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