Thanks to Sarah for leading on the day and for providing the words in italics a little further down....
The pictures are mine and to cover the main stages of laying the hedge more than the volunteers!
“Another great turn out today at Alderley Edge. Thirteen volunteers braved the cold to continue the hedge laying that the group started at the end of November. We had a mix of hedge laying talent amongst us - from complete novices to experienced old hands. Tim O’D took the novices for a introductory class, working to complete the section that the group had started last year; whilst a more experience group continued laying the section that the Congleton volunteers had previously worked on.
A pile of hedge cuttings soon amassed, much to the dismay of the third group who were trying to light a fire in the strong wind. It took over an hour, a lot of perseverance and some clever tactics (building a cardboard wind break around the base of the fire) before we could get the flames to catch properly. By coffee time (with special Waitrose cakes this week), the hedge layers were making good progress but we were starting to doubt that we would be able to burn even half of the brash that they were generating.
After the break, we turned all spare pairs of loppers to the task of cutting the brash up into really small pieces and loading the fire twig by twig. Eventually this paid off and by the end of the day we had not only completed one hedge row and laid over ten meters of another, but we had successful dragged, chopped and burned all the cuttings leaving the site neat and tidy for the next set of volunteers!"
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