Sunshine Shade

Three of us spent today making temporary repairs to footpath in the northern woods with Tim Ryan (warden) and Andy (long-term volunteer). The Nationalt Trust's Cheshire Countryside Wardens have taken over the land management of the estate and a priority is to drain and repair sections of footpath that have become waterlogged and boggy.

We started the day by "shovelling slop off the path" - to quote Tim - and wheelbarrowing it to one side. Next we dug a drainage ditch across the path and finished by edging the path with two large beech logs. In due course the edges of the path will be defined with more logs/fencing and the path surfaced with stone chips.

At 2 o'clock the heavens opened and we had a torrential downpour for 30 minutes. It didn't dampen our spirits too much and we saw proof positive that our drainage channel worked!

update on some previous work

I thought I would share a quote out of an email from a member of staff at Dunham Massey....
I have had the opportunity to look at the progress of the hedge that you
guys laid earlier in the season. It looks great, it's all taken and it's
shooting away like mad. Hopefully it'll be possible to continue the work
next year.

If you could possibly pass on my thanks for the hedgelaying work to the
other members of the group when you get the chance, I'd appreciate it.
Nice work!

Lyme Park 21 June 09

Six volunteers turned out to Lyme park and spent the day replacing a section of fence on the boundary.

The sections either side had already been done by other volunteers - so it was "just" a
question of filling in the gap and sorting out the slightly odd endings on the previous sections.


One new "king" post (large post with bracing that is used to tension the wire) had to be dug in and there was a layer of stone that made this quite hard work. The intermediate posts were driven by hand before the new netting was tensioned and fixed. I think you should be able to spot the differences between the before and after photos!

Bracken Bash - Hayfield 13 June

I was on holiday for this one - so thanks to M. for the words...

We had a great day out at Hayfield today, as per usual. We were 10 of us in attendance

With us was Shane and Mark and we had a very good productive day backen bashing with Jungle Bashers (long, almost like mashetie style or sword like "weapons"). We cleared most of the hillside and Shane is planning to get us back in autumn next year to plant trees there. They have been contacted by a local lady who has said that she wants to donate money for tree planting. Fingers crossed, would be great to go back and continue the project.

In fact, MNTV has been tree planting there before and you can see that the trees are well established and are making a real difference to the look of the countryside.

Great day all together with the sun shining, good banter and loads of bracken being NO MORE:

I'm wondering if I planted any of those trees.... as one of my first sundays with the group was tree planting up there some years ago - I'll have to check!

Whaley Water Festival 13 June 2009

A fun day was enjoyed exploring the various activities at the Whaley Bridge Water Festival in the sunshine. From the feedback I received (unfortunately I was away with work) it appears that everyone was impressed by Philippa's swing band; so much so that they attended 2 performances. Well done Philippa! The other highlight seems to have been a free ride along the canal. I still haven't managed to find out whether anybody tried the hog roast.

Big Catchup...

I've got so far behind on this -- and it will now all display out of order -- but for the record...

• 26 April 09 - we had to cancel,


• 3 May - five volunteers from our group and a number from a Macclesfield group turned out to get on with the drainage problems in the fields around Hare Hill Gardens.


• 8-10 May - A number of volunteers enjoyed a weekend awauy at Clumber Park in North Nottinghamshire


• 17 May - Six volunteers and three local staff installed a larger drain pipe to take surface water off "the Edale road" ~(not a road - hardly a track in places) and under the dry stone wall - this involved taking down the wall, removing the old inadequate pipe, installing the new one and rebuilding the wall. We retreated to a barn for lunch and timed it just right to avoid a torrential downpour and reemerged into sunlight to almost complete the job! - The staff had to go back with a joining piece to connect the two new sections of pipe together....


• 31 May Nine volunteers turned out on the hottest day so far this year and worked in a section of Quarry Bank Garden that is not yet open to the public. When the garden was initially purchased it appeared to stop at a large bank of bushes with the path curving round in a bend and continuing up the hill back towards the center of the garden. It has been since discovered that another path used to continue - and work has begun to explore what remains of the garden beyond. Tree work has been started removing certain conifers that didn't belong and we spent the day clearing the debris from the slopes into pilse that will in due course be chipped....


• 7 June Eight volunteers spent the morning removing "Himalayan Balsam" from areas of "grass" - most ly bare soil - in the new carpark at Dunham Massey. The balsam is a annual plant (grows from seed each year) and is a pain because it doesn't belong here and smothers everything else. It can only spread itself 8-10 feet unless it catches a ride so the hope is to erradicate if from these areas now there are tentative plans to get rid of it from the areas round the carpark - but that is a longer term project. Some of the afternoon was spent removing Birch saplings from among planted oaks (to allow the oaks to get going and take over)- but in view of heavy rain we called it a day a little early.

Visit to Macclesfield heronry, 3 June 2009

The beautiful warm sunshine was an added bonus this evening and a good crowd of us collected in the beer garden of the Leather's Smithy. The warmth had obviously encouraged the hatching of mayfly as they swarmed everywhere, which was a spectacle in itself. After a quick drink, we wandered alongside the reservoir and through the pine forest to the heronry reserve. Fortunately, there was a fair amount of heron activity; we saw several heron returning to their nests from fishing excursions and were amazed by the noisy welcome they received. I think the other chap at the heronry, however, enjoyed overhearing the MNTV banter more than the herons!! On climbing up to the view point, we saw more heron in their nests and perched on the very topmost branches, which appeared to us rather precarious. As the herons settled down, we made our way back along the other side of the reservoir to the pub. Since it was still warm and sunny, we brought our drinks out to the beer garden but by this time the midges were also out and we proved to be a good food source! Despite our itchy souvenirs, the evening proved popular and was enjoyed by everyone.