Sunday 29 April 2012

Turf Transfers at Dunham Massey 29 April 2012

Four brave volunteers made it past the road closures and restrictions associated with the Manchester Marathon to spend time at Dunham Massey working in the park.

The task was "edging" one of the drives in the park and using the resulting turf to accelerate the recovery of an area of bare top soil - where a badly eroded path had been patched with top soil - freed up by the construction of a new path in the gardens.  (Recycled turf covering recycled soil)....

We did a certain amount but the conditions were atrocious (heavy driving rain) - the rangers were needed elsewhere - so once most of the marathon had gone through we cleared up and went home.....leaving the staff to deal with the aftermath of the marathon!

Hopefully the turf that we did transfer will "take" and do well - it was certainly well watered!

Sunday 22 April 2012

Hare Hill's field drains 22 April 2012

Seven volunteers turned out on a wet morning to continue work on the systems that drain the park land around the Hare hill garden. Naturally / historically this area was quite boggy, but a network of ditches and later culverts drained the excess water allowing good pasture and trees to grow. Being underground the culverts were then forgotten until they failed and trees stated dying 5-10 years ago. Since then most of the problems have been dug up and sorted by various groups including ours. Some sections have of course presented greater challenges than others- and this is one of them.

A fairly large drain/culvert draining a flattish area between the lake and the gardens was at some stage replaced or repaired with a plastic pipe.  Only traces of the original culvert remain.  The section upstream of the plastic pipe is working well - then it hits the blocked plastic section and comes to the surface like a spring.
It then runs along a dug channel to the top of a bank before finding its own way down into a small valley, dropping suddenly into the bottom of the original culvert that we revealed on previous session.  The bottom end of blocked plastic pipe is about 2 feet down from the slab in the picture.
It continues down a slope running along the bottom of the original culvert (stone slabs)
- until the slope levels off in the bottom of the small valley. At this point the situation was very boggy - with it finding its way along the surface through grass and weeds over a wide area. We cut a new trench through this boggy section - about the depth of a spade blade and two spades wide directing the water straight though to the pit giving access to the top of the next section of working old culvert.
Shortly after we completed the new section of trench the pit down to the old downstream culvert started filling - it was not clear if this was due to increased flow from the rain, increased flow from our work, or the downstream culvert blocking as a result of debris from our work. As we had left the drain rods on the Ranger's vehicle we couldn't rod out the section in question - so that had to be left for another day. We had taken our coffee break in the gardeners "snug" and some volunteers went back there for lunch. We left a little earlier than usual just as the hail started!

Thursday 19 April 2012

Tapas meal at The Holly Bush, Bollington - Thursday 19th April

Seven MNTVer's and friends descended on The Holly Bush in Bollington to sample their Tapas menu. We ate a selection of tapas dishes to start, while waiting for our paella dishes to be cooked. Unfortunately, due to a mix-up (we believe we'd ordered 2 different paella dishes but the chef only received the order for one!) we didn't get to eat as much as we'd anticipated, but enjoyed the experience of sampling different dishes from the tapas menu that we wouldn't normally have tried:-)

Sunday 15 April 2012

Fencing in the dark peak (near Hayfield) 15 April 2012

Ten volunteers turned out and spent the day working in and around a small "plantation" near South Head Farm.

The weather looked beautiful but there was a cold wind especially when the patchy clouds covered the sun. The softtrack bringing tools and material on site with the old fence falling over The day didn't entirely go to plan - with two vehicles needing jump leads and a hydraulic leak putting the tractor / post knocker out of action - the posts had to be put in by hand.

A section of fence was replaced, along with two isolated broken posts in a different fence line. The new fence in a lot less sunshine A new "flake" was constructed and fitted (a small easily removed section of fence to allow the farmer to get sheep out of the plantation easily).

One of our volunteers inspecting the flake he madeMany hundreds of yards of other fence lines were also inspected with basic maintenance tasks being carried out. Some of the volunteers also spent some time patching up a bank that holds a small spring fed pond that is used as a source of water in the event of fire - though it is unclear how successful this will be.

Monday 2 April 2012

Bickerton Hill 1 April 2012

Thanks to Daniel for words and photos.

Six of us drove across the Cheshire Plain today to Bickerton Hill for a joint workday with the Merseyside NT Volunteers. The journey from Styal was unusually eventful because of the closure of a section of the A49. Gordon, road atlas in hand, navigated us around it with Adrian and Steve following in the car behind.

Our late arrival (10:15) didn’t prevent a brew and natter in Dave Morris’s (warden) cabin/workyard! After that refreshment the 11 of us got down to business and spent the day removing birch regrowth from an area of heathland. We did this by either pulling up the birch by hand or by lopping the stems off at ground level. Most clumps were as small as the one in the photo.



In the morning Dave took the newcomers up to Maiden Castle, an ancient hillfort. The views out over Wrexham, Chester and the Clwydian hills were spectacular. Moel Famau, the highest peak, was prominent on the skyline. Three of the herd of 17 Welsh ponies wandered up to say “hello.” They were moulting and big tufts of hair were coming out. Between them the ponies do a good job of keeping the undergrowth in check across the heath. NB The ponies are not "pet ponies" having grown up wild on the hills and mountains of Wales. It is not a good idea to approach or attempt to feed them.



The sun shone warmly all day and it was a pleasure to be working outdoors. We finished at 3 o’clock and got back to Styal at 17:15 via Middlewich and the M6/M56