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
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