Blooms, birds and buds

Well, we think the IT gremlins have been banished back to the furthest reaches of the IT network.  A few things are still behaving a little oddly but we're putting that down to everything settling back in.  It certainly made for an eventful start to the week!
Other than that little burst of 'excitement' it' been rather boring out here this past week.  More swifts have arrived and are screaming overhead; the martins are settling in, chattering away to each other in the artificial nests and are busy refurbishing some of the real mud ones, we were on the point of putting out some water and 'clarts' (that's mud) when the heavens opened and drenched everywhere.  The blackthorn is in full bloom, the plum tree has a little blossom but the apple trees are only just beginning to bud up, the bramley as usual lagging behind the crab apples; the elder is covered in flower buds.  The horse chestnuts and sycamores are nearly in full leaf, the beeches are just opening but strangely the oak and ash are not far behind; the ash in the corner of the garden has had leaves for a week whilst the sycamore above the hedge is only just unfurling and my pair to watch for ash before oak are vying with each other to see which can open first, I'm putting my money on the ash this year.  And then, just to highlight the ludicrosity of this year, the Christmas cactus is flowering again.

Back in the office and a large Weekly edition has just gone to print, 73 adverts for jobs, 48 of them paid posts and all bar 10 came direct to CJS. There's plenty of news this week plus the Training Calendar for July.

The gremlins come out to play

They've been nicely snoozing for a while but a small group decided that this morning was the perfect time to come out from behind the motherboard, take a zip wire trip down the wiring and play with the mail server.  The first we knew about it was when people started reporting that the online forms were misbehaving and throwing up unusual error messages, next up was an advertiser emailing on our main account to say that when replying to an email on a different account they were receiving an 'undeliverable message'.  So we started some investigations and not before time, shortly after the main email server joined the party too! We transferred as much as possible to our backup (good ol' google) whilst our IT hosting company did whatever IT hosts do to evict the gremlins.  They're mostly gone but a few are still hanging around, blowing raspberries.
Emails are now trickling into the inbox in an odd order and several hours behind when they would have normally but they should (fingers crossed) all arrive eventually.  If you've sent us a message but not received even an auto-response it probably means it's been part of a gremlin's lunchtime picnic so please resend to both the address you usually use plus a cc copy to our back up: thecjsteam@googlemail.com

It's three o'clock so....

Lets phone CJS and send them lots of emails too.  Not that we mind but why does everyone save them up until mid-afternoon?  Answers on a postcard to...

Spring and summer arrived one after the other, the cuckoo was heard over the weekend, on Monday the first house martins returned and whilst watching them swifts were seen high up against the stunning blue sky too and then on Tuesday morning they were screaming overhead.  The martins are settling into the artificial nests very happily. Then yesterday  autumn (or maybe what now passes for summer) arrived with a volley of hail stones and very heavy rain showers which have carried on ever since.

The livestock at Green End increases day by day - tadpoles now. A salad tray has some spawn rescued from a small rapidly drying puddle which has now hatched and AW is finding it fascinating - her girls less so!  They're more interested in earthworms.

CJS Weekly has just gone to print, 13 pages with 48 adverts for paid posts, 41 of which came direct to CJS, plus 3 for voluntary posts.  Digital editions will go live later this afternoon.

CJS Professional: May edition

The latest edition of CJS Professional is now online, read it in full here: www.countryside-jobs.com/Professional/current.htm   You may need to refresh your browser.

Jobs advertised in this month's edition:
Bat Survey Assistants, Arbtech consulting (both paid and voluntary / trainee posts available)
Education Officer, Avon Wildlife Trust
Woodland Manager, Liverpool, GreenAcres Group
River Mease Project Coordinator, Trent Rivers trust
Part time skills for Wildlife Supervisor, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust
Woodland Warden, Liverpool, GreenAcres Group

Top headlines from the past month: Click here to read

Training Calendar for July is 5 pages Click here to read

There's a strange phenomenon in the CJS office.

