Saturday, 21 May 2016

Fruit tree

Geoff labours, Cath casts a critical eye.
This week we were at Rotcher community orchard, helping them to tame their weeds. We were: myself, Philip, Geoff, Cath, Adrian, Steve, Duncan and Harvey the dog, and Dianne. There were also a number of Rotcher folk. Cake was chocolate.

(Song title: Nick Drake).

Saturday, 2 April 2016

Knock on wood

 

Me, Dave, Adrian and Ben spent a few hours cutting and splitting logs today at the nursery. It was a fairly pleasant morning though the promised nicer weather did not appear, the chilly drizzle making up for that. Hopefully this batch of wood will now be seasoned in time for next winter. Lots more to do still! 
Geoff

Hit, git and split.


John and I had an effective morning checking the Merrydale trees. The points of note were:- loads of hazel nuts, lots of germinating balsam especially in the areas were water was running, a couple of split trees and exceptionally muddy footway. There is a another two man morning to finish the guards, some formative pruning and I would coppice one in three of the hazels.

John gave blood for the cause as evidenced in the photos (editor's note: not sure an extreme close up of a bloody volunteer is the right image for the blog).

Duncan


Sunday, 27 March 2016

Wild is the wind


Today on possibly the windiest Colne Valley site Dave, Chris, Dianne, Ben, Steve, Hap, myself and the two dogs beat the elements planting about 75  Viburnum lantana, Wayfaring tree and 160 willow (editors note: some of these may have been Spindle)

We did well in making use of the bare root trees from Stirley farm  and used a lot of recycled stakes and guards.

Cake was provided by Mrs Haps.

All planters will be sleeping very well after  working out in heavy windy conditions.. Thanks to all.

Duncan.