Slippery people

Hap and Philip arriving, in glorious sunshine.

A trip out of the valley, to Meltham today. In the ice and snow.

We were: Geoff, Dave, Hap, Peter, Philip, Darren, Stephen, Steve, Murray, Alastair, Jared, myself, Kayleigh, John H., Ben, and Michael. Plus Heath and his two sons.

We aimed to plant 275 trees, 60 sessile oak, 50 hazel, 25 wild cherry, 25 bird cherry, 35 rowan, and 50 scots pine.

The ice and snow cause a bit of fun at going home time. With a treacherous slope down from the parking spot, some manual snow clearance and a handy tow from Heath's land rover were needed. 

I was last man out, and my little car needed no assistance. 

https://youtu.be/rx2_iHftARo

Burn it down

We plan our plantings and order our trees in the Summer. What we didn't anticipate this year was a sudden and near exponential growth in the number of volunteers.

Some tasks we planned just won't accommodate 30+ people. And we can't just magic up more trees and bigger sites. Happily we do have some larger sites to occupy us for the next few weeks. Hopefully our increased membership is long term, and we can plan for next year accordingly.

This Saturday a reduced group met to plant 150 hawthorn and hazel on an old site, where we were asked to clear some larger trees last year. 150 might sound a lot, but with 13 adults and 2 children we still finished very early.

We were: myself, Philip, Dave, Geoff, Sophie and Arthur, Jon and Tess, John, Cath, Jess, Lee, Hap, Kayleigh, Peter, and Tanya.

https://youtu.be/IV6WFnLUl10

Hillbilly Christmas (is every Saturday)

 

A rampantly successful morning, finishing at this Marsden site. 600 trees got planted, which might be a proper record for proper trees and not hedging. 50 scots pine, 75 rowan, 75 aspen, 75 Willow, 75 alder, 50 silver birch, 25 hawthorn, 25 gorse, 25 crab apple, 25 elder , 50 field maple, and 50 hazel.

We were: myself, Dave, Stephen, Connie, Helen, Kayleigh, Laura, Richard G., Hap, Geoff, Philip, Ben, Kati, Cath, Julia and Ben, Tom, Richard P., Peter, John F., John H., Jo, Michael, Jake, Matthew, Dianne, Jess, Lee, Sophie, Tania, and Jared. And Ben the photographer.

This weeks tune is an absolute, unquestionable, belter. 100% guaranteed to make you feel more Christmassy.

https://youtu.be/_SCjoMqz65I

Yeah!

Baby its cold outside

 

That Mr. Carter was in a mischievous mood this morning.

Back to the same site as last week, but I am avoiding the obvious Smiths song and trying to stick with Christmas tunes.

It was cold wet and dreary, but we still planted 530 trees. I think that was our most impressive effort so far this season

We were: myself, Philip, Dave, Geoff, Tanya, Tania, Jared, Emma, Connie, Helen, Kayleigh, Jess, Lee, Dianne, Peter, Richard, Max, Sue, Jon, Tessie, John H., Hap, Remy, Matthew, Michael, Stephen, Cath, and Ben.

Trees planted were: 75 downy birch, 75 hawthorn, 125 sweet chestnut, 125 pedunculate oak, 50 field maple, 75 bird cherry, and 5 crab apple.

https://youtu.be/0DDaG6ayJPg

Last month of the year

 

Back to Marsden, to complete some of the areas now that we have our full palette of varieties to work with.

We were: myself, Philip, Dave, Geoff, Max, Tania, Jared, Remy, Michael, Jake, Matthew, John F., John H., Jon plus Holly the dog, Dianne, Jess, Lee, Julia, David, Stephen, Richard, Hap, Sophie, Peter, Laura, Kayleigh, and Ben the photographer (special guest).

We planted 70 dog rose, 85 rowan, 95 downy birch, 25 sweet chestnut, 75 sessile oak, 100 beech and 60 hawthorn. 

