A fine Spring morning and six Friends of Adel Woods met on Buckstone Road at 10 am to pick up litter and clear the ditches which feed water to Adel Pond (also known as Mill Fall Pond). Two more Friends joined us at the pond a little later.
As you can see, it was a fine Spring morning at 10.15 am as four of us set off up Buckstone Road to pick up litter on the path through the copse to Tescos, on the recreation ground, and along Crag Lane.
Two of us set off down to Adel Pond laden with spades, saws, loppers and mattocks. The pond was looking beautiful in the sunlight – but no frogspawn yet.
Having appraised the work we needed to do, we started off with a ditch about 10 metres to the north of the pond. As you can see in the photos below, a section of this ditch was completely filled in. Interestingly though, as soon as we started digging, we found that water was flowing swiftly under the surface. By the time we had finished, water was pouring very swiftly through the ditch.
We then started on the main ditch feeding the pond. This was relatively clear, but still full of mud, sticks and leaves. Fortunately, as we started on this ditch two more Friends joined us and together we were able to make a good job of clearing the stretch nearest the pond.
As we were working, one of our Friends, Sylvia, spotted a newt among the leaves we had just pulled out of the ditch. Geoff was despatched to relocate it to the pond. This was a task Geoff had to repeat another five times as we found more newts among the leaves!
Towards the end of the morning one of our party decided to work on a stretch of ditch further away from the pond – and was surprised to find that his spade kept going down through the mud until only the handle could be seen. Fortunately, he had not stepped into that particular patch of mud!
Towards 12 noon, Diana, another Friend of Adel Woods came to see usfor a chat and to offer encouragement.
Yet another lovely morning of friendship, learning and achievement.
Friends of Adel Woods 