Part Six
Posted: 20 April 2022
If you've joined the tour at this point you may prefer to start at The Beginning of the tour.
As the reeds on the bank of of the lake had not been cut down over winter, this year our photo of the house is taken from the mid-point on the bridge. You'll notice that the "Grill Gazebo" is now missing from the patio outside the house. but work has been done to clear the reeds in the water.
In 2020 the path on the far side of the bridge had only recently been edged with soil added to level the path. Now it looks in better condition.
With a slightly wider angle view than in 2020 it is possible to see the "Tree House" on the left, but our tour takes the right hand turn avoiding the board walk. In 2020 the work to edge the path had only just begun. This year I went round the island with the strimmer before taking the photos so the paths look better cared for and the edging, where it exists, easy to see.
It was "work in progress" here in 2020 with test boards in place to check how much the ground needed to be raised and a pile of crushed brick and cinders from the reed bed already in place to help smooth out the gradient. You can still see a bucket of unused gravel that has not been moved since the work was completed.
What at one point was known as the "Long Barrow" once stood to the right of the path here. It consisted of all the cut vegetation cleared from the island over our first winter at Ruston House and had composted to nothing by 2020.
As we climb towards the junction with the spur leading to the duck house we see that the birch tree stump is gone. It finally succumbed to rot and fell over. While earlier in the tour I had been remarking on how little growth is shown in the photos compared with 2020, here, due to the banks behind the house not being cleared over the last two winters the reverse is true.
While definitely alive the Mountain Ash planted in 2014, and seen on the right, still appears no more advanced than it did two years ago. I guess we need to do what is always advised with young trees and remove all the other growth around the base of the tree to give it more of a chance.
The work to edge the path all round the island was never completed. The Green Team did get as far as laying out a couple of boards on the section facing the cottages, but they were not pegged in place. The logs to the right were lifted but were put back in place as it became clear that much more needed to be done if a firm dry path was to be created. The final design is still to be determined.
In the 2020 photographs all you could see of the clump of daffodils in the foreground was their leaves. This year, with the photos taken a week earlier you can make out the last of the blooms. The large tree obscures what will probably be a "this year only" picture...
... a goose nest. As usual we have had a pair of Canada Geese on site almost continually from January but finding the nest here was a surprise. There hasn't been a goose nest in direct view of the cottages since 2013.
There has never been a problem getting grass to grow on the section of path that runs on the cottage side of the island. In other areas I would have suggested that it was lower ground and naturally damper than some areas, but this can't be the whole answer as it climbs to what we call the "Top Junction" and the grass still grows. I now suspect it's more that it faces east and doesn't get the hottest of the sun that elsewhere will dry out the light peaty soil.
When you do reach the Top junction you find that rather than grass you find more moss which, as I commented in 2020, I associate with damp conditions. As I said then, clearly I still have something to learn.
There's remarkably little change in this picture, compared with 2020. Perhaps the only difference is that the Bluebell, seen then, is not so obvious, but the evidence of a good selection of foxgloves is still present.
In 2020 I talked of an "extra" image. That was because we already had a swan on its nest on the tip of the island. For the first time since 2017 we do not have a resident pair. We have seen a pair visiting the lake a few times since January but most recently it has been a lone bird. So it seems we might be without swans this year.
So here is a repeat of the extra image - an empty plot awaiting a swan. It begs the question about what to do about the geese.
In our early days at Ruston House there was always great concern about the geese and the goslings they produced. The adults become flightless over the summer while raising their young and the entire family then feed on the lawns behind the cottages.
I read that they poo every six minutes. Certainly, you find a vast quantity of soft green material where they wander and the concern of cottage owners is that this then gets trodden into the carpets in the cottages.
