Merrydale and Scouts

Heidi and Lisa standing proudly next to their pile of collected guards, and looking wet.

In his capacity as a Scout Leader Duncan took a group of Scouts up Merrydale and got them to take off stakes and guards from the grown trees. Heidi and Lisa turned out to help. Philip was away bracken bashing at High Wood. By all accounts it was a wet, wet Thursday evening.

Merrydale - Lord of the flies

See the flies on Simon's hat, see Geoff, fly-less. Why?

So, this morning we were up Merrydale, a lovely little valley that runs away to the west north west of Slaithwaite. The site has some semi-ancient natural woodland, and this was supplemented with new planting some years ago. We were back there today to remove guards and retrieve stakes for re-use. Problem was, flies! Flies, flies damn flies. You can see them all over my hat in the pic. Other than that it was delightful up there. And the bilberry bushes are weighed down with big juicy fruit too, so lots of jam this year. We gathered 175 stakes for re-use, saving us £70 or £80. We also took a similar number of the old guards off site. Apricot and walnut cake today. Very good.

Duncan, Neil and Heidi, emerging from the new growth.                                                                                                  Heidi handing round the cake

The Annual General Meeting

As usual this took place at the Sair. 2 hours of heated debate about health and safety and working with children and young people policies. Had to be done. I recorded the whole thing on my MP3 player, so if anyone would like a podcast of it I could oblige. The recording made writing the minutes a lot easier, and more accurate, than usual.

Holme Bank Wood

Guy and Philip search the jungle, lots of small birch that the Society  planted can

be seen on the other side of the clough behind Guy.

Holme Bank Wood this morning, for more bracken bashing and stake and guard retrieval. Very warm and midgy up there, lovely views of the reservoirs though. This site is an ongoing attempt to add to semi-ancient woodland on the edge of the Reservoirs. There is some seriously deep bracken up there though, so we need to keep going back to get light to the smaller trees. Some of the birch look like they have some kind of blight, but others look ok so far. Some birch are self seeding on the rockier parts of the hillside. Rowan is also self seeding, and a few small oak.

Guy thinks there is lots of scope for further planting here and the other side of the reservoirs.

                                   That's Duncan wrestling with a stake under a bush                      

 

And that's me with my midge net on, demonstrating how not to remove a guard.