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.

Winter woodland management

A cold and foggy December morning and myself, Dave, Philip and his chainsaw were doing woodland management at Throstle Green Farm. The landowner had asked that some of the Alder we planted 8 years ago be taken down, to preserve his view of the valley. We agreed, so long as we could take timber away as part of our nascent community wood fuel project. Funny thing to do with your Sunday morning, but it was actually really quite nice up there. Quiet (when the chainsaw wasn't going) and peaceful. Hard work mind.