After a few weeks of relatively dry warm weather, the end of September has been, well…. its been wet! In fact it has been the rain over the last 2 days which has created the most dramatic change in our landscape.
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| Looking down the Long Meadow towards Tern Hill at Fordhall Farm, the River Tern is normally behind the trees on the left. |
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| Our lovely river at normal levels. |
The river tern which surrounds the farm has completely flooded and our meadows are all under water. Our lovely recycled plastic boardwalk which follows the rivers edge is now a bridge, and our wetland meadows are now river beds.
Luckily, at Fordhall we have plenty of higher sandy fields that our cattle and sheep can retreat to. Meaning they still have somewhere relatively dry to graze.
Although it looks dramatic, allowing land on fields like ours to flood does mean there is less water travelling into people’s homes and businesses further down the river course. Just as floodplain land should.
And if we are lucky when the river levels subside, they may leave behind some fertile silt for our pastures.
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| The view from my office window. The sheep at least can retreat to higher drier ground. |
Fingers crossed for a bit of dry weather…