Pyramidal Orchids

I've not been out anywhere exciting today, but on thursday I was amazed by the number of pyramidal orchids to be seen at Durlston. Literally, they were everywhere; to the extent that I didn't realise they were even orchids, they were so common (I always associate orchids with being super-rare and difficult to see, rather than fat purple plants everywhere).

Photo from Plantlife

Anacamptis pyramidalis is, apparently, the county flower of the Isle of Wight. There are so many up at Durlston because the park's on chalk soil, their preference, so they're scattered through pretty much all of the meadows and fields- even the tiny patches of grass in the car park! Chalk soil supports some quite rare and exciting ecology, the best of which I think is probably the glow worms, which can be seen in July and August along the chalky Lighthouse Road running through the park.

Anyway, these nice orchids are starting to come to the end of their flowering season now, but there are still quite a few looking beautiful as a bright splash of colour against the meadows.

Wednesday Work Party

Let's do a wednesday post. Still moving backwards (after this one, I should actually maybe be on track!), but hopefully it's an interesting one.
Wednesdays are work party days up at Durlston. There's normally a group of 5-20+ of us (a few regulars, I'm a 'summer migrant'), and there's always a range of different things to do. Each week is normally different- although in the dry July-August months, there's a lot of ragwort picking in the meadows to do so the farmer can cut the grass. I've helped in the shop before though, gone for litter picking walks, dry-stone walling and cementing the top stones into place (no cement fingerprints allowed though!), and installing art pieces into the Castle's garden.
This week, we were trimming back the trees and shrubs from the side of the road up to the car park. As it's the first part of the park you see, it's nice to have it all neat and tidy for a good first impression. The trees have grown pretty massive over the couple of years since it got cut last, so there was some serious chopping to do!

Photo from TripAdvisor

Sadly, I forgot my camera, so this is the best photo you're going to get for now. I might take a better one next week, if I remember!

I quite like using loppers, but when you're reaching up high, you have to be careful not to lop off a branch right onto your head! I ended up working with one of the other guys who was a bit stronger at cutting the big trunks and things, with me dragging out all the extra onto the verge to get picked up in the cart (it's called a mule). You can really open out an overgrown area by taking out some branches (dead ones, even), clearing away brambles and letting some light in. 

We're not done the whole way down the road yet, so there'll be more next week, but it's looking much better than it was.

Right at the beginning (but not, because this is post #2)

Okay, so my first two posts are a little bit out of order. This one should actually come before dry-stone walling, but I wrote that one first because I had literally just come back from it, and everything was fresh in my mind, before I inevitably forget it three days later (and this whole idea completely).

Now though, I think it's probably time to start at the beginning. Literally, the very very beginning.
Hi hello!
This is my new blog. You've probably been directed here (foolishly) off another of my social networks, and are somewhat bemused or concerned by the fact that my first post was mostly just a fangirl squeal over uh, walls. Don't worry (or perhaps, do?), not every post is going to be quite so strange. At least, I hope it won't be anyway!

I'm a recent geography graduate- a scary thing to even contemplate- interested in ecology and the environment. Insects and birds are my specialities. My dissertation was on the Southern Wood ant Formica rufa, so I'm a bit hooked on them now, although I'm not a fan of when they bite still.
I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with my life just yet, but something where I can be outside, mess with animals, kids or both, add in a little bit of creative writing and have some fun while I'm at it would be very nice.

Over the summer I'm working at a small cafe, but in my free time I'm going to be out and about, volunteering up at my local nature reserve when I can, and wandering around, probably looking a bit lost and confused (but not actually either), in the time left over.

I also like writing, reading, art and cooking, although apparently I haven't gotten the hang of my oven yet, as I just burnt my chips. Hopefully you'll find my blog somewhat entertaining, and maybe even useful, to read.

Dry-Stone walling

Depending on which part of the country you go to, there’s a different technique for dry-stone walling. It actually makes walls pretty interesting (as walls go), because no two are quite the same.

Okay, so I just admitted I find walls interesting. Don’t judge me too hard. There’s actually a bit of an art to making dry-stone walls, and I see the whole process as actually more of an elaborate and slightly clunky jigsaw puzzle. Obviously, stones don’t fit together quite as nicely as jigsaw pieces, but if you do a bit of jiggling, they can look really rather neat at the end of the day.

Image from The Stone Trust

At Durlston, because we rebuild/fix walls using the stone that came from the previous section, the pieces are always a bit of a mess. You get lots of different pieces of different shapes, sizes and rock types, each of which has a different purpose.

The main part of a wall (at least, the bit you see) is called the face. These are big-ish stones that hopefully have a smooth(ish) side to them that you can put on the outside of the wall, and make it sort of neat. You build in layers, and try and keep each layer kind of flat, or compensate with the layer above/below to try and keep the wall neat. Joins in one layer should have a stone placed over them on the next layer, so there aren't any weak sections where long joins run across a few different layers.

You have two faces, one each side. The bit in the middle is called the hearting. The hearting I think is my favourite part to do, because it’s made up from lots of little random pieces of stone, which you jam into the gaps to make the middle of the wall nice and strong.

Then the last bit of the wall is the cappers. These are the stones that go on the very top, to finish off the whole thing. In Dorset, the cappers stand upright, although you can also have flat ones, or cement (but that’s kinda cheating). We only cement at Durlston in the really well-used parts of the park, to make sure the walls last a long time; other parts, you just squeeze the capping stones together tightly and normally they hold pretty well.

There are some other bits too, like throughstones, but those sorts of things depend on whether you have the stone to make them, or the sort of wall you're working on!

The height of the wall is also kinda important when you're building it, even from the base. Higher walls tend to be much thicker (60cm width), whereas small walls can be thinner, around 50cm wide. And then they also taper towards the top, which stops them from falling over. Even tapering to 45cm wide is better than none at all!

So today, today was my first time walling in over a year I think! I've been going on-and-off for the past five years, and we're always working on a different piece of the park, and different types of wall. Today it was a few small sections that needed finishing off round the carpark; so the top few layers, then capping. These sections will get cemented later, so they didn't have to be too perfect on top, but it's always nice to get things pretty. I forgot how dirty work walling can be (really, really dirty), so came home after the three hours coated with dust. Absolutely, like, all my clothes are chalky white now!