I am going to try and shoehorn in some Christmas tunes over the next few weeks.

https://youtu.be/eWXi-2-8Ud0

Talk talk

Jared working hard

 Back at Marsden, planting 125 small leaved lime, 200 sessile oak, and 50 yew. 

The promised fog was usurped by a steady light rain.

We were: myself, Geoff, Hap, Dave, Philip, Cath, Peter, Jared, Tania, Jon, Kayleigh, Laura, Ben, Remy, Matthew, Dianne, Ben and Julia, Richard, Stephen, Jess, Lee, Jo, Tanya and Sophie.

Our star volunteers this week were Hap, Jess, and Sophie.

Lockdown does seem to be making the workers chatty though, so...

https://youtu.be/6hHnOBlwU3A

The sound of the crowd

 

People take up a lot of space 2m apart (any bunching is household groups)

Another outstanding turnout: myself, Geoff, Hap, Philip, Sophie, Dave, Stephen, Steve, Helen, Connie, Kayleigh, Laura, Jon, Tessie, Ben, Kati, Matthew, Michael, Jake, Julia, Peter, Tania, Jared, Lee, Cath, Richard, Tanya, John, and Remy. I may have missed someone off the list, let me know if so.

I need to go out this week and buy more tools!

We planted: 140 field maple, 30 downy birch, 15 rowan, 50 holly, 75 hazel, 45 crab apple, 50 blackthorn, 15 hawthorn. 420 total.

https://youtu.be/9CJFk7LZa5A

Favorite things

First day of planting at the season, and an excellent start.

We were: myself, Stephen, Philip, Dave, Geoff, Jess, Lee, Dianne, Michael, Matthew, Jo, Jon and Tessie, Ben, Kati, Alastair and Jared, Helen and Connie, Jake, Peter, Richard, Cath, Remy, and landowner Julia.

We planted 75 holly, 125 hawthorn, 25 hazel, 25 field maple, 25 blackthorn, and 30 dog rose. All but 50 holly were a shelter belt mix for the windward edge of the site. The 50 holly were spaced out in two fields behind, where lots more trees will be going in the next few weeks.

Well done everyone, you are all... my favorite things.

https://youtu.be/pbE_AL1IQTs

Safe from harm

 

Remy stays safe.

Still waiting for our trees to arrive, so we spent the morning moving 2100 large wooden stakes to our first planting site. And refilling our log store.

Based at the nursery were myself, Adrian, Dianne, Remy and Ben.

At the Marsden site were Geoff, Jess, Lee, Tanya, Michael, Jo, Cath, Peter and Steve. Philip and Stephen were also there but working separately to mark out the fields.

Driving between these two teams were Dave, Richard, and Jon and Tessie.

Duncan and Matthew arrived when the fun was all over!

HSE Covid19 risk assessment for outdoor work done. And followed.

Lots of stakes

https://youtu.be/PKtTmZnVhhI

Work, work, work

Another fractured morning, but very productive..

Stephen, Philip, Hap and Dave were at Throstle. They used the winch for felling a group of 4 ash that had been growing too close to the road. Plus felled two more ash and a leaning larch.

Geoff, Peter, Remy, Cath, Tanya, Ben, and Michael were at the nursery splitting, sawing and stacking wood. And also loading the van with planting materials for our first site.

The van was manned by Duncan and Matthew, wearing masks, who shuttled between the nursery and the planting site at Marsden.

Myself and John, plus later Adrian, Duncan and Matthew unloaded the van at Marsden, and moved all the materials down to some old stables for storage. 2100 deer guards, 100 stakes for pine, 725 stakes for short guards, 250 shrub guards, and 500 Hare guards.

As we were finishing at Marsden, and John and I were walking down the hill, the promised rain arrived in earnest.

https://youtu.be/EhLPQi1a_iM

Chain (of fools)

 

Back to Throstle this morning for another session of woodland management. We were: myself, Philip, Stephen, John, Dave and Hap.

Philip's new chain broke, but he managed to chew his way through some trees with an old one.

We thought we might finish today, but looks like another session necessary to remove some dead ash.

