Last week we had two very special guests: Cally and Flora from the Huntly Swift Group.
They gave a lunchtime talk about how amazing swifts are. These birds are now endangered due to loss of habitat as people often don't even know they are nesting on their houses as they are very elusive and make no mess. Building work fills up holes or crevices that allow the birds in to make their nest on the top of external walls.
The birds also NEVER LAND! They eat, drink and sleep on the wing and only stop flying when they are in the nest. Also at 6 weeks old, the chicks will fledge and fly straight to Africa!
Cally and Flora stayed after lunch to work with the S2 group...
...and very kindly donated several bird books to the school. We hope to have a swift box on site to encourage these wonderful creatures. It would be a privilege if they came to nest here during their summer visit - watch this space!
In other news, we are really busy out in the garden as spring is now in full swing. The RIDAN hot composter is working really well...
...recycling our canteen food waste along with sawdust and wood-chip into lovely compost for the garden soil.
Here Dougal is mixing the compost with more woodchips to use as a mulch. This means a thick layer is laid on top of the soil around our plants. It keeps moisture in, stops weeds and also in time gets taken into the soil by worms to improve the structure so a win-win situation!
Another important guest last week was Councillor Kloppert. Here she is being given a tour of the garden and school displays to illustrate what we are doing to be as sustainable and environmentally friendly as we can. She will be speaking with the Aberdeenshire council sustainability team to give feedback to them and find out how we can continue to get even better - for example by having compostable cutlery and plates in the canteen and an electric car charge point on site.
She was very impressed with the garden and was very pleased to see the RIDAN composter in action as this reduces our food waste enormously. Thank you to her for championing our actions.
In other news, the Interact group came out to see how there crocus displays were looking. This has helped to highlight the Rotary End Polio campaign which we are proud to be part of. They gave great colour and sustained several bumbles bees in a time of few blooms for them to feed on.
We were also proud to welcome a group of pupils and staff from Meldrum Academy to a seed-sowing taster session in our poly-tunnel classroom. They had a great time and sowed calibrese, tomatoes and peppers amongst other things. Good luck folks with your own garden and we hope you will return to help prick out the seedlings when they are ready!
Meanwhile we are busy preparing the growing beds...
...and planting out other seedlings. Here, broad beans.
Here, seed potatoes have been planted in rows.
Ross had also finished pruning the fruit bushes into a good shape - cutting off DDDX - dead, dying, diseased and crossing material (which might rub in the wind and cause damage to the branches).
The S2 class are also working to restore an old bench - replacing the timbers...
and painting the cast iron ends.
We hope it will make a comfortable new seat when finished.