We have banned all mention of the word which begins with a Q and means still, calm, placid, tranquil. You see whenever anyone even thinks it never mind mentions it then it no longer is.  We can be quite happily getting on with the tasks in hand and wading through the To Do list when the word is mentioned and then 40-something emails land, all with difficult questions and lots of adverts to post online within the next hour.  At the moment we're in the May Bank Holiday lull so it's not especially busy but someone made the unfortunate error of mentioning the banned word on Wednesday.  Half an hour later all hell breaks loose as the power dies, comes back, disappears again and then returns - doing a wonderful job of frying machinery and killing computers (although not permanently thank goodness); systems check and then back to work less than an hour later and it all dies again.  This time when it comes back it's full speed ahead to make sure everything is done and saved before it's lost again.

Being deadline day for the Weekly Friday is usually rather busy and we were expecting today to be even more so because the Team would be short handed with TB having an appointment to see her surgeon for a check up on her elbow. However, everything was going smoothly, so much so that sub-ed HB decided she'd get started on setting the Weekly half an hour before the deadline which turned out not to be a good idea in fact you could even say it was a big mistake, huge. No sooner had she started than the emails and adverts started flooding in again.

So the Q word is now totally, permanently and forever verboten. 

Bird news from Green End, a spotted woodpecker is trying to deprive them of their telephone by drilling into the telegraph pole and a cuckoo has arrived and is now cuckoo-ing away.  The swallows have been very active in the field in front of the CJS office and Mr Pheasant is parading his harem of hens around with great pride.

One edition of CJS Weekly has now gone to print, 14 pages this week, a little smaller than last week, with 39 adverts for paid posts and 15 for volunteers.
Monday is May Day Bank Holiday (in case you'd missed it) but CJS will be open as usual although we will be running a smaller than usual service.

Lambs, horses and emails

If you've emailed us at any point over the last month you'll have noticed that we've been trialling a new email management system. Increasingly over the last year we've found that although vital to day to day operations email can be an annoyance, when you're working on a project or dealing with various tasks to have to have to keep breaking off to check, respond and reply to every email as it arrives interrupts the flow and distracts from the task in hand.  Thus, along with some other companies we've instigated a new email policy; the email inbox is checked hourly and all correspondence is dealt with in one fell swoop, there is an autoresponder which lets emailers know and gives them the option of calling us if it's more urgent.  For the CJS Team it took a little getting used to, the urge to keep checking the inbox took a while to simmer down but now we find that it's working well and we're generally more productive.

The Green End lambs have arrived and have taken up residence in their own specially constructed enclosure, they have been officially named Rosie and FiFi (well, that's kids for you) and are now beginning to recognise people as food deliverers consequently they are starting to blare every time they see someone.  Which is causing their pet, a non-working sheepdog, Bill, some problems and he is rounding himself up to distraction!  Fluffy little sheep have to watched at all times.  Which means that the lambs may have to move out of the garden and up the road to The Garth and may have the added bonus of quietening them down a little.

And it must be spring because the big horse move is taking place this weekend.  Three of TBs equines are being boxed from their winter stables to summer grazing at Green End.  Old boy Titan is staying at home this year to continue to enjoy the home comforts of shelter and stabling which means that the naughty little pony Robbie has stay too to keep him company.  So we have our fingers crossed for smooth event free journeys and that the weather holds too.

A 21 page edition of CJS Weekly has gone to press with adverts for 31 paid posts and 15 for volunteers plus lots of news and this week's edition has the Work Days and Conservation Tasks happening during May as well details of all those occurring on a regular basis.  If you access online copies as part of a group access subscription please remember that your password has changed this week, if you've not received your new password yet please contact your group administrator who will be able to supply you with the new details.  Details for individual subscribers have not changed and your password remains your CJS number.

What a difference a little ray of sunshine makes!

Last weekend was warm - temperatures of 16+ and sunny too.  And spring arrived in all its glory, the daffodils are open, but looking a little odd against the last of the snowdrops and aconites, celandines are popping up in the hedge bottoms and the leaves of the lords and ladies are unfurling rapidly, even the hawthorn buds are swelling and the horse chestnut sticky buds look like their sticky cases will drop any day now.  The first butterfly, a small peacock (no, not a new species, just a smaller than usual individual) was fluttering around on Saturday as I was finishing off the winter pruning and a lovely little bumblebee was bumbling around the herb bed and by Monday lunchtime the now open daffodils were buzzing with them.

