Ivy clearance at Quarry Bank Mill on Sunday 15th December 2024

We had a good turnout for our last workday of the year as ten of us joined ranger Stuart for a bit of hedge maintenance.

We were working in Apprentice Lane, which runs from the apprentice house to the Methodist church in Styal village.  The hedges had not been cut back for many years and therefore had ivy growing right through them.  In fact in places the ivy was the only thing keeping the hawthorn hedge standing!

So we set to trying to untangle the ivy by cutting/pulling it out.  Time passed so quickly because you actually felt you were achieving something that it was time to pack up before we knew it!

We had a lot of people passing by as we were working, some asking what we were doing and some very kindly thanking us which makes it all worthwhile.

Thanks to Stuart for a great workday and thank you to my colleagues for their good company and hard work.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Christine 

Christmas in Cymru ... not quite the weekend we were expecting ... 7th/8th December 2024

It's becoming a tradition ... the first full weekend in December is our Christmas meet - once again in Snowdonia because the bunkhouse is free!

Six of us travelled across to Hendre Isaf on Friday evening, all glad to arrive before Storm Darragh hit.  We all received the Government red alert message as we drove - saying the red alert began at 3am on Saturday and giving advice about how to prepare for loss of power/electricity and generally keep safe.

Sure enough, the gales blew all night and it was no surprise that Saturday's workday was cancelled because of the danger of working near trees, flying debris and it being unsafe to be out and about.

What to do now ... well, Denise and Martin both reached for jigsaws of which the bunkhouse had several and we set to work solving them.  We had this 500 piece one done by 11am.  Neil was given the honour of putting in the last piece!

On several occasions the lights all went out, only to (thankfully!) come back on seconds later.  The rain hammered down and the wind blew - at times shaking the road sign outside the bunkhouse!

After lunch the weather had calmed down a little and the rain had stopped.  Five of us went on a safely-away-from-trees walk on the road up the valley to the tiny hamlet of Ysbyty Ifan.  The river was in spate and was thundering under the bridge.  We looked round the church then headed back.  Denise used the privvy of a widow who at 86 years old is still farming sheep!

Back at base we freshened up and after a couple of hours were tucking into a scrumptious Christmas dinner of turkey (nut roast for Tim) with all the trimmings followed by Mary's homemade Christmas pudding with brandy sauce.  That was a good meal!

Secret Santa then called and everyone received a gift:

We were determined to complete the 1000 piece jigsaw that Martin had started in the morning, and got it done by 10:15pm.  Trees and sky held us up for quite a long time at the end.  Neil again fitted the last piece!  Three pieces were missing and Daniel noted this on the inside of the box lid.  It was eight months to the day since the puzzle was last completed and on that date there were two missing pieces!

On Sunday the wind had died down a lot and Lewis confirmed by phone that the workday was on.  He met us at Hendre Isaf at 9:30 and we drove in his pickup and Neil's car to the worksite near Ty Mawr.  We passed last year's worksite on the way!  The task was to remove tree guards from oaks that had not been tended to for years and cut down any invasives like birch.  The ground was very steep in places and we had to work and tread carefully.  The old guards were bagged up and dragged down the slope to the carpark.

Lewis is the TWIG (The Woodland Investment Grant) ranger and will be with the Trust for about 2 years to oversee planting of 100,000 saplings across Snowdonia.

We finished the workday at 12:30, had lunch at Hendre Isaf, tidied and swept up then left for home.  All in all it was an excellent weekend, and more sociable than ever because of the enforced day indoors on Saturday.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Daniel

Tree thinning at Alderley Edge on Sunday 1st December 2024

We gathered at a small carpark at the bottom of Alderley Edge, by an old quarry on the first day of winter.

There are two patches of meadow above and below the quarry face that have saplings in and the task was to remove the samplings so it stays an open area.

We set to work in the upper meadow, pulling up birch, beech and sycamore saplings, but leaving the oak and broom.

We took tree poppers. spades, mattock, saws and loppers. The poppers weigh around 10kg, so they are hard work to carry around, but they do a good job at pulling up trees by their roots.  The trees were well anchored in and even with the tree poppers hard to get out.

