the peninsular beyond Rayleigh, Rochford and Southend.  It is the UK's largest firing range, used for testing and evaluating new weapons, and for training bomb disposal experts.  At low tide 22km of soft sand are exposed, allowing the MoD to conduct firing well away from land, and then collect the spent shells.  It is the only such site in Europe.  You can pick up odd snippets about it here and there in the media and on the web, but it is a strange and secretive place.  In 2002 government scientist Terry Jupp died there, and the inquest on his death finally opened in 2010.  People do live on Shoeburyness, and there are two villages and even a pub, which we once visited as part of an Old Gaffers sailing rally, but the MoD had been primed to expect us.  I don't think it is a place you just wander into.

Closer to home are the army ranges at Fingringhoe.  They were having a little blast mid morning, but nothing sustained.  We can tell when they have a big exercise on, as the crackle of automatic fire continues all day.  By a strange coincidence I grew up within earshot of the marine training barracks at Lympstone to the regular sound of machine gun fire, so I don't mind it.  In the garden, that is.  If I were in the middle of London I'd be as terrified as everybody else.

The gunfire yesterday got closer still, as the farm shoot were out for pigeons along the edge of the field bordering our wood.  On hearing them go into the wood, the Systems Administrator did nip in there, just to check who it was, though I presume on the strong assumption it was the farm shoot, otherwise you wouldn't be so keen to confront somebody with a twelve-bore on your property.  They had come in to pick up a pigeon that had dropped our side of the boundary.  The first time we met them, they were shooting in the wood and were mortified to discover that it was not part of the shoot.  We reached an agreement that pigeons were fine, but strictly nothing at ground level, given we go in there and so do the cats.  The S.A. took the opportunity to mention the pellets found in the cat, plus the pile of 410 cartridges someone had left at the far end of the wood.  I went down to offer moral support, hearing voices, and asked if the S.A. had asked about the cat.  The farm shoot were adamant that they would not have shot the cat, and that they didn't use a 410 and in any case always tried to pick up their cartridges.  We parted on terms of amiable courtesy, declining the offer of a pigeon, they went back to the field. and the slaughter of pigeons recommenced.  It is an odd thing, to be talking to somebody holding a shotgun (albeit broken across his arm) and his friend holding a dead pigeon, in a space you regard as an extension of your garden, but context is all.  We often see them about the lanes, so I am sure they have the farmer's full authorisation and blessing, and it is good that they know about the 410 cartridges.  We are not part of the country set, just transplanted townies who happened to want a large rural garden, and the best way to keep cowboys, poachers and dodgy shooters off our land must be to delegate the task to the authorised local shoot.

There have been proposals over the years to build a new airport for London on the sands of Foulness.  Boris is still keen on the idea.  Apart from the fact that the MoD might not be happy to lose its testing ground, which it has been using for 150 years, I'd be worried about how much and what unexploded stuff is still out there.