Seven of us met Ranger Jason in the main car park and, as we were working down Red Lane which is near the entrance kiosk, Jason had arranged for the Lyme Park minibus to give us a lift back down the drive near to Red Lane.
We then walked part way up Red Lane and into a field on the left, over a stile.
As we walked towards the back of the field (which we'd removed Balsam from last year), we spotted some rogue plants, but the majority were down towards the railway line.
We found a convenient base to leave our rucksacks and the all-important cakes for elevenses, under the trees, and then we got to work.
The Balsam was still quite young, only David spotted a few plants during the day that would be flowering soon, the rest were fairly small (so lots of bending over required to get to them) and sometimes mixed in with nettles or brambles, but they usually pulled out quite easily without breaking the stems, so we got the roots out as well.
Part way through the morning, Ranger Claire arrived to help, bringing two youth volunteers with her.
At 11am we had our 'coffee break' and everyone gathered back under the trees. Usually the worksite leader provides cake by buying some or baking some, today was a bit more unusual because yesterday, at Lyme, MNTV had celebrated 40 years of volunteering - a massive achievement. A party was planned and a fabulous get-together of current and old members gathered to celebrate (see details in our 40th Blog).
Ally, our Chairperson, and Jenny, one of the committee members, had baked various delicious flavours of cupcakes, many with 40 MNTV toppers on them, and I'd been able to bring some of the ones that weren't eaten with me today - a real treat!!
After our break, we resumed our quest to find and destroy more Himalayan Balsam. The aim is to prevent them spreading further when the flowers turn to seed heads, because the seed heads burst spreading hundreds of seeds over a large area, ready to grow next year
After lunch we continued again, moving to different areas of the field and, even as we left to go home, we were still spotting more to destroy.
We made a huge difference to the amount of Balsam in the field, but there is still more. Hopefully we'll get another go at it when we return to Lyme next month.
It was a great day - it didn't rain and in fact the sun came out in the afternoon. We welcomed newbie James, and also Emma who'd only been out with us once before. We had some interesting chats on our breaks and it was a very relaxed and sociable day,
Sue B (Worksite Leader)