We quickly realised that despite it being December the weather was warm, so when the drizzle stopped we took off our coats - I even took off my jumper.

We had Ginger cakes and mince pies at morning break. It was a lovely spot in the winter sunshine - we could hear woodpeckers in the trees.

Some of the “saplings” were too big to get the jaws of a tree popper round, so after lunch we moved to a different area above the quarry face and picked out the “easier” ones.

We had a good day, and you can see from the photo that we made a difference.

Jenny

Cancelled - workday at Hayfield on 24th November 2024

Unfortunately due to the recent snow and continued freezing temperatures up until the weekend the ranger could not confirm whether ground conditions were going to be suitable for the planned task until Saturday at the earliest.  As such, he decided reluctantly to cancel the workday.

The Hayfield rangers look forward to hosting us in January when hopefully the weather will be more favourable!

Tree thinning at Lyme Park on Sunday 17th November 2024

Six volunteers from MNTV turned up today, despite rain being forecast for most of the afternoon.

We met Chris the Ranger in the main car park and drove from there to the Knot car park.  Two joined Chris in his vehicle with the rucksacks and tools to drive down West Drive and up towards Paddock Cottage where they waited for the rest of us to join them.

From there we each carried a bowsaw and pair of loppers to the worksite, which was a densely wooded area, which we got to along a narrow, muddy and steep path.  We took it carefully!!

Once there, Chris sprayed white spots on numerous birch trees and a few oak that needed felling so that more light would flood the area enabling the remaining oak to grow strong and proud.

It was dry to start off, then the rain came - the question was asked "Is this the rain that's forecast at 2 o'clock and will last all afternoon, which has come a bit early?".  Fortunately, no it wasn't.  The rain ceased after a while - phew!!

We stopped for a coffee and cake break and it started raining!!  The same question was asked -  "Is this the rain that's forecast at 2 o'clock and will last all afternoon, which has come a bit early?".  Fortunately, no it wasn't.  It stopped after a while - phew!!

We tried to start a fire using an out-of-date bandage with a lint pad of Neil's, some paper of Adrian's and Mary's flint and steel fire starter kit.  It all worked well until we realised that the wood we were using as kindling wasn't dry enough to burn.  That was very frustrating!

However, overall we made good progress, felling plenty of trees and leaving them to rot down where they lay.  Then, just us we were starting to feel pleased with how things were going, the rain came again - it wasn't even 1 o'clock by then but the response to the question asked this time was Yes, it did seem likely that this was the 2pm rain that had come early, and it would likely continue all afternoon.

We agreed not to stop for lunch, but to finish felling all the trees with the white spots and then head home.

We enjoyed the day, working hard and having a chat, but it was a shame we couldn't get even more done.....maybe next time?

Sue B

Rhodybash at Alderley Edge on Sunday 10th November 2024

Eight of us met up at the Wizard car park before heading off to the rangers yard to collect tools.  We were asked about our ability to use the winch to pull up rhody roots and all, but decided to start without it and review the situation at brewtime.

Thanks to Jenny for scouting out the worksite earlier in the week as I would definitely not have found it otherwise.  It was near Holy Well:

I have to say this was one of the most challenging worksites I have worked at.  It was steep and the rhody we were pulling up was in very wet boggy ground.  Wellies would have been a good idea!

We observed the two minutes' silence for Rembrance Sunday, had brew and decided it wasn't a good idea to go and collect the winch.

Jean found the terrain hard, after hip replacement, so left and the rest tried as best we could to make some impression on the task given us.  It became very drizzly and the weather was closing in making it even more slippery so we called it a day.

Thank you to my colleagues for their hard work in trying conditions.

Christine

7 Go to Biddulph for the annual Dahlia clear up - Sunday 3rd November

On Sunday 3rd November, 7 of us met in the Biddulph carpark ready to tidy up the Dahlia beds, preparing for tulip bulbs to be planted. 

We were surprised to see the Dahlias looking so good, it’s been a mild October.

Although there weren’t many suitable for putting in a vase, we did salvage a few flowers for Visitors to take home. 

