Birch thinning at Alderley Edge on Sunday 9th January 2022

For our first workday of 2022 we were at Alderley Edge, continuing the birch thinning on the heathland that we did on 17 October and 7 November last year.

Once we had got the rangers' tools to add to our own the 12 of us walked across Macclesfield Road and onto the heath.  We were a mix of regular volunteers, old hands seldom seen nowadays (Charlie, Tim L) and newcomer Justine.

The birch piles were as we had left them on 7 November.  We had not been able to get a fire going that day because everything was sodden, but this time Neil, Andy H and Jack got a roaring fire going, the key being regular use of Jenny's leaf blower to oxygenate the smouldering cuttings.  

Those of us not on fire duty used tree poppers (six in use today because Tim had got hold of more from Bickerton), mattocks, loppers (including two new pairs bought over Christmas) and bowsaws to pop out, pull up and cut down birch saplings.  There was a big stand of saplings near the fire and once that was largely cleared we spread out further across the heathland.

At elevenses we had a Pecan & Chocolate Garland baked by Daniel.  This was the first in a series of bakes in a baking subscription he got for Christmas:

We carried on popping, cutting and burning upto and after lunch.  At 14:30 we began to wind down and soon after turned the fire in and secured it with orange tape.  It was satisfying to have burned not only everything we cut down today but the birch piles left over from 7 November.

Thanks to Tim for letting us work unsupervised and to my colleagues for a fun and productive workday.

Post the workday, Tim emailed us to say "Just been over the road to the heathland, looking great, good work going on there".

Daniel