Tete-a-tete daffodils, coryadalis and a bumblebee

It was on Monday evening that a female sparrowhawk almost took my head off!  Office dog Hebe and I were returning home from our usual walk and out of a hedge, not two feet away from my head, exploded the hawk with a gang of angry house sparrows in voluble hot pursuit, she banked and gave me the full view of her back about 6 inches away from my nose before disappearing at high speed down the valley.  Whilst standing there taking in the scene I became aware of a familiar chittering in the sky above and there were my first two swallows of 2013, this morning there were half a dozen or more hawking across the field at high speed.  But spring firsts don't end there, on Tuesday I heard the first chiffchaff calling and on Wednesday a small green warbler was trying to get into the office window - it didn't sit still long enough to get a proper look so ID remains a "little green job".

Our tawnies have been beginning to burble during the day, especially when it's sunny, they must be being woken as the trees are still bare and the sun can be quite fierce.  One evening I was disturbed by a "qwick" from almost directly outside the window, carefully drawing back the curtain I scanned the dusk and there in the big ash tree were two owls, obviously a pair; Mr was preening the back and neck of Mrs who was enjoying the attention and pushed her head closer until the two silhouettes merged into one.  Eventually a noise caught Mr's attention and he shuffled down the branch head bobbing trying to get a fix before dropping out of the tree to swoop away over the roof tops.  Mrs sat a while longer, perhaps waiting for her mate to return with a gift, when none was forthcoming she too dropped out of the tree to swoop right past the window down the side of the house.

Good news from Green End, the rejected lamb, now named Rosie, is moving down to a pen at AWs small holding after daddy finally gave in following much pestering.  Granny says she'll be lonely so they have to have two!

Despite the glorious weather the CJS Team have been very good and stayed (mostly) at their computers in the office and the latest Weekly edition is now printing, digital editions are also on their way.  This week there are 13 pages with 56 adverts, 12 of them being for voluntary posts.

And on our other blog this week I give way to my inner geek and have a muse about IT.  Read it here.

Spring lambs

The pitter-patter of tiny hooves was heard up at Green End this week as AW's ewe dropped triplets - yes three - lambs.  Unsurprisingly she's rejected one which has now joined the pet lambs in the farmhouse kitchen  - at least for now whilst AW and two small W's work on daddy and it moves down to their kitchen!

Fortunately from AW's point of view, both Blossom and her ewe lamb from last year are both now back in the big flock on the farm rather than on their small holding.  Although Blossom knows their voices and being a greedy beast attempts to climb the field wall shouting her head off, demanding bucket feeding whenever she hears them out and about putting chickens away or working in the garden.

It has been murky here all week and today it's thick fog, we can hardly see across the field.  However, believe it or not, the rain forecast for the weekend will actually be welcome, the gardens are very dry on top, still soggy a spit or more down but the fine, thin moorland soil has dried out very quickly and is now blowing around; what with the cold and now the dry conditions even the weeds are struggling to germinate.  Incredibly we still have snowdrops in full flower in the garden, the crocuses are coming along nicely but the daffodils are still small and in tight buds, the trees are showing no sign of leaf bud yet.

So with that kind of weather outside it's been not too bad to be stuck in the office producing the latest edition of CJS Weekly which has just gone to print.  There are 18 pages this week include the Training Calendar for June, 51 adverts 21 for volunteers and all except three came direct to CJS.

CJS Professional: April edition

The latest edition of CJS Professional is now online, read it in full here: www.countryside-jobs.com/Professional/current.htm   You may need to refresh your browser.

Jobs advertised in this Month's edition:
Appointments to the Snowdonia National Park Authority, Welsh Government
Recreation Ranger, Forestry Commission
Ecologist, Total Ecology
Biodiversity and Ecology Officer, Monmouthshire County Council
Survey Assistants (Bats), Angela Graham Bat Consultancy Service
Kent Heritage Community Project officer, the Conservation Volunteers
Seasonal Ornithologist, ACE Surveyors

Other adverts this month:
No Cost, one week Personal Development, Environmental Studies, Survey Skills course in North Corsica, Operation One World