Holly and Jack had it all well organised, they had already been through the plants and checked that they matched the labels, some were diseased so were left unlabelled and to be thrown away. Some were labelled “unknown” as they were pretty but the variety couldn’t be identified, they will be planted in one of the other beds for interest next year.  I couldn’t help thinking of Donald Rumsfeld and his speech about “ known unknowns”, and “unknown unknowns”.

We spent the day chopping off the vegetation, leaving enough to keep the label in place. Pulling up the Dahlia corms and loading them into labelled boxes, ready for cleaning.  Working at Biddulph has its fun side (lots of people walking past to say hello) and it’s challenges (the only access to the dahlia walk is via steps so all the waste and Dahlia corms have to be carried in baskets to the vehicle)   

I didn’t count how many loads of compost we walked to the vehicle but I think the back of the little truck was emptied about 10 times.  We must have packed up  60 different varieties of Dahlia. By the end I was tired but happy, we almost got the whole walk done, just one bed left at the end. 

Thanks to the Biddulph team for looking after us so well, and good luck washing down all those corms without losing the labels.  

Birch thinning at Alderley Edge on Sunday 27th October 2024

With a joint workday with Merseyside planned at Bickerton Hill near Nantwich, Daniel was excited to be there, unfortunately Ranger Sam had us coming in November rather than October and we had to think again.  We said to Merseyside we have asked Dunham to host us, Dunham said they couldn't so Ally contacted what seems to have become our back up worksite, Alderley Edge.  They immediately said Yes!  Thank you Issy!  Workday sorted!  Daniel was so looking forward to the workday that when his flu got the better of him another worksite leader was needed.  In stepped Jenny.

Here are Jenny's words from the day:

7 of us meet at the Alderley Edge carpark, on a cold but lovely bright sunny day. 

We walked to the tool store and collected tree poppers, bow saws and loppers.  We then went across the road to the woods to pull birch saplings.  It was lovely to see how things have changed since we first started work in this area.  There are now several oak and fir saplings, bramble, fern, moss, bilberries and we even found a few frogs. 

The drainage ditches have silted up, so the land is a bit wetter, but you no longer have to jump ditches of standing water.

We spent the day using our hands and tree poppers to pull up the saplings.   One or two trees were big enough to need sawing down and digging out.  We left them all in a few habitat piles around the site.  The entrance to the site was overgrown, so we cut back vegetation along the track leading to the woods so a tractor and trailer could get down it. 

Rhodybash at Lyme Park on Sunday 20th October 2024

Seven of us met Ranger Jason in the main car park at 9.30am.  Despite the remnants of Storm Ashley in the air, four of us walked up to the Stables to collect tools and the other three took a car up to join them.

Once we had each donned a yellow high-viz vest, collected a pair of work gloves, a bowsaw and a pair of loppers, some of us got into Jason's vehicle to get a lift to the bottom of Lantern Wood and the rest of us walked.  Once there, we carried our tools up the hill to the worksite, stopping for a break in the Lantern where Jason gave us a safety and tools talk, before walking up to the fire site.

There was a lot of rhody already cut and stacked waiting to be burned, so we started moving it nearer to where the fire would be and sawing it into smaller pieces.

With the rain and the wind, and the fact that a lot of the wood was already wet apart from some that had been covered by a large tarpaulin overnight, it took quite some time to get the fire going enough to burn a decent amount of wood.

Despite the rain being on and off all day, we managed to get quite a bit done. We had our coffee break inside the Lantern out of the rain, but by the time lunchtime came it was dry enough to sit near the fire.

By the time we finished loading the fire in the afternoon in time for it to die down before we left, the sun was out but, sadly, this was short lived and we got drenched on our walk back to the car park a short while later.

It was still a nice day and we were pleased that we got quite a bit done.

It was also great to meet Ranger Jason, as well as Stephanie and Bethany, our two newcomers,

Sue

         

Pond work and Buckthorn removal at Formby on Sunday 13th October 2024

Seven volunteers met up with ranger Al at the Lifeboat Road car park who gave us directions to the worksite which was a good 10 minute walk from the car park in the dunes behind the caravan park.  We did manage to get slightly lost on the way to the pond and on the way back to the car park later!

