Rhody bash at Lyme on Sunday 29th March 2015

What a wet day!!

Despite the forecast of rain and winds for most of the day, 5 of us turned up to meet Chris (Lead Ranger at Lyme) in the main car park. We all remembered that the hour had just gone forward and turned up at the correct time:-)

We took 3 vehicles to Knott car park, parked up and carried the tools up the steps and onto the ridge, walking towards Paddock Cottage, where we have cut back rhododendron previously.
The area was a lot clearer than on our last visit so other volunteer groups must have been busy up there in the meantime.

Despite the rain, Chris got the fire going quickly, and it wasn't long before the long, intertwined branches of rhody were being cut down and dragged nearer to the fire, where they were cut into smaller lengths to go on the fire.

Chris had brought along a couple of A-boards to say that a rhody bash was happening in Lyme today in case any members of the public wanted to join us. I was sceptical thinking that no-one would be interested on such a miserable day but how wrong was I?!  Around 11am, a lady called Lynda was walking along the ridge, saw the notice and came down to join us:-) She worked really hard, cutting, dragging and burning. She stayed long enough to join us for a mid-morning break and lunch, finally deciding she'd better go home around 2pm - we hope we'll see her again.

We packed up around 3.15pm and took the tools back to the carpark. Chris was delighted with the amount we'd done and we were chuffed that we'd managed to make such a difference on such a wet day!
Hannah, one of our members, was also delighted because completing this workday has meant that she has just squeezed in her 50hours of volunteering with us before the 31st March deadline. This means that she will shortly receive her 12month 50hour NT volunteer card with all it's benefits - yippee!

Woops - we forgot to take a group photo at the end:-(

Culvert clearance at Hare Hill on Sunday 22nd March 2015

12 of us (including a newbie) spent a wonderful spring day clearing a culvert at Hare Hill with the Sale and Altrincham volunteer group. 

We are told what the task for the day is!

We split into groups to clear the drains, transport the mud away, and clear the mud and grass that supposedly hid the stone culvert underneath.  While the Sale group started on some rhododendrons.

We had red velvet cupcakes at break and lounged in the sunshine.

After a few hours, countless wheelbarrow trips and a lot of hard work we unveiled the culvert.  Matt and Neil placed stones to re-pave areas that needed repair.  The whole team joined together to fetch stones, clear the last of the mud, and wash down the paving (with Neil attempting to wash down several of the group). 

The culvert is exposed:-)

We all joined together for a fabulous team photo showing what a great job we had done.

Thanks again to everyone for a brilliant workday.
Lisa

Pub quiz at The Plough, Heaton Moor on Monday 16 March 2015

Seven of us met up tonight at The Plough in Heaton Moor for their Monday night pub quiz.  Tim Leadbetter was over from Dublin - tomorrow (Saint Patrick's Day) is a bank holiday.  Sadly, the quiz had deteriorated a lot since we last did it and only six teams took part and three of those left midway through!  The quiz was a comedy of errors with the barmaid faltering her way through the questions, anagrams that contained wrong letters and a mix up at the end with the marking.  NB some of the Dingbats were superb.  We had a good laugh though and Phil remarked that it had become a comedy night.  After the quiz we all played Rock & Roll Bingo and Andy scooped the jackpot!

Fence painting and rhody bashing at Speke on Sunday 15th March 2015

A couple of different tasks for the group today.

First off, painting the fence around the staff and kitchen part of the Marquee on the wildflower meadow. We had helped create the meadow by clearing the area of hay a couple of years before.
The Marquee is hired out for weddings and other events and is a five year trial. If successful, the Trust will replace it with a more permanent structure.

While part of the point of the painting was to slap on some preservative onto the wooden fence, it was also intended to make it less conspicuous. The Ranger felt the finished result did this very well.

With nine people from MNTV and three from our Cheshire sister group (plus two from Merseyside), the outside of the fence was painted by lunchtime.

As bits available for painting dwindled, several of the group headed off into Stockton Wood next to the car park to hunt down rhododendron that had escaped previous clearances.

After lunch, the rest of the group joined in, with just a couple of people working on the inside of the fence. Nearly as much time was spent searching for rhododendron to cut as cutting it, as various volunteer groups over the years have cut and burned most of what was there.

Text and photo's provided by Mick.

Hawthorn planting at Biddulph Grange Garden on 8 March 2015

Ten of us were at Biddulph today planting hawthorn trees.  We worked with gardeners Jon, Bob and Rob and planted the trees in three areas.  The main area was around the entrance to the driveway to the overflow carpark, the second was against the fences around the gardeners' toolstore/yard and the third was against the perimeter fence off the Long Walk.

Sadly we did not have yesterday's beautiful weather and it rained continuously from 10:30 until 1:30pm.  We were glad the volunteers' brew room (adjacent to the rangers' toolstore) was close by so we could take shelter from the worst of the rain.  Before lunch we spent fifteen minutes filling two cold frames with gravel.

After lunch Jon showed us the dahlias in the greenhouse.  The beds where they will be planted were pointed out to us later.  The weather improved a lot after 2 o'clock and it was ironic that when we left at 3:30 the sun was shining!

Tree thinning at Hayfield on Sunday 1st March

Ten of us joined 4 High Peak Rangers and their 3 dogs at Hayfield. The day started bright but unfortunately, later in the afternoon, it deteriorated into rain and sleet resulting in an early finish!

As planned, we met at 9.30am in the Sett Valley Trail car park and then drove to near Ashes Farm, where we left our cars, and piled into the National Trust mini-bus, to travel the rest of the way.

We were working in a couple of the plantations at Ashes Farm, thinning trees and making wood piles of the offcut branches. We also cut away the bark around the perimeter of some of the larger trees to create standing dead wood.

We had plenty of cake! - Karin made some wonderful flap jack, Sue D brought some delicious fruit cake and Sue B took some tasty banana loaf!

The bad weather started around 2pm when it began to rain which turned to sleet. The NT Rangers had to stop using the chain saws for safety reasons so, as the rest of us were quite wet by this point, we all decided to call it a day.

We loaded the tools back into the NT mini-bus for a return journey, but had enough time to pose for a group photo before leaving.

Despite the weather, as always, we look forward to a return visit to Hayfield in the Dark Peak.