The June weed cut is historically the heaviest, but this was the heaviest I have experienced for a few years.
In April we had weed, but because the weather and water were cold, I took the decision just to tickle a few bits up. You will remember that in May we had a late frost, the river was still quite cold and the weed was in soporific order. You may also remember, and this is on here somewhere, that after experiencing a late frost in May the following weekend saw the Celsius in the thirties and my behaviour changing from covering twelve rows of allotment potatoes up, to watering them quite heavily. This period spurred weed growth and in the warm weather prior to the June weed cut, if you sat still long enough staring, an activity that I am increasingly prone to do, you could visibly see the weed growing.
For eight days my scythe was a blur, several days when the weather topped thirty Celsius I opted for my leaky light weight waders that I normally reserve for salmon fishing and it felt goooooood.
With the weed cut complete, the weather really warmed up, hitting record temperatures apparently. The temperature under the parasol in our garden nudged forty degrees, and the river water temperature topped out at nineteen degrees. We have many springs that feed into this section of the Dever. Spring water pops out of the ground at a constant ten degrees which helps to keep temperatures lower than the middle and lower river, where applications have been put in to start stocking with Tilapia.
The river temperature currently hovers between sixteen and seventeen degrees according to my state of the art meat thermometer, at which point I’ll break off because a thought has just entered my head, a practice that I am increasingly prone to do because in less than a minute it will have gone,
Now where was I?
Meat thermometer?
Ah yes, meat thermometer,
why are so many kitchen implements involved in the rearing of trout and the management of their habitat? No self respecting salmonid hatchery would be complete without a phalanx of turkey basters for picking eggs and every fish I ever stripped of eggs was done into a cake mixing bowl.
But that may be it.
Fishing has been hard. Above a water temperature of eighteen celsiuses salmonids start to concentrating on just getting through the day and like last year we are leaving as much willow to shade as possible. One encouraging development has been the increase in the number of blue winged olives about the place, nothing like the numbers of forty or fifty years ago, but definitely more than the last few summers. Other critters on the up are the ducks, mostly mallard with the occasional gadwall, we have many broods skittering about the place.
Returning to water news, we’ve had a dearth of the old eau popping out of our taps.
The water supply to our abode, the main Mill house and a neighbouring property are all supplied directly from a borehole in the Mill house garden. It is sited close to a beautifully constructed brick dome shaped well that is now covered up. Boreholes in the bottom of this valley don’t have to be very deep, we sit on the valley floor, many have been installed on the quiet to water cricket pitches, allotments and horse paddocks, it isn’t a difficult thing to do.
Our borehole is a sealed affair, the water is untreated and it has made me and my family what we are today. The formidable but kind lady who used to live next door who lived to the age of ninety nine, regularly fell over in her dotage and an alarm would summon me to her side to raise her from her grounding. She always insisted that the reason she never broke a bone was the water she had drunk for a long period of time.
It is very nice water, Hildon on tap if you will.
Anyway, three weeks ago something went awry. The pump wouldn’t switch off and the borehole would run dry after an hour, at which point I could go on about “cones of influence” but will refrain, as once again I seem to have wandered away from what I was originally intended to write about.
We had water for an hour a day and then the pump packed up. All signs pointed to a leak in the system, but this system that I have “some” knowledge of was installed when Archimedes was a lad. Wallahs were summoned and many qualified heads were scratched along with my own, but the conclusion drawn was that until the pump was replaced, no suspected leak could be found.
These things take time to to fix and while we could get by with bottled water and showers at chez Child A, future grandchild A progressing well by the way, my polytunnel covering thirty tomato plants, a bunch of cucumbers and some experiments with melons, needed water.
Two weeks of going to the river with two ten litre watering cans, carrying them across the road through our garden and up the top of the steps to where my polytunnel is sited, have left me two inches shorter in height and a 5th Dimension ear worm that wakes me up in the night.
Thank you 5th Dimension, weren't they great everyone?
News Just In:
Hosepipe ban to come into force in our area next week.
Great, it’s only just turned July, and there are still a bunch of “flat earthers” who insist this can’t be the case after the rain last winter and they will fill their hot tubs regardless.
When will we all become more "Water wise"?
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