Top headlines from the past month: Click here to read

Training Calendar for June is 6 pages Click here to read

At last

Signs of spring and in glorious sunshine, although bitterly cold, this lovely crocus was spotted on Wednesday nestled under a still bare branched hedge.  Tuesday was the first day since the beginning of March when it didn't actually snow, no we couldn't really believe it either.  The lapwing have departed but every evening there's a flyby of gulls on their way back to Whitby from a day inland and the various thrushes are still picking across the field; on our evening constitutionals office dog Hebe and I keep hearing curlew keening across the moors and fields.
It's been a quiet week in the post Easter Bank Holiday lull but it's picking up again today.
HB has taken her well deserved week off from the office but not apparently from work, PCC minutes, Show Schedule and Parish Council too (she likes to keep busy!!) not to mention the usual house clearance.  TB is seeing the surgeon today about her elbow and is hoping to be signed off to drive and to start some physio, we've got our fingers crossed for her.
It's only a little Weekly this week, 11 pages with 38 adverts for paid posts, 25 of which came direct to CJS plus 10 for volunteers and we have transferred adverts for posts still available from February's Focus on Volunteers into the Existing Opportunities and they we will be on the main Volunteers page soon too.

A field full of...

Last week the first sheep were turned out into the field in front of the CJS office.  There's not much grazing but with a low head count they seem to be managing.  However, the field not simply full of sheep.  First a flock of seagulls, a mix of herring, greater black-backed with a few black heads took up residence sweeping and screaming across the field.  A sure sign that the weather on the coast is rather unsettled, with gale force winds threatening to take the roof off (but little snow) it became progressively worse and bitterly cold with it.  So much so that on Sunday over 100 lapwing arrived and peewitted they way back and forth probing the soft turf in that typical see-saw tipping action, they were joined by a large group of starlings and it was quite a sight to have a murmeration of starlings joined by the black and white spoon-shaped wings of the much larger lapwing all sweeping and swirling together.  There have been the odd one or two lapwings in the field over the years but never this many.  They've been back a few times this week.  Later on in the week there have been two pairs of fieldfares flying and feeding together - does this mean they're going to stay here to nest or have they paired up prior to the belated departure?  Time will tell.

We've been lucky with the weather and although we can't remember the last time we had a day when it didn't snow or there wasn't already snow on the ground we've only had a dusting these last couple of weeks unlike other parts of the country.  The photos of cars buried under 10+ feet deep snowdrifts were amazing but those of farmers digging out their livestock simply heartbreaking.

AW's sheep have been returned to the family flock, they'll have a lamb later on in the year when it comes back from slaughter (in other words, bags of meat rather than a woolly beast) which is maybe just as well as their two ewes between them will produce three lambs this year and they still have a freezer half full from the last one.  However, AW and her two small people spent time feeding and playing with the first rejected lamb currently living in a box Granny's kitchen and are now fancying having a pet lamb of their own. Just to keep Keith (their ancient wether) company you understand.

Next week HB has a well deserved week off work to recover from the fraught first few months of 2013 and catch up on the backlog of chores at home which have been piling up waiting for those five minutes - you know the ones.  I fear that her brain has already gone on its holiday because today we've had nasel huts (hazel nuts) and also "I'll widget the wotsits" (I'll shrink the photos in the news section to make the Weekly edition slot together neatly); but that's OK, we're getting quite good at translating HB speak into normal words, which in itself is rather worrying!  TB is back to work and doing well, carrying nearly all her workload again and at nearly normal speed too; which when your left arm won't straighten out and the fingers are not quite as dexterous as they should be is really quite a feat.  I didn't get much gardening done during my week off, I did clean out the greenhouse, sort out a few pots of plants and plant a few posts of seeds.  My sweet peas are looking very sad; they were in the unheated spare room but were getting leggy so they were moved into the greenhouse, but it's freezing in there, down to -4 some nights and even under fleece they're struggling.  The question now is do I bring them back in and let them get even leggier or leave them out and maybe loose a few?  I fear I'm going to run out of space, the windowsills are already bulging with tomatoes, cucumbers and the first of the annuals and herbs and the seed box still has lots of unsown packets. It's all making HB (with her Chairman of the Flower and Veg Show hat on) worry about what sort of show we'll be having come August.  As there wasn't much gardening done I spent my time profitably and cleared out the cupboards in my home office, I now have lots of empty space just waiting to be filled; and some drawing, I have half an otter (he might make an appearance on next year's calendar), I'm out of practice and it took three attempts to get the nose right - not good when you're working in ink!

