Himalayan balsam bashing at Hardcastle Crags on Sunday 30th July 2017

Another fantastic workday at Hardcastle Crags!
Four of us made the journey to meet up with Natalie (NT Ranger), at the National Trust estate office.
From there, we walked back down the hill to one of the main car parks and surveyed the vast quantities of Himalayan balsam before us!

Ready, Steady..................lets get balsam bashing!  

Although Himalayan balsam(Impatiens glandulifera) looks attractive with it's pretty pink flowers, it is an non-native invasive species, and can grow 6 foot high. It's seed heads 'explode' when ripe, dispersing the seeds up to 7 metres away and it competes with local plants, suffocating the natural vegetation. Our task today was to get rid of as much of it as we could to enable the natural vegetation to grow.

Balsam, balsam everywhere!

After a Risk Assessment/safety talk, we got to work. We had taken slashers but, as we were mainly working on slopes and the balsam was in amongst ferns, trees and other vegetation, we all decided that pulling it out would be easier, snapping the stems below each of the lower nodules and smashing the lower nodules, to be sure that the balsam didn't re-root after it was thrown on the ground.

Biggest balsam of the day:-)

The weather was meant to be wet but, apart from a very brief shower, it remained dry and even sunny for some of the day.
Balsam pulling is a satisfying task and great as you can move around chatting to others while you're doing the work. We stopped for our usual coffee break. Sue had promised home-made banana cake, which had been taken from her freezer yesterday evening, as she had previously baked multiple cakes for a number of workdays. On unwrapping it, we found it was a fruit cake instead!
We didn't see much wildlife while we were working except for the company of a little fluffy robin, who came to visit us at break time and lunchtime.

......going, going ......

We worked well and pulled a lot of balsam between us, making a huge difference around the car park. Natalie worked with us all day, keeping us entertained and enthused with her knowledge of the area, the National Trust and life in general:-)

...gone!!  No balsam in sight!

 Photo's by Natalie.

Himalayan Balsam bashing at Styal on Sunday 23rd July 2017

Seven of us went to Styal and spent the day Himalayan Balsam bashing in a meadow near Twinnies Bridge.
Despite there being a lot of brambles and thistles in the area, we managed to get a lot done, and some of us even managed to pick some early Blackberries!
As the weather started to turn to rain in the afternoon, we decided to call it a day and head for home, pausing only for a group photo which was gatecrashed by a friendly and excitable dog.

Group photo........with dog......

......without dog!

Text and photo's by Adrian

Thistle thrashing at Lyme Park on Sunday 16th July 2017

A Magnificent Seven contingent turned out on a distinctly unpromising morning for a task described as back-breaking, where visible progress is not always obvious. It's always good to start a workday in hopeful mode!

As it was, the drizzle stopped just as we reached the worksite, and Chris the ranger explained the importance of controlling the thistles that popped up all over the field we were working in. Having allowed the bees and other pollinators to gain some benefit from the flowers, it was time to remove them before they went to seed.

Lisa takes down the enemy

Armed with slashers, we set about taking off the thistles close to ground level. Some were small and were easily sliced, while the bigger thicker ones required a concerted whacking. But down they came, one by one.

We let Lisa take this small patch ...

We covered a large area quickly, trying (and failing) not to get our feet too wet in the long damp grass. By the time we were ready to stop for lunch, we'd moved so far across the field we had to pack up from our first camp, and set up Camp 2, where we found a little froglet hiding in the grass.

Froglet at Camp 2

After lunch we continued to spread out, and the sun came out to make it a much more pleasant afternoon. To prevent repetitive strain, we kept switching between forehand and backhand (the 'Federer backhand' technique was particularly useful for removing bigger specimens!).

A panoramic of the full field - see if you can spot 5 MNTVers!

It was quite warm, and by 3pm we'd covered a good deal of ground, so shortly afterwards it was time to pack up, gather for a quick slasher-related group photo (meant strictly in the equipment sense - we're not rampaging killers - except of thistles!) and negotiate the A6 traffic home.

Footpath work at Lyme Park on 9 July 2017

This week six stalwart volunteers met Gary the Lyme Park ranger in the car park to make the short walk around the pond to the children’s adventure play area.  Built on a steep slope, the area has been damaged by the recent torrential water runoff and was currently closed to the public for repair.

The main task this week was next to the aerial runway, a complex of nets and towers for children to scramble through.  Unfortunately, parents had been using the adjacent hill as an impromptu footpath while following their children down the course and the resulting muddy mess necessitated the installation of a permanent path.

The rangers had already placed the edging boards up the steep slope and our job was to fit cross members to stop the infill slipping and to wheelbarrow the coarse stone up the path and lay it.  After compacting the first layer a top covering of finer sand-like aggregate was laid, giving the whole path a pleasing golden colour.  After completing the main task there was still time to repair some of the main path and dig some holes to plant some logs to make stepping stones for the kids to jump on.

Lunch was taken in an adjoining tree house and some people decided to search for their inner child, finding them on the slide and the fireman’s pole.

Thanks to Gary for providing us with an interesting task and staying with us all day.

Tim

Before, during and after (photos: Adrian)

Hare Hill workday on 2 July 2017

Today we visited Hare Hill near Alderley Edge for the first time this year.  The NT are investing in the property and we arrived to the sight of a half-built permanent visitors building opposite the wooden kiosk.  The worktask had been billed as pondwork or culvert work but changed to ‘clearing out a silted up Victorian cattle trough’.

In the morning five of us worked on the cattle trough, using spades and shovels to clear the silt from the trough and wheelbarrowing the silt/mud to a nearby oak tree where it was dumped, while Hazel, Madeleine and Geraldine balsam bashed near the Cascades.  It became clear we had cleared this same cattle trough in March 2015 and it was striking how much the grass and mud had encroached across the cobblestones since.  We all gathered for lemon traybake at elevenses and lunch.  After lunch Hazel departed, Madeleine and Geraldine resumed balsam bashing and the five of us cut away the grassy sods covering the cobbles and cleaned the cobbles using handforks and trowels.

During the day several groups of people walked on the footpath near the cattle trough and came over to ask us what we were doing and why.

It was a beautiful summer day to be outdoors and we were pleased with the refurb we achieved.  We finished at 3 o'clock and returned the wheelbarrows and hand tools to the rangers' shed and gave them a good clean.  We strolled back to the car park through the walled garden which was full of flowers in bloom and families sunbathing and playing games on the lawn.

Daniel Black

Photos: Daniel Black and Karin Frood