Friday 3 April 2015

Fencing at Talla

Note from editor: this week we had a team of volunteers head up to one of our boundary fences at Talla to do some important repair work. Volunteer team leader (and BFT trustee) gives a great account of important work achieved

Talla Fruid Fence Working Party, Wednesday April 1st 2015

To go or not to go, that was the question we debated on a very stormy Tuesday afternoon waiting for the latest weather forecast for the Wednesday morning.  At last the forecast arrived a 4.30, rough to begin with but a steady improvement during the day. So it was all go. 

Thanks to Rob Graham at Fruid we were able to get much more shorter access to the fence from the Fruid side.  The sun came out as we started up the hill from the farm at the head of the Fruid reservoir but no sooner had we started work after the tools arrived than the sun disappeared and the first storm swept through complete with horizontal snow, hail and 40+mph winds.  Had this been an April fool of a forecast ? 

Yet no one was for giving up.  All worked on their different sections regardless of the awful weather putting wire in here, pulling up wire there flattened by snow and tapping in staples and posts all along about 4km of fence.

Les and David working near to top of Din Law in the second blast
Three hours and three freezing storms later we rendezvoused back at the farm.  And of course, as we came down off the hill out came the sun leaving us wondering why we were all so wet and cold. 

Behind us we left the fence in a much better state. Sheep proof? There are still some snags to sort out but nothing a few short visits cannot deal with, in warm sunny weather of course.

The full team: Robin, John S. Wendy, John W. Mike, Richard, David, Keith with the helmet, Hugh and Les, thawing out back at base
Thanks to all the volunteers, a demonstration of competence in awful conditions, and thanks to Lynn and Keith for setting everything up and for the support on the day.  A great team effort.

John Thomas



2 comments:

  1. Will anyone be blogging about future plans for Talla? There is no information online about this project. Thanks.

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    1. Hi Duncan. Thanks for your comment and interest in the project. We have just completed a full vegetation survey of the site and have a working ecology group who are discussing the future of Talla and Gameshope. As yet we have not published anything as things are very much in their infancy. However we are aware that there is much interest in what will happen across T&G and once we have more firm plans in place we do hope to share these

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