Despite it being Good Friday (any one planted their spuds?) we've been stuck in the office, HB's put over 70 courses on the website, KH is busy trying to close the end of year accounts and any minute now AW is going to publish the latest edition of CJS Weekly online, 15 pages this week with 45 new paid posts of which 34 came direct to CJS plus 16 adverts for volunteers.
Monday is another Bank Holiday and although we will be here as normal we will be running a smaller than usual service, so no news updates and probably only adverts for volunteers online.

Oh, will you look at that it's snowing - again.  So Happy Christmas, (sorry I mean) Easter.

And more of the stuff

I'm not sure KH will have managed to do a lot of gardening, it's been bitterly cold this week and I think we may get hit with more of the white stuff tonight. Who do we talk to about this ridiculous weather, surely someone must be responsible!
On a chearier note the @CountrysideNews twitter account has tweeted it's 15,000th tweet, that's a lot of news. 
The week has been fairly uneventful so nothing to report I'm afraid. Monday's edition of CJS Weekly has been printed. 12 pages including the Work Days in April, 12 adverts for volunteers and 38 for paid posts, 33 of which came direct to CJS.

40 degrees north

On Tuesday night we thought we were a lot further north than forty degrees, the wind was howling, the snow was 'falling' in horizontal bands to be met by the swirling frost filled gusts on their way back up into the air.  Snow shoes, goggles and full on Arctic clothing was required simply to get to the gate and back, filling the log basket was really seriously not fun. AW took 10 minutes to get up the hill out of the village on her way back home, HB had to hold onto Miss B to stop her being blown away on their way back home from a music competition in town (KMB was in second place for her violin recital, one very proud mum).

We had sightings (and soundings) of the first avian summer visitors, the first curlew was seen flying over the field in front of the office on Monday and was heard again on Tuesday.  Pied wagtails have been seen in and around the village too and the woodpeckers must be getting headaches by now the amount of drumming they've doing, it really echoes off the snow!  The large long tailed tit groups have broken up and we have a paid which visits regularly and another which is seen occasionally.

Thinking of summer (more like dreaming) it's holiday season here at CJS, TB has been away to sunny Spain this week continuing her recovery from her broken elbow. Next week it's KH's turn, it was supposed to be for some genuine gardening leave but as the flower beds are still under several inches of snow I have a feeling that not much gardening is going to be done however there is a tin of brand new drawing pencils and a small stack of pristine paper just waiting to be used. Then it's Easter week and after that HB at last gets a well earned 'rest' or at least a week away from CJS to catch up with everything else going on in her hectic schedule.

We were dismayed by the notice posted yesterday on google reader, the service is being discontinued from July.  It's one of our main news aggregators and we use it for a few job searches too.  Apparently we're not the only ones.  Like everyone else we've been looking at alternative RSS readers, so much so most of them have crashed under the unprecedented loads. 

And last but not least details on Monday's edition of CJS Weekly. 18 pages including the Training Calendar for May, 15 adverts for volunteers and 41 for paid posts, 30 of which came direct to CJS.

CJS Professional: March edition

The latest edition of CJS Professional is now online, read it in full here: www.countryside-jobs.com/Professional/current.htm   You may need to refresh your browser.

Jobs advertised in this Month's edition:
Ecologist / Senior Ecologist, Aspect Ecology
Two Seabird and Marine Rangers, National Trust for Scotland
Director of Conservation, Cheshire Wildlife Trust
Ecological Consultant and Seasonal Bat Surveyors, MAB Ecology
Dolphin Seal Centre Centre Co-ordinators x2, Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Assistant Consultant Ecologist, AMEC
Conservation Officer, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park
Seasonal Guide (4 months), Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Langdon Lake and Meadows Warden, Essex Wildlife Trust
Field Surveyors, Ahern Ecology

Other adverts this month:
Level 3 Diploma in Countryside Management by Smart Training
New Guide to Identify Mosses and Lichen of English Orchards, OPAL East of England team.

CJS Focus on Volunteering,
29 pages of articles and adverts.  Click here to read

Top headlines from the past month: Click here to read

Training Calendar for May is 5 pages Click here to read