Friend army

Jess smiling in the sunshine, and Hap!

 Back to Scammonden to plant a further 135 hazel and 60 downy birch amongst previously planted but diseased ash trees. 

We were: myself, Philip, Stephen, Hap, Dave, Peter T., Jess, and Richard.

https://youtu.be/wTu5HXq4D-Q

Sitting and watching

Back to Scammonden. We planted 105 hawthorn, 45 downy birch and 105 Rowan. We were: myself, Geoff, Dave, Tanya, Philip, Richard, Michael, Steve, Stephen and Hap.

While sitting down having our break Geoff spotted a stoat/weasel, and most of us got a glimpse. Seems the major difference is a black tip to the tail. I don't think any of us got that good a look at it as they are pretty speedy. It disappeared over a wall. But then popped its head back up to look at us! Cute. And as far as I am aware they don't eat trees, so carry on stoat/weasel.

I think there might be a Toots and the Maytals song for every blog entry from now on.

https://youtu.be/ukXlPAm32nM

Hard times

Very occasionally trees don't thrive on a site. On this particular patch at Scammonden this was due to ash die-back disease, and an unknown problem with a batch of alder trees. So we spent today inter-planting oaks and aspen amongst the dead and dying.

We were: Geoff, Dave, Philip, Richard, Adrian, Matthew, Jess, Kayleigh, Stephen, Steve, and myself.

I think we planted 50 aspen and 175 sessile oak?

Hard times to be positive. But we do what we can. Some, like Adrian, go that bit further (literally).

https://youtu.be/zMIzTh0Lafg

More than enough

It was a nice sunny morning and quite warm today as we planted 240 trees (150 sessile oak, 60 hazel, and 15 each of birch and rowan), on the south-west side of Scammonden, to 'beat up' (replace) lots of ash we planted quite some years back that have now all succumbed to die-back. Though steepish, it was quite easy planting with soft soil making screefing and staking a breeze. There was a hold-up at the start as a car got stuck in the muddy verge which we could not budge but Jess's Dad responded to her call to save the day with his van and tow-rope. A bit more to do here next time plus a similar job higher up the hillside to replace lots of red alder (not planted by us) that died quite suddenly and somewhat mysteriously after about 15 years.

We were: Geoff, Dave, Hap, Peter, Tanya, Jess, Richard, Philip, Michael, Steve G, Joanna and small dog. Photos by Tanya and Geoff.

https://youtu.be/BzsmciMNAGU