It's finally happening!
More than two-and-a-half years after we first put pen to paper to describe the benefits of an outdoor classroom at Devon Middle School, the crown jewel in our plans — a constructed wetland — is now becoming tangible.
Working with the crew from New Maryland Contractors, we broke ground this morning a little after 9 AM:
Work continued throughout the day, digging a hole 18m x 9m and 1m deep, clearing rock and flattening out the bottom as best we could.
Why so big? Well, a minimum surface area is needed before frogs, salamanders, and such are attracted to the wetland naturally (it's illegal to "seed" a pond of any size yourself with amphibians).
A hole this big needs a pond liner of a size that few commercial nurseries can provide, but we found just what we needed at Sun Nurseries in Sussex. Tomorrow's job will be to roll this 300-kg rubber behemoth into place; we already had quite an adventure getting it out of the delivery truck... (no pictures of that, unfortunately!)
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