Does It Rain

So in view of the weather we decided to go to the highest most exposed site we know of, and face the music. Or in this case the wind and rain. It didn't rain all morning, just enough.

We were: myself, Dave, Simon, Geoff, Philip, Tanya, John, Adrian, Hap, Steve, Stephen O., Ben, and Lee.
We were joined by a number of Friends of the Earth people, who seemed to enjoy themselves despite the weather.

We planted 233 trees - 30 Holly, 30 Scots Pine, and 173 Oak.

A point of information, we do not usually plant into Heather, but this is a Forestry Commission Woodland Grant Scheme site, and this is what they instructed us to do.

We were spoilt for cake with Hap contributing a very nice bakewell tart that he had made.

Song courtesy of Tanya's mum this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI3QpAkxVrI

Rain

A brief respite from the rain. Look at that sky.

First day of planting of the season, and it rained. As it tends to. Still, we were: myself, Simon B., Jess, Tanya, Dianne, John, Stephen, Steve, Hap, Adrian, Geoff, Dave, Philip, Ben, Susan and Peter.

We planted 190 trees, Aspen, Holly, Oak and Scots Pine - not sure of the quantities as some of what we brought got taken back to base.

We were trialling our new mesh guards for Scots Pine, see below.

https://youtu.be/gzdASn-R8aw

Everything must go

Dave and Adrian

Back to Scammonden for more guard removal, everything must go, as the title says.  Misty at the start but sun came out later. All the guards were coming off, though the ones that had been on Ash trees were left on site because we weren't sure whether it was appropriate to move them elsewhere because of the dread Ash dieback.

We were: myself, Philip, Dave, Tanya, Geoff, Steve, Stephen, Ben, Adam, Dianne plus 2 dogs, Harriet and Floyd the dog, Jess, Lee, Mel, John and Adrian. Cake was apple flapjack.

https://youtu.be/uU5trjpFus0

You don't miss your water

Today we were up at Scammonden reservoir, which was empty! We were collecting stakes and guards for re-use, again. We were: myself, Dave, Philip, John, Steve, Stephen, Hap, Geoff, Ben, Dianne and Lizzie the dog, and Adam and sons and dog. Cake was ginger.

After, myself, Ben and Dave delivered 240 deer stakes and guards to the Standedge site.

On Friday the weekday crew delivered 440 deer stakes and guards to the Mount road site.

Wholestone already has its deer stakes and guards.

We are quite well set up for the Season ahead.