Scrub bashing on Popehouse Moor SSSI

[Maggie] We've taken a huge stride forward in habitat management this year...




...but now it's time to finish the job by tidying up! We've been burning brash from our 'scrub bashing'.

We have a lot of really overgrown hedgerows on the farm, and in Popehouse Moor SSSI the willows have 'fall off' the Devon banks, and branches have taken root in what should really be grassland. Too much willow isn't good for wet grassland - it sucks the water from the ground, transpiring it through leaves, drying out the soil.

If you've been on a guided tour here, you may not agree with botanist Mary Breeds, who last year told us the site would be better wetter, but we've taken her advice and cut back some of the invasion.

My Dad started it over Christmas - with just a bow saw. Inspired by the potential that small difference made, we had 2 days chainsaw work done. That's by no means all of it, and we don't want to hit it all too hard in one go. But it has revealed some of the old hedge boundaries, and will significantly increase the grassland area.

Now we have to get the branches off the ground before the spring comes. If the birds start nesting there we won't be able to shift them. And the boughs will set root in the wet ground again, making the problem worse than ever.

Like they have in this picture.

So it's been bonfire time...

And for anyone who's thinking 'what a waste', we've saved what we could, as you can see in these wood piles. Our trouble is getting it off the moor and back up to the house where we can burn it. There's no vehicle access and the ground is boggy.



Log by log then? Lots more excuses to go down to this special place!

We've been selected as a Much Better Adventure!

We are delighted to have been accepted as one of the early members of muchbetteradventures.com, a carefully selected community of fantastic adventure providers who have a strong ongoing commitment to sustainability...


You can see us featured as part of their local travel directory, which puts you in direct contact (no commission) with handpicked active holidays, tours, courses and accommodation. The site also provides travellers reviews, the resources you need to book a low carbon journey, and has started a collection of community built guides to each activity or sport, where users are invited to share their favourite spots, useful info, ideas and inspiration.

Since going live a few months ago the site has grown quickly. Muchbetteradventures.com aim to build the widest and fairest selection of responsible adventure travel and equipment choices that outdoor lovers have ever seen, and bring support to many important conservation and community development projects around the world.

Check out our Wheatland Farm eco lodge profile. You can help us to benefit from this site by leaving a review of us, and by spreading the word to your friends.

Energy monitoring put to good use

Energy monitoring has helped us make a surprising but sustainable business decision. We're no longer rushing to change the shower in Beech lodge over to the solar hot water system as there is no energy saving case for it. Let me explain...




Since last summer I've been following the energy consumption of our lodges and cottage pretty closely. I take meter reading after most bookings, and work out the energy use per night and also per guest night for each holiday.

Two of the lodges have all their hot water on solar systems with immersion top up (they sleep 4-6 people). Larger Beech Lodge sleeps 6-8 and has solar hot water for its bath and basins (with immersion top up), but not for its shower, which is on-demand electic. Otter cottage is different - and I'll come back to that!

After we finished the solar installation, we meant to change the shower in Beech Lodge over to solar hot water in the autumn, but held off, worrying that the winter sun in Devon wouldnt be anything like enough to provide hot water for a potential 8 showers a day, and that the immersion heater would be slow to keep up too - especially as we have a timer switch limiting the heaters to two hours on at a time.

And now, the energy monitoring confirms that this was a good choice, and in fact has persuaded us not to change it at all. Look at this graph of energy use per night for all 4 of our holiday accommodation units.

Beech Lodge, the brown squares, is pretty much indistinguishable from the other lodges in its energy use per night, even though it sleeps the most people (up to 8). In fact, Otter cottage consistently uses more energy than any of the lodges, even in the summer, even though it only sleeps 4.

And when you look at the energy use per guest per night, you see that even in summer, when most of the energy use will be for water, rather than heating, Beech Lodge with its electric shower (blue diamond now) is no worse than the other lodges. And in the winter, it's arguably better.

That's probably because more people are sharing the winter heating component in the larger lodge. And that's probably also part of the reason that Otter Cottage energy use per guest night soars in the winter. The cottage attracts more couples than families, and its conventional stone construciton makes it harder to heat.

There are some other excuses. Otter cottage electricity supply runs the shared washing machine and also an always-on pump. Nevertheless, having now seen Otter Cottage's rising winter consumption we'll be looking for ways to reduce it. Solar hot water, planned for this spring, would probably be good here - it would run the bath and basin (and probably the shower too as there are fewer guests to service).

And we have some other ideas for making the space heating more efficient - but that's for another post.