VIP guests

Spent a pleasant but chilly morning on a walking tour of Butterley and the Wessenden valley with John Tucker, director of woodland creation for the Woodland Trust, and Doug Edmondson, woodland creation advisor for the Woodland Trust. Our planting this year has been made possible by their support, and they were keen to see our past and present efforts. They were particularly impressed by the care we put into the management of mature planting sites.

Why does it always rain on we?

Another classy photo by Geoff with his rather good Samsung NX (sponsorship please?)

Another Saturday morning, and guess what it rained, quite a lot. Today we were above Marsden creating a couple of small shelter belts for fields. We were: myself, Ben the younger, Ben the elder, Jess, Cath, Dianne and Lizzie the dog, Duncan and Harvey the dog, Stephen, Dave, Geoff, Brian, Peter W., Chris, Hap, Adrian, Ros, Steve , Tanya, John and Philip. An astonishing number considering how wet it was. Well done all. We planted 300 odd trees, and ate home made mincemeat slice.

Volunteers modelling new wet look CVTS uniform.

Farewell to Scout Top

This week were were finishing up at Scout Top. We were: Stephen, Alison, Francesco, Hap, Andrew, Iain, Philip, Peter T., Peter W., Duncan and Harvey the dog, Dianne and Lizzie the Dog, Steve, Geoff, myself, Dave and Ros.

We planted the remaining 30 Common Oak, 30 Sessile Oak, 25 Whitebeam, 30 Crab Apple, 30 Common Alder and 45 Downy Birch.

Cake was apple sponge, with apples from our nursery.

It was a bit damp, but not disastrously so.

Log retrieval

Just for the sake of completeness of record, Dave and I went back to Throstle Green Farm to retrieve all the logs cut last weekend. They are now safely drying in our log store.

The Colne Valley Tree Society curry club - inaugural meeting.

Stephen, with his "Dave stick" for getting the right log lengths.
Photo by Geoff.

This morning we were at Throstle Green Farm, for our now traditional pre-Christmas woodland management session. We were: young Ben, Hap, Cath, Jess, Dan, Dianne and Lizzie the dog, Peter, Duncan and Harvey the dog, Stephen K., Philip, Dave, Geoff, Stephen G., myself, Guy and John.

We spent the morning pruning oaks and cutting down Ash, Alder and Poplar. It was unseasonally mild, but the promised torrential rain did not arrive. Home made mince pies at 11am.

At 12.30 we retired to the Sair, where Mandy and her son were waiting with vegetable curry for all.

It was a very nice way to end the CVTS 2015.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Dave hatted, Geoff gurning, Ben bemused, Dianne oblivious, Hap louche.

A bit wet.

Looks quite nice in this shot. It wasn't.

Today we were in Marsden. Weather was poor, to say the very least. But we had an excellent turnout. Duncan and Harvey the dog, myself, Philip, Geoff, Hap, Vashti, Neil and Sarah, Dianne, Peter, Stephen, Andrew, Ben, and young Ben.

This was a pretty masochistic morning even by our standards, but we planted 105 Alder and 105 Goat Willow.

Ann turned up at 11am with homemade jam scones. Sarah provided homemade veggie sausage rolls. Dave provided knock-off Irish Creme liqueur (admittedly quite a good Supermarket own brand).

Geoff's after picture.

Do you suffer from excessive wind?

Geoff's group portrait. Stephen possessed by the spirit of Jack Hargreaves. How!

...we certainly did this morning. While not receiving the promised rain we were victim to this gulf stream related vigorous Westward wind. But we soldiered on.

We went back to Copley Bank to finish planting there. We took 15 Common Oak, 30 Hazel, and 30 Rowan - but supplemented these with some small self grown stock of more Oak and Rowan. We planted all this at intervals along the whole length of the bank, amongst the Hawthorn already planted. Hopefully this will result, one day, in a decent hedge with feature trees.

We were: myself, Hap, Steve, Stephen, Peter W., Geoff, Philip, Tanya, Jess, John and Dave.

Cake was coffee walnut.

Guy was at Throstle Green Farm preparing for our traditional Christmas wood fuel session.

There may have been some Senior Section activity elsewhere this morning, but that remains unconfirmed at present.

Bobby the barman had a mysterious rash, so if we all come down with Chickenpox/Shingles we know who to blame.

A Jolly morning

Myself, cake, Ben.

This morning we were in Jolly's field in Marsden. The forecast was for not so jolly weather, but the worst held off until the end. We were: our host Jolly and his friend Max, myself, Geoff, Ben, Ben the younger, Hap, Stephen, Steve, Tanya, Cath, and Jess. We planted 285 trees in all, we do owe the field some Whitebeam though, so will pop back when they are in stock. Cake was brought to the site by Ann, who was very popular.

There was a second section at work at Copley Bank. Brian, Dianne and Chris took another 75 Hawthorn. And Brian also took his 60 Scots Pine for James Howards farm.