Balsam Bashing at Hardcastle Crags on Sunday 16th June

Sunday 16th June started off nice and sunny after we had a lot of rain on the Saturday.

As there were only 6 of us who said they were coming, Ally contacted them all to agree to car share, so Jenny and Andy made their own way there, Vincent picked up Tricia, and I picked up Laura, so we were not going out of our way to meet at Styal for a car-share.

Laura asked if we were going to Hardcastle Crags, I confused her by saying we were going to Hebden Bridge, but we still ended up at Gibson Mill for our lunch on the picnic table there.

We met Natalie at the ranger base, where she agreed that it had been so wet that the decision was made to harvest the Himalayan Balsam through the woods, and then have lunch at Gibson Mill.

We started off fine until we came to quite a wet patch and Andy disturbed a wasp who took exception to him.  So, we moved on until Victor disturbed another wasp that took a bit out of him. As we went down the paths, we met up with the general public who asked us what we were doing, and it gave us an opportunity to educate the public on what the Victorians brought over to the country.

We were also able to tell them that Hardcastle Crags would be on Countryfile on the BBC that night and Natalie would be on, describing the Ants and their hills and other creatures which were in the woods.

We then realised that the Ranger mile was a different distant to us all, and we were so glad to reach the Mill.

After lunch Natalie took us on a guided tour of the Mill.

We then slowly made our way back along the paths to another site of Balsam which we pulled up before we made our way home.

Group photo

Text from Neil. Photo from Nat.

Styal, in the orchard, on Sunday 9th June 2019

Eight of us, including Georgi who joined us for the first time, met with Craig and Dani, two of the Styal Rangers, in the main car park at 9.30am.
From there, Dani and Craig took their vehicles to the orchard to where we would be working, while the rest of us opted to walk there to take in the lovely sunny morning and have a chat.
After arriving at the orchard, Craig explained that we'd be doing a variety of tasks today: the grass in the orchard needed strimming, a new tree guard needed erecting and some of the existing tree guards needed re-positioning so they sat parallel to the road along with the rest of the tree guards, and a number of willow trees that were in the garden of one of the newly tenanted properties needed removing so the oak trees had more space and let more light in.
In true MNTV style, after a safety and tools talk, we got to work on the various tasks with enthusiasm to take advantage of the weather while it was being kind to us.

Girl Power! - although it was Tim and Dani who actually put up the tree guard:-)

We had a quick morning break around 11.15am, then were back to it.

Andy strimming the grass

Sadly the rain fell as predicted around lunchtime, so we had a wet lunchtime, but it dried up as we continued afterwards.

Georgi taking the strain while the willow was being felled

However that wasn't the last of the rain and it came down again during the afternoon!
There were more willow than we realised and, once felled, the trees took up more space on the ground than we expected so Craig and Dani left to collect the chipper and,

The chipper being loaded

as an additional task, we 'fed' the chipper and got rid of the majority of the felled willow trees.
A good day's work for us all, and very satisfying, particularly for those learning or trying new tasks for the first time:-)

Group photo

Photo's from Adrian and Sue 

Stakeout: preparing the Dahlia Walk on Sunday 2nd June 2019

The gardens at Biddulph Grange are nationally famous, and one of the main attractions in the height of summer is the Dahlia Walk.

At its peak, hundreds of dahlias line the walk, and the team of gardeners are currently busy bringing on the plants in the greenhouses, ready for planting out. Our job was to put in stakes for every one of those plants!

Growing dahlias in the greenhouse

We worked to a careful plan of how many stakes were to be put in each bed, and how far apart they had to be. It took a bit of working out initially, but once we'd figured it out we soon hit our stride.

Neil and Lisa measure the required gaps

Each bed had three rows of stakes, with the height of the stakes increasing from front to back so that the smaller plants can go into the front and the taller plants at the back. At lunchtime we enjoyed the luxury of our own mess room (handy when it started to rain) and a fine array of biscuits and treats laid on for us by Leslie, the gardener.

The Dahlia Walk almost fully staked

By mid afternoon we'd finished the stakes, and dug holes next to the stakes in some of the beds ready for the plants to go into. We then had half an hour looking round the gardens before home time.

Group photo at the end

No workday on Sunday 26th May due to Bank Holiday

Stone picking at Erddig on 19th May 2019

Eight of us turned out for a day of stone picking at Erddig... you may wonder what stone picking is... it is exactly that, picking stones out of the soil!!  not very exciting but our team rallied throughout the day and we enjoyed our breaks and a visit to see some donkeys.... read on...

Following on from the expansion of many NT houses parking facilities Erddig have created extra gravel parking spaces in what was an old grassy orchard area.

We were tasked to work in two areas; a larger space beneath some apple trees and an area of the car park that was between parking spaces.  The area beneath the apple trees will be overseeded with a wild flower mix (see below).

The area under the apple trees was raked over and stones were removed, it was back breaking work with very little improvement to show for our efforts apart from the ever increasing pile of stones in the back of the truck!

Team working at its best!













The second work area was digging over some triangle shaped borders between car parking areas... easy you might think... but not when the car park starts to fill up and cars decide to park either side of the triangle whilst you are working!

Let the digging commence ...

Making it all look easy!

After finishing a few triangles we decided to break for tea and cakes, but how do we stop cars from parking here? ....

Keep off, we are on a tea break!

Unfortunately when we got back from break the inevitable had happened and we were faced with trying to continue between parked cars, I wouldn't park my car there!!

Mind the Gap!!

All top soiled and ready for seeding.

It soon got to lunchtime and we were informed that there was a donkey parade taking part in the grounds so we ventured down to the house to take a look...

The donkeys were a welcome distraction from stone picking, and we learned a two things 1) the donkeys are cared for on the estate and 2) there are over 180 varieties of apples grown at Erddig.  I wonder if donkeys like apples...

Advertising the group

It was all worth it at the end of the day...

Team MNTV (Neil was taking the photo)

Helping with a bird survey & building an insect 'resort' at Lyme on Sun 12th May

Lyme Park has a diverse set of habitats, but the Rangers are always happy to have more information on what exactly is living where. Last year they undertook a survey of the birds on the estate and this year, 8 from MNTV helped out, on the workday this Sunday. The information that is gathered will help towards planning for increasing species diversity and protection of rare species.

For our part in the survey we were on Park Moor - the highest area of Lyme, a moorland composed of grasses, sedges and reeds - and Cluse Hey, which is a mixture of woodland and moor.

After some training in recognising the songs and appearance of the two main bird species that we were expected to see, skylarks and meadow pipits, we split into three groups to cover the areas in the morning. In addition to the two common moorland birds already mentioned, we saw buzzards, swallows and various corvids.

After lunch, one group continued the survey and another went back to the Ranger's office to help with constructing not an insect hotel, but an insect resort, using wood offcuts and recycle pallets and posts. The work wasn't finished at the end of the day, but it is quite a task. The Rangers are hoping to build 4 or 5 of these. Getting them to their destinations will be a challenge as it already took 4 of us to lift the frame before we started adding the wood for the nooks and crannies. 

Text from Mick and photo's from Adrian

No workday on Sunday 5th May due to May Bank Holiday