So week 22 was unusual and extremely busy where I got little opportunity to take photos, so this post will be a short one. Monday kicked things off with the first round of Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) testing in our cattle stock, something which makes every farmer nervous! The day involved a lot of setting up races and moving cattle, and whilst the vet injected each one I helped by recording all the data called out to me. It was the first properly cold and frosty day of the autumn in West Dorset so my feet went rather numb, but it was interesting to see everything involved – it’s rather hectic! And I found out that absolutely everything ends up covered in cow poo, no matter how far away you try to stand. Even your eyebrows.
On Tuesday we headed down to Powerstock, where my mentor felled a couple more conifers and cut off the tops to provide Christmas trees for the Kingcombe Centre and Chesil Centre, whilst I processed the trees I had felled during my chainaw practice months previouly. Then on wednesday we returned and made a masive bonfire to burn up all the resulting brash, spending much of our time running around trying to avoid the thick swirling smoke! It did look quite amazing wisping its way through the forest though.
Thursday saw the second day of the TB testing where each cow had to be checked for a reaction, meaning all the race construction and herding happened again! And added on to the process our female cows were tested for pregnancy with the infamous and cringingly invasive whole-arm-up-the-bum technique. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them!
Then on Friday we had a Wardens’ day where as many wardens as possible from across the Dorset reserves come together to work on a large project. We all joined the Mid Dorset team and travelled over to Townsend on the coast where we got stuck in with some tree felling and scrub bashing to restore the grassland there. In the process I found a pretty cool new fungus called coral spot, as well as some more stunning cobalt crust which looked very pretty covered in raindrops!
And of course no scrub bashing would be complete without a bonfire and crispy ember-baked jacket potatoes, even thought it was raining!
True Gold Is Green 
Lots of fun being had I see!
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