Alderley Edge - 24 November 2013

Ten of us spent today laying a section of hawthorn and blackthorn hedge near Daniel Wood, continuing work begun by the Sale volunteers two weeks ago.  Our group was a mix of old hands and new faces.  Reaching the worksite required a fifteen minute walk through muddy fields, and warmed us up nicely for the task.  Twenty Congleton and Macclesfield volunteers joined us after half an hour and worked on the hedgerow perpendicular to ours.

There were several parts to our job:
- first, taking down a 40-meter section of wire fencing and coiling up the wire
- pruning the hedge in such a way that the thorn trees could be laid to the left as we looked at the hedge
- laying the hedge and knitting it together using hedging stakes that we had whittled
- burning the brash (it burned very well and at one point the flames shot 12 feet into the air!)

hedgelaying and pruning
(the Macclesfield and Congleton volunteers are in the distance)

The weather was cold all day but mainly dry.  Elevenses and lunch were taken round the bonfire.  Daniel's Chocolate Chip & Vanilla Marble Traybake went down very well.  All 25 pieces were eaten!

When we packed up at 3:45pm in fading light we had laid 25 metres of hedge and pruned another 25 metres to the corner of the field.  Tim Ryan (Ranger) was pleased with our work.  He said the hedgelaying season runs until the end of February and was agreeable to booking us in for workdays in January and February so that we can continue this section of hedge (or other sections in adjacent fields).