Sunday 7th April - Hardcastle Crags

Looking at the Blog, it's 3 years ago since MNTV helped Ranger Alice sort out the wood piles in the compound and the woodstore :https://mntv.blogspot.com/2021/05/various-tasks-at-hardcastle-crags-on.html

Today was a very similar day. 

Five of us met in the main car park and Alice ferried 3 of us to the wood store and outdoor wood storage compound, which are close to Gibson Mill. Andy and Christine drove their own car so we had some transport in case Alice was called away.

We joined the Hardcastle Crags volunteers who work 2 Sundays a month, so there were about a dozen of us tackling the jobs in hand, which was to move the drying wood from the tarpaulin covered wood piles via the NT vehicle and unload it into the wood store, where it could fully drive before being used for heating and powering the Mill.

We then re-stacked and re-covered these wood piles to protect the remaining wood and there were now empty lengths where the new wood, being cut during the week, could be stored.

Over to the side of the outdoor compound there were smaller wood piles which hadn't been touched for a while. They were on uneven ground so the wood was piled on individual pallets instead of runs of 3 or 4 pallets, and stabilised underneath. We found some of the pallets had rotted away in places. We decided to use the spare pallets to create new small wood piles to carry this wood and cover with the taup. While we were throwing the wood from the rotting pallets over to the newly-sited pallets, Sue shouted to stop - she'd seen that some leaves had blown off a small pile of leaves and thought she could see the spines of a hedgehog close to where we were throwing the wood over. On closer inspection, it was a hog, having a sleep, and fortunately our antics hadn't disturbed it. We covered it with more leaves and moved away from the area. It seemed to be fine, even popping its nose out after to have a sniff around before going back to sleep. 

Later on, while moving another batch of wood, we came across a big Toad, who moved himself to a safe area once he'd been disturbed.

Some of the Hardcastle Crags volunteers left around lunchtime, so then we were then a much smaller group. After lunch, Alice suggested that a few of us took loppers to cut back the beech 'whips' re-growing across from the Mill.

We had a great day, got a lot done and it was really lovely working with Alice again,

Sue B