Removing deer fencing at Lyme Park on Sunday 20th May

Ten of us met Dan, the Ranger, in the main car park at Lyme today.
He took our rucksacs and tools to the worksite in his vehicle and we all walked to where we would be working, which was past where the MNTV 30th anniversary oak tree is planted with it's tree guard and plaque. We were pleased to see that the oak is growing well:-)
We were working quite far down the main drive, in fact it was at the first wooded area on the right as you enter Lyme Park just past the entrance kiosk.

The fencing before we started removing it

The area, along with many others, had a wooden posted fence all around it to protect it from damage by the deer. Having assessed the situation, the Rangers had decided to put smaller fences around individual trees that still needed protecting so the main fence could be removed enabling the deer to roam under the trees.

Work in progress

It was a lovely hot day and we worked hard removing the wooden posts, filling in the holes that were left by the posts and removing and winding up the steel wire fencing into large drum-like shapes so it would fit into the bucket of the tractor.

Making a difference

By the end of the day we had removed all but 4 of the wooden posts (the ones left were hard to get out so were going to be chain-sawn off later by the Rangers). We'd also taken out a couple of gate posts with the help of the tractor, which also helped us clear the whole site afterwards as Dan used the tractor to do many trips to the Rangers store, taking all the posts and fencing, for recycling/disposal later.

The tractor helping to remove a gate post

It was a lovely sunny day but we were able to work in the shade quite a lot, which helped!

Stopped for lunch!