Lots of logs now at nursery for cross cutting, splitting, stacking, drying and selling.

https://youtu.be/o0s5CP2kXsc

Isolation (not the song you think)

This morning was a three-fer.

I assigned myself to the nursery, on the principle that Dave would need help unloading and stacking logs. Sadly this message didn't get through to the chainsaw boys, who spent the morning felling larch and leaving it where it lay. So hardly any logs arrived, and the ones that did were felled on Thursday.

Stephen, Philip, Dave, Hap, Adrian and John were at Throstle Green. 

Geoff, Cath, Tanya, Sophie and Jess were at Scammonden deguarding.

https://youtu.be/N8lOLNfnCBg

You need to calm down

Back to Throstle Green Farm for another (short) morning of felling and logging. We were: Stephen, myself, Dave and John. Still work to do on Saturday.

At one point an ex-colleague of ours hurled homophobic abuse at as as he cycled past. And not in a friendly way (which wouldn't be possible anyway, it being homophobic and all). We were somewhat surprised, but we gave a genuinely polite reply, as he sped off.

Taylor said it best:

https://youtu.be/Dkk9gvTmCXY

Pull dub

 

Ah, look, Geoff has a little doggie friend.

Another morning of two halves.

Myself, Philip, Stephen, Hap, Adrian, John and Dave were at Throstle Green Farm to fell some trees growing too close to the roadside. Philip and Stephen had their chainsaws and everyone had full PPE. We had to buy a winch and some cable in order to fell a couple of these safely.

Meanwhile, at Scammonden, Geoff (birthday boy), Jess, Lee ,Sophie, Steve, Jon and Tess were carrying on the reclamation work.

One of the expertly felled tall larch.

Some gentle electronica this week.

https://youtu.be/ayjladnljoE

505

 

Continued work at the same spot at Scammonden as last week then down to the bottom of the hill in a Hap-inspired coda to finish off removing guards from the hawthorn we started on a couple of weeks ago. Weather bright but decidely cold in the brisk northerly, though it warmed up a bit as time wore on, and it was a thoroughly enyoyable morning. Still more guard removal and remedial work to do on the oak and rowan at the top. We were Lee, Jess, Adrian, Hap and Geoff.

https://youtu.be/MrmPDUvKyLs

Songs a bit random, 5 people, 505 by Arctic monkeys. Hey, I'm not getting any prompts from participants while I am away, so there it is.

Cold irons bound

 

This week we were removing guards, mainly from some Scot's pine, from a spot below Sledge Gate, to the east of last week's Scammonden session that stretches east all the way across to the track leading down from road. We also did some remedial work on a stand of oak (and rowan) immediately below the pine. These oak trees have suffered a bit in the prominent but exposed position, and relatively poor soil, and are quite small for their age compared to those sheltered by the Italian alder of last week. They are growing steadily, if very slowly, but some have fallen over and the stakes (and guards) needed replacing for quite a few: a bit of young tree tlc basically. More to do at this site next time. Weather was fine, chilly at first but warming up later.

 

We were: Geoff, Cath, Hap, Dave, Ben, Steve, and arriving later, Dianne, Adam, Susan and Susan's sister (?)

Apropos of nowt, a bit of Bob.

https://youtu.be/9hO-83CIVKM

Knives out

 

Well a game of two halves today, though the first half was very short, for me.

Within the first half hour I managed to gash my leg with a hook-bladed craft knife. A really stupid bit of behaviour, but "accidents" are inevitable, and this was the worst cut we (!) have dealt with. Several of us had first aid kits, and I was securely strapped up by Hap and taken to A&E by Jessica. 8 stitches and a tetanus booster. A cautionary tale for all. I am going to go back to using my much more blunt fixed short blade Mora knife. I won't be able to do myself the same degree of damage with that, hopefully.

We were at Scammonden again removing stakes and guards.

Those remaining carried on working. They were: Geoff, Sue, Adrian, Sophie, Tanya, Hap, and Jess.

Sue loves a wild mushroom, and found a special birch tree mushroom.

https://youtu.be/2Lpw3yMCWro