The SRA Board welcomed past trustees, volunteers and others who have supported the park to officially celebrate the opening of our all ability path network. It was wonderful to share this moment with so many and reflect on how far we've come over the ten years our community has worked on the project.
Our fire pit did us proud providing warmth and BBQ. If you would like access to the grill for your own event please get in touch. 

We are very grateful to Phil Armshaw from the Crystal House Hotel who kindly demonstrated how to cut and hand-bale hay this weekend. There was plenty for our team of volunteers to learn and do! We were particularly impressed with Phil's home-made baling machine, which produced some perfect bales.
By cutting areas of our meadow in the late summer we will maximise the number of flowering plants that can compete with the grasses. This in turn leads to more pollinators and a beautiful display of colour throughout spring and summer. We are leaving some areas of long grass for foraging frogs, newts and other animals but aim to rotate the areas we cut each year.
Ideally we would have let the cut grass dry a few days to make dry bales for winter animal feed, however, this is very difficult to time and coordinate for volunteers. We'll still get all the nature benefits though.

We are absolutely delighted with our new paths. Our contractor, James Maclean, did a wonderful job ensuring a smooth finish and gentle gradients to ensure the park is now accessible to all. It's been wonderful receiving all the nice messages from across our community and even better seeing everyone using them to walk their dogs, travel to school or to avoid having to walk along the edge of the main road. If you need to work out where the paths are, pop over to our access page. 

Many thanks to everyone who attended the Strathpeffer Residents' Association AGM, whether in-person or via our live web link.  If you weren't able to attend, here's the annotated presentation or you can download it to access the hyper-links here.​

As the path works come to an end (more on this later), we have installed two new picnic tables in the park. One by the fire-pit and the other next to the orchard. What a great place to have a picnic :)

Our new fire pit is now available for all to use, but we ask that you keep the below in mind:

1. Please never leave a fire unattended,
2. Always make sure there is a responsible adult in attendance,
3. Please don't damage the trees to get firewood,
4. Please don't use the wood and material from the children's dens - they mean a lot to them,
5. When you are finished, please make sure the fire is fully extinguished and the pit is cool,
6. Please take your rubbish home with you,
7. Do remember the School and Nursery regularly use the area.

If you or your group would like to use the fire pit, speak to us in advance and we can help arrange dry firewood for you, or even someone to manage the fire for you.
Let us know you see any problems with the fire pit of the park.

We are working hard to increase the diversity of nature in our park. As such we are trying to keep regular mowing to a minimum, replicating meadow management techniques where we can. Some areas are being mowed a bit more often at the moment, either to help our native trees and orchard establish or to get on top of our over-enthusiastic rosebay willowherb. 

The plant at the top left is called yellow rattle and it has established well along the banks of our swale (drainage ditch). It's a special plant because it steals resources from nearby grasses, reducing their vigour to allow more flowering plants to flourish. 

The plant in the middle of the top row is called cuckoo flower (it flowers while the cuckoos are here). It is the favorite food plant of the elegant orange-tip butterfly (below) that can often be seen fluttering across the park.

​Enjoy the nature in our park!