Dam it!

Since my bout of poison ivy I’ve been on the look out for the stuff as I’m tramping through the woods with Holly- and I think I’ve found where I probably came into contact with it. Down by the bridge at the entrance to Saxon Woods, where I often park so Holly can cool off in the stream, I found this huge area of it-

And that’s the bank I climb down to get to the stream with Holly- so I must have walked right through the middle of it 🙁

So I am obviously going to avoid that spot from now on, but I feel bad for Holly not being able to cool off at the end of some furious tennis-ball chasing. I have reversed my direction around the woods, now going counter-clockwise, so we get to the bottom of the other stream towards the end of the walk so Holly can cool off there-

However, as you can see, the water is hardly deep enough for her to get properly wet. A few years ago there used to be a dam making this pool bigger, but over the years it must have been washed away in the winter storms- so I decided to rebuild it for the benefit of Holly and the other dogs who come to the woods:)

Today I went in water shoes and with heavy gloves and put in about an hours work building a new dam from rocks in the stream bed. Here is the before-