More of same. Perhaps start of demise of 'inlet' by ridge. 17th November 2018

From a pictorial perspective, this week's changes to Manor farm are distinctly unimpressive. As sea of mud, sod and spoil that looks more churned up than usual.

My mid-week stomp saw a rather soggy Manor farm. There was a lot of standing water (aka puddles to thee and thou), with fine silty mud, which the tipper and grab loader lorries had to negotiate with great care. No storming up and down the track ways.

One lorry, which stopped to sort out it's rear door (a procedure I often see the drivers doing), had rather a lot of wheel spin as it tried to gain traction in the ooze when setting off for a new load of spoil.

My Saturday stomp, in the early morning gloom, discerned little of what action took place during the week. As I have commented before, one bit of churned up mud doesn't look too different from week to week.  There are, as usual, hints of what has transpired.

The ground is more churned up, with bulldozer tracks showing than more stuff has been pushed into Finch pond, making it ever smaller. More spoil had been dumped on the north shore, loads of piles of spoil for the bulldozer driver to push about on Monday.

I photograph regularly a long thing feature, sort of an 'inlet' that runs along the west side of the ridge.  This feature has been nicely terraced, and the landscaping goes around it very neatly indeed.  I found this very odd as this feature does not exist on the various plans I have seen.

Today I noticed that the bulldozer driver had pushed part of the bank in, about halfway along this feature. Now, it is possible that this was a mistake on the part of the bulldozer driver, but somehow I don't think so.  His abilities are above such silly errors.  No, I suspect this marks the beginning of the end for this feature.

The pump was chugging away, mid week.  Water levels were not as low as expected. It is possible that the pump was off for a few days or that the recent heavy rains were too much for it.

Remember I mentioned that the bulldozer driver had got a new bulldozer with wider tracks a few weeks back?  Well, I reckon it makes it easier for him to do his job. The wider tracks and , I believe, the lower weight of the bulldozer means it doesn't get bogged down in mud.  However, it makes it more difficult for me.

Even since I sank up to my knees in mud the consistency of quicksand, I have kept studiously to the bulldozer tracks when there is any hint of liquid mud.  Only now, with its wider tracks and lower weight, the bulldozer does not compress the soil as much. This means that what once I could rely on to be reasonably solid mud is now distinctly squishy. I tread very gingerly in certain places.

Other than that, I still remain baffled by the whole process by which the restoration takes place. I do suspect that the infill of Finch pond will be completed by the end of this year. Thus allowing the infill of Cormorant lake to resume in the new year.