Hanley Swan May 2010 and things around the village have certainly started to take shape.
Neil manages to organise another day with Will Hall and the Community Pay Back Team who concentrated on bringing a good amount of top soil across from St Gabriel’s churchyard. Moving the soil was a win-win situation for all, as St Gabriel’s needed to it moved and this community project needed some good top soil – so everyone was happy!
This was back breaking work transporting the soil and raking it level, but now that the grass is beginning the grow everyone can look back and certainly feel it was worth the effort; in fact, it’s hard to imagine what it looked like before!
Neil organised another few days work with Will Hall and his team to bring more soil across from the church and that help secure the bank all the way around the pond, plus it will continue to support the willow.
At the end of May, picnic benches were installed and look really great. Huge thanks go to the Hanley Swan village Cafe Market for donating the benches and to Stuart of G & A Garden Services for offering his services for free. It really is such a pleasure to see so many people visiting the village of Hanley Swan and of course to see the village residents enjoying this beautiful village pond.
On a slightly sad note, Neil was really disappointed to see that there had been some vandalism to one of the benches along with one of the signs Gigi had put up asking visitors NOT to feed the ducks bread. It’s always so frustrating when so much hard work goes into improving an area, but it’s a public area and these things will happen – just hope not too often we hope.
A new duck on the Village Pond
A white domestic duck was left on the village pond during May and as he kept wandering onto the road, and seemed generally quite confused Neil decided he should be re-homed. After receiving a couple of concerned phone calls Neil managed to locate a local small holding who agreed to take the duck on. After tracking down a big enough box Neil arrived back at the village pond to find the duck happily swimming on the water and looking very at home! Although it’s lovely to see the white ducks on the village pond it’s not an ideal environment for domestic ducks.
The sale of floating Duck Food, which is the ideal duck diet, continues to be a big seller, so thanks again to both locals and visitors for making the choice to buy something more nutritious for the ducks on this pond.
Read the final chapter
Good Morning, My name is Suzanne Washburn I live in Vermont and we have, for the past 61 years, had a pair of Mute Swans that were originally donated by the Queen of England. The state of Vermont has banned mute swans as they are an invasive species however our Village was able to obtain a permit because of the cultural nature of the swans, we live in Swanton, VT.
We are in need of making our park swan bigger and would love to know more about what you had to go through to build the one you now have. We cannot go that big but it would be a start. I and two other individuals in the Village have been charged with the task of researching and finding out the cost of this endeavor. Would you be open to a discussion about your process? Thank you for your time. Suzanne Washburn, Board Member, Swanton Chamber of Commerce, Swanton, VT 05488 Tele: 802 316 2250, call anytime.
Thanks for your comment but this is a natural pond so I can’t really give you any help with your project. All I can tell you is that 40 years ago the pond was lined with clay in an effort to stop the pond drying up. Last year we removed the sludge as part of our maintenance but starting from scratch is not something we can help with.