Al explained that the ranger team have created a series of pond slacks with a hope that these could be used for newts to lay their eggs, over time the ponds have become overgown with vegetation.  Al showed us one pond that had been cleared by volunteers the previous week, it looked good and I thought easy task this will take no time..... how wrong was I.  

Each pond is double fenced (to stop dogs from entering), the first hurdle was actually getting over the fences as they were quite high and some of us have little legs!  This is where Al's step stool comes in, Al thinks of everything and even brought a tub of biscuits - thank you.

Pond - before vegetation removal

Shovelling out vegetation around the pond was quite hard work as the sand was quite wet and some plants had fairly deep roots.  There were three tasks around the pond: remove vegetation from the outer edge of the pond, dredge pond using plastic rakes and pulling out buckthorn using a tree popper.  We split up into groups around the pond and got to work.  

  

Pond dregding

After an hour or so it really was time for a break and we were able to sit down and sample Mr Kipling's finest fruit pies, bakewell tarts and chocolate logs.  We definately needed this break, the weather was fine and the sun was peeping through the haze so it was getting quite warm with the physical work and mild day.

We saw a few frogs and some newts...

Frog leaping into the water (top left)

Newt

At lunchtime Al was telling us about the plans for the overgrown dunes area (500 acres), the rangers are looking at the possibilty of grazing cattle in the dunes over the winter months as the vegetation is so dense that in places it is waist high and cattle grazing is the only way to reduce it.  The rangers have estimated that one cow and calf could munch through one acre per year so they are going to need quite a few cows and it will be a very long project!  The cows will be fitted with GPS collars that act as a virtual fence that will buzz if the cows are straying out of the area.  

Pond - after clearance

After lunchtime we had removed as much vegetation as was possible and it was decided to move onto removing buckthorn from outside the pond compound.  Again we split up into groups with some people choosing to use the tree poppers (this definitely needed two people as the roots of the buckthorn are very deep and the tree popper effectively snaps off part of the root) and other people used the good old loppers which were much easier to use.

Buckthorn removal with tree popper

What a lovely day we all had, we didn't get to see the beach or the sea (think the tide was too far out) and the worksite was too far to walk anyway.

p.s. apparently there are over 30 slack ponds.... to be continued at a future workday, no doubt.

Denise
Worksite Leader  

Rhodybash at Park Hall, Hayfield on Sunday 6th October 2024

Today, we had a good sunny day rhodybashing at Park Hall, Hayfield.  There were two bonfires going which is always fun.  Most of the rhodies have been cleared from within the walled area of Park Hall with a few scattered areas hanging on and small areas of regrowth - a big improvement on how it looked a few years ago thanks to many visits by our group and others.  The ranger thanked us for all our work.

Martin

Birch pulling at Bickerton Hill on Sunday 29th September 2024

 Three of us returned to Bickerton Hill for the first time since June 2014, we were working with ranger Sam and his spaniel dog, Will.

It was a beautiful sunny autumnal day, the worksite was a short five minute walk up the hill from the car park.

When we arrived at the worksite Sam explained that the birch had taken over the heath and had been sprayed approx a year ago.  The team were trying to bring the area back to heathland with ferns, heather, blackberries, bilberries, gorse and bracken.

The birch tress were small enough to pull out of the ground so we didn't need any tools.

Heathland before birch removal

Birch before removal

Area cleared of birch

Birch pulling

During the day Sam drove his tractor onto the site and started to remove the stacked piles of birch that we had pulled.

Sam's tractor removing birch from site

Volunteers with Will the Spaniel

Will the spaniel had a great day running around the heath, there were lots of people walking dogs so he met lots of lovely four legged friends.


During the day I took photos of the various plants/fungi in the area.

Area cleared of birch

At the end of the day we were all shattered but felt a great sense of achievement, such a small group had achieved a big task.

End of the day photo

We are due to return to Bickerton later in October and will be joined by the Merseyside group.  

Denise 

Worksite Leader