This week we (Geoff, Dianne, Peter, Michael, Dave and Stephen) were back at Meltham Cop for a relatively gentle session completing the de-guarding of the easterly end of the site (ME18/16). There is one working session left to do nearer the western, road end, at the top. Geoff found a heavy mallet sticking out the top of a tree guard of a twelve foot high birch amongst a small, dense grove of them; must have been put there for safe keeping after banging the stake in and then forgotten. It is in excellent condition considering it must have been there ten years or more and seen the tree grow past it towards the sky.
We retrieved a few stakes and guards for re-use and returned them to the nursery (along with the mallet) where Jess had spent the morning sowing 500 acorns she gathered locally for future tree planting stock (having done a further 500 at home). Dave took the rest of the rotted and now useless guards straight to the nearby tip.
