Birch thinning at Alderley Edge on Sunday 30th January 2022

Eleven of us met in the National Trust car park, at the side of what used to be the Wizard Inn, including 3 'newbies' who were with us for the first time.

I'd brought loppers, bowsaws and gloves, safety glasses, fire-lighting items, First Aid and ....cake! - the essentials needed for most workdays, but we needed to collect some extra tools from the Ranger compound. These included wheelbarrows, Tree Poppers and stakes & netting to secure the fire-site after we left.

I'd never seen or used Tree Poppers before and relied on my fellow-MNTVer's who'd done this task previously, to demonstrate how, and how not!, to use one.

Despite my initial trepidation, I discovered how great they are - you 'clamp' the Tree Popper around the base of a small birch tree and use the 'plate' as a lever to ease the tree roots out of the ground - easy-peasy! The down-side is that a Tree Popper is quite a heavy piece of kit, and manoeuvring it into position and carrying it from tree to tree was tiring work, but it was an extremely satisfying task which I loved!!

We got a fire going fairly quickly so we could burn the birch tree's and, with the aid of Jenny's leaf blower, and Jack's fire-lighting expertise, it was a huge success, burning just about everything we pulled up during the day.

An MNTV workday wouldn't be an MNTV workday without the 'traditional' break for morning coffee and cake to refresh our enthusiasm for the task in hand.

This was followed by a lunch break a couple of hours later. Some swapped tasks from Tree Popping to dragging the uprooted tree's to the fire and cutting off the roots before loading the tree's onto the fire. The roots were burnt towards the end of the afternoon as we'd found previously that the soil that remained on the roots, despite a good shaking, was prone to dampening-down the fire.

The weather was dry but the terrain was very uneven, lots of brambles doubling as 'trip-wires' and a drainage ditch traversing the area, so we took our time in moving around to avoid injury.

We all enjoyed the day, worked really hard and got loads done. Some of us were aching in places we'd not ached for some time! I hope that the enthusiasm and hard work of our 3 new attendees, Chris, Tom and Gareth, doesn't put them off future workdays when the muscle-aches kick in later this week!

Christine will be leading another day of birch thinning at Alderley Edge on 20th Feb, which we're already looking forward to:-)

Photo's by Adrian and Sue

Rhodybash at Lyme Park on Sunday 23rd January 2022

Today was another day of our favourite activity - rhodybashing: 11 of us were cutting and burning rhododendron in Coal Pit Clough so that the native species have a chance to return and increase the diversity of the woodland.  Issy, herself an ex-MNTVer but now a National Trust Ranger, taught us a new fire-lighting technique using cotton wool balls and vaseline as firelighters.

The weather was very kind to us (for January), but nevertheless the fire was appreciated.  We managed to clear a larger area on a difficult slope, though there is enough rhody left for another day!

Pip

Cancelled - workday at Styal on Sunday 16th January 2022

Today's workday at Styal has been cancelled.  The ranger tested positive for covid yesterday and will not be at work.

Given the short notice we have not arranged an alternative venue and instead look forward to seeing you at next week's workday at Lyme Park.

MNTV Committee

Birch thinning at Alderley Edge on Sunday 9th January 2022

For our first workday of 2022 we were at Alderley Edge, continuing the birch thinning on the heathland that we did on 17 October and 7 November last year.

Once we had got the rangers' tools to add to our own the 12 of us walked across Macclesfield Road and onto the heath.  We were a mix of regular volunteers, old hands seldom seen nowadays (Charlie, Tim L) and newcomer Justine.

The birch piles were as we had left them on 7 November.  We had not been able to get a fire going that day because everything was sodden, but this time Neil, Andy H and Jack got a roaring fire going, the key being regular use of Jenny's leaf blower to oxygenate the smouldering cuttings.  

Those of us not on fire duty used tree poppers (six in use today because Tim had got hold of more from Bickerton), mattocks, loppers (including two new pairs bought over Christmas) and bowsaws to pop out, pull up and cut down birch saplings.  There was a big stand of saplings near the fire and once that was largely cleared we spread out further across the heathland.

At elevenses we had a Pecan & Chocolate Garland baked by Daniel.  This was the first in a series of bakes in a baking subscription he got for Christmas:

We carried on popping, cutting and burning upto and after lunch.  At 14:30 we began to wind down and soon after turned the fire in and secured it with orange tape.  It was satisfying to have burned not only everything we cut down today but the birch piles left over from 7 November.

Thanks to Tim for letting us work unsupervised and to my colleagues for a fun and productive workday.

Post the workday, Tim emailed us to say "Just been over the road to the heathland, looking great, good work going on there".

Daniel