Inert all over Manor farm. Land levels building up. 5th October 2019

Cemex/Inert have made reporting more challenging. Inert have been working all over Manor farm, it's hard to keep up and to even figure out what had been accomplished over this past week. Listing the highlights of what I could determine...

- Midweek revealed two diggers at work, attacking some of the banking along side the south footpath. My Saturday stomp revealed they had sliced a bit off the banking, making the vehicle track wider. Curiously, the track was then pinched narrower by marking its edges with some of the concrete blocks dumped next to the mighty mound.

- My midweek walk also revealed our bulldozer driver, working on the infill on the east shore of Cormorant lake south.  Not unusually, there seemed to be far fewer lorries around. But this was Wednesday. More lorries may have been employed on other days of the week.  The amount of stuff dumped onto Manor farm seemed to suggest this.

- Our puffing pump was off. I think I have discovered one reason why it has been off so much recently. Water levels are now so low, the pontoon holding the pump pipe inlet is now grounded on the bottom of Cormorant lake. The can't pump any more water, as the inlet is no longer submerged.

- A small 'pond' has appeared, located in the middle of what was Finch pond. Due, I think, in part to the large amount of rain we have had recently and also to the land level being built up around it. Inert have dug a drainage ditch from 'mini' Finch pond to Cormorant lake north, which curiously doesn't actually reach the latter lake.

- A line of soil has been bulldozed up to a survey stake which used to show 5' (1.5m) of infill needed to reach it. I think this is a fairly significant milestone. It gives the clearest indication yet of the effort required. All that needs be done now is the land be raised around it and landscaped appropriately; using the north and west embankments and ridge.

- The land has also been built up around the northern part of the copse. This is an original piece of hedgerow containing a fragment of the Colebrook cut. The land is, in places, level with the stream bed.

- Although much of the land has been built up, Inert are following their normal procedure of plough titanic gouges in to the levelled land, pushing some into the lakes, and piling up others into huge mounds.  Thus, although the land has been built up over the past few weeks, it could just as easily be gouged out again.  One thought I had for this procedure is that perhaps it is a means of mixing up the infill to provide a more homogenous mix.

- Further infill has taken place along the south eastern edge of Cormorant lake north. Inert are going to a great deal of trouble to infill around the feature I have been calling the scrape.  If this scrape is to exist as part of the finished restoration, there needs to be some means of protecting its shores from erosion.  Tern island, a scrape in Colebrook lake north, in Moor Green Lakes, has had up to 8' (2.4m) of its shore eroded away. It is now about half its original size, and rapidly disappearing.

- The soil barrier blocking the Longwater road entrance has now been flattened, and the gate has a shiny new pad lock. Strangely, the large hole (or anti tank trap as I call it) has not been filled in.

- I am quite sure I have missed a great deal of what happened on Manor farm this week. After all, I only have one, quick mid morning stomp (probably at the contractors' tea break time), and then enter into a forensic examination on the weekend to determine what Inert have been up to. It is all quite fascinating how a quarry is restored for nature.

I'm submitting this post first, before I then go to work on the slide show.  It was a rather busy Saturday, and I'm a bit tired this morning.