Thank you to the volunteers!

Well – what a fantastic volunteering day we had on Saturday.

THANK YOU!

You can imagine how we (the Trustees) felt before the event: would anyone turn up?  Would it all make sense?  Would there be any disasters?  Will we get it all done?

But … as 11am approached … volunteers started arriving!  Relief and excitement – this was really going to happen!

Preparations for the day started in the summer, with contractors coming in to weed kill and rotovate the land.  Even so, we still had to make several trips up to the site to dig up hundreds of stubborn bramble roots and rake the land.  In the end we were still digging and raking as the volunteers measured out meter squares and sowed the seeds and planted bulbs and primroses.

It was so lovely to see children, adults … everyone … getting stuck in and enthusiastically getting their hands dirty, so that, come next spring we will have a swathe of beautiful native wild flowers and grasses stretching almost the length of the reserve.

For those of you who are interested the following links will take you to the seed mixes we used:

https://www.meadowmania.co.uk/wild-flower-meadow/wild-flower-meadow-seed/wildflower-meadow-for-mixed-soil-types.htm
https://www.meadowmania.co.uk/cornfield-annual-delux-seed-mix.htm

We are all truly grateful to all our supporters without whom we would not have been able to achieve anywhere near as much as we have in our first year of operation.  (Check out our supporters page to see all those that have contributed to the project.)

I am so amazed at the commitment and support we have had from so many organisations and from all of those that turned up to help.

As I write this blog, Angela is penning a piece for the Herald.  It was great to have the official photographer there to capture the action and the handing over of the cheque from Onestop.  So watch out if you want to see your photo in the paper!

I don’t know about you all, but I was shattered at the end of the day and soothed my aching limbs in a nice hot bath.  But it will be so worth it when we start to see the seeds growing.  I just hope that the birds don’t find them and decide that we’ve laid a banquet out especially for them!!!

As I said on the day … it was our first event and we’d really like your feedback so we can get better and better at these kind of events.

If you didn’t pick up a comments slip, then please feel free to email us at headleydownnaturereserve@gmail.com.

Here’s to the next volunteering day!

Until the next time …

Siobhan

PS the photo at the top of this blog is the gatekeeper butterfly taken by Richard Ford – why not take a look at his other wildlife images in our photo gallery of his work.