Lydgate - sunshine and heavy digging

All the crew, Philip waving in the distance.

Lovely morning up on the moors above Marsden. We have 300 trees to plant on the edge of the shooting club's land. We managed to plant 185 of them, as we were digging through very tough grass and heather. We were, Philip, Brian, Duncan, Cath, Heidi, myself, Neil, and Jack and Josh the Explorer Scouts. And the cake was a very very fruity fruit cake. We will be back there again next week, fingers crossed for more sunshine.

Scammonden Reservoir

First week of what will be a long term project for us, planting up some fields on the edge of the Reservoir. It is our contribution to a wider project developing the site for public access, benefit and enjoyment. So we started by planting 300 Ash trees and some Hawthorn and Rowan along the edge. Good turnout, with myself, Cath, Philip, Neil, Dave, Duncan, Diane, my mum, Brian, Trevor, Peter, Guy, and two guests, Jack and Josh the Explorer Scouts. We will be back at this site over the next few weeks, planting considerably more trees. This week's cake was chocolate.

Hats off to Dave!

Just a note to acknowledge all the hard work that Dave has done at the Nursery in the last few weeks. The work area, paths, and drainage all look brilliant. Dave, we salute you.

Butterley Reservoir- more trees and a lot of gorse.

Cath, Ben and Heidi enjoy cake despite rain

2nd Week at Butterley Reservoir this year. Horrible, horrible weather, windy and rainy, our least favourite. Not cold though. We finished planting Emma and John's patch with 20 Holly. Planted 50 more trees in a clough for Blue Ginger. And then planted over 200 Gorse in several clumps. Planting the gorse meant clearing patches of Molinia grass and then putting the Gorse in at 1ft spacing. It did stop raining right at the end, which was nice. Cake was banana and walnut, and was universally acclaimed. And we all had a nice time, considering!

Cath, Philip, Geoff and Neil planting gorse above the reservoir.

Butterley Reservoir

Geoff's photo of the crew in winter sunlight - he's a much better photographer than me, as you can see.

 

A murky kind of morning, but not too bad. Myself, Cath, Neil, Philip and Geoff set off.  We were joined by Emma and John who had made a donation for an area of planting. It is a stiff walk round to the far side of the Reservoir, so some of the less agile volunteers weren't with us today. First we planted 55 trees in a small clough above Butterley Clough. These trees were sponsored by local company Blue Ginger. Then we moved round the hill a bit and planted 75 trees with Emma and John, in a spot that they can see from their house down in Marsden. We need to go back next week to finish that off, and to plant a further 50 trees for Blue Ginger. And also to put in 300 gorse plants. Today's cake was the ever popular lemon drizzle.

 

Philip, Cath and Neil with Butterley behind. No other caption required.

Hard at work on Sunday

Tree Society is not just for Saturdays you know. Two of us were hard at work this fine Sunday morning. I was carrying stakes and guards up to Butterley Reservoir, and Dave was working on the paths and drainage at the nursery. Just one way of burning off those mince pies.

Fieldhouse finished, more or less

I remember this when it was all field...

As a hangover-buster we agreed to meet and plant on New Years day. Very brave, some braver than others.
We finished planting all the trees for Fieldhouse, 2000 in total now planted. We still need to waymark the permissive paths, arrange the access improvements, and possibly add a handful of fruit trees.

At breaktime we had freshly made scones with butter and damson jam. And Heidi had brought a fine fizzy wine.

 

Philip, Heidi, fizzy wine, Lisa, Geoff, my hand.