Tree planting at Styal on Sunday 15th November 2020

14 MNTV volunteers met Vicky in the car park at Styal for a slightly later start time of 10am - great for a Sunday morning lie in!  It was another gorgeous autumnal day of bright sunshine, how lucky we were as it had poured it down with rain first thing in the morning.

The worksite was a field just a short five minute walk from the car park.  We arrived at the field which had been split into zones with markers, zones one and two were in the lower part of the field on a slope facing the mill.  Zone three was higher up the field and more level but poorly drained.

At the start of the workday Vicky gave the introductory COVID safety talk and explained the task was tree planting.  There was a variety of trees to be planted including birch, cherry, willow, elder, holly, guelder rose, goat willow, gorse, hawthorn, hazel and blackthorn.

The first and second zone had already been planted up by volunteer children, the trees in these zones were planted two metres apart in groups of 3 to 4 trees.  Firstly we started by filling in the gaps in zone two which was on a slope and quite difficult to dig because the ground was hard.  The group worked in pairs; one person to dig the planting holes and the other person to plant the trees in the holes and mark with a wooden stick. 

   Top of the field looking towards the mill

The field has recently come back into the Trust because the tenant farmer retired.  It is arable land and not the best quality and is being planted with trees and shrubs for flood prevention 'slowing the flow'.  The field is on a slope which faces the mill.

The tree planting project has been filmed by Countryfile who will be continuing to return to the site to follow its progress.  The trees were purchased with funding from City of Trees and the fencing, sticks and other shrubs were purchased from funding through the Peoples Postcode Lottery.  The overall planting site is approximately 2 hectares.

A socially distanced group tea break...

After finishing zone two we moved onto zone three planting at the top of the field, due to this part of the field having poor drainage it was much easier to dig the planting holes.

However the drainage was an issue in some places, below is a picture of how bad it was...

... so Martin took up the challenge of creating a drainage ditch to reduce the surface water so that we could plant in this area.

... and soon enough the water was draining away... 

Thank you to Sue who took this lovely picture of a stunning tree in zone three of the field.

Zone three planting in action (below).

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By the end of the day we had planted over 1000 trees and the project is ongoing.

8th November 2020 - no workday

Woodland work and clearing ditches at Dunham Massey on Sunday 1st Nov 2020

 A rather overcast morning saw 13 volunteers meet on the car park at Dunham before joining Sophie, N.T. Ranger, in the courtyard to collect more tools and to load all our equipment into her vehicle for transportation to site. It was a good 15 minute walk to where we were working in the upper plantation. 

So after a briefing on safety etc. and an explanation of our tasks for the day we split into 2 groups.

The first group were left to fell small trees which were either too close together or had squirrel damage, the relevant trees had been marked up prior to our arrival. 

The second group were asked to clear leaves, fallen branches and any other detritus from ditches that ran along the edge of the path and down further into the plantation.

Once the ditches were cleared everyone set too on the tree clearance. As we were making such good progress Sophie extended our area of working by marking more trees. 

We met some nice people who stopped and asked what we were doing or where they could find the deer, as they appeared to be hiding today, or just a general chat.

It was a pity that the weather turned against us later in the afternoon but I think everyone enjoyed the day.

Thanks to everyone who came and thanks to Sophie for an excellent work day. 

Text from Christine, who was the work site leader. Photo's from Christine, Adrian and Sue.

Removing fencing and planting trees at Styal on Sunday 25th October 2020

Fifteen of us met Vicky, the Styal Ranger, in the Quarry Bank Mill car park today at 10am. Fortunately we'd all remembered that the hour went back and turned up at the correct time:-)

After a safety, tools and Covid talk, Vicky explained that there were two tasks, removing barb wire fencing and posts in preparation for tree planting, and then planting some trees. A tools talk was given to those that hadn't removed barb wire fencing before, and safety glasses distributed (just in case!). Everyone was so keen to get going that the barb wire was removed very quickly and wound round in coils to be stored for future re-use. 

The posts were fast to follow, some 'snapping' because they were so rotten, whilst others taking a few of us to get them out, sometimes having to be almost dug out. Again, any that could be re-used later were kept separate from those that were rotten.

We stopped for a socially-distanced break mid-morning and Vicky and Sue went off to collect some tree's and canes.  The canes were to be placed by the side of each tree after it had been planted so the location of each tree could still be identified once the meadow grass grew taller than the trees in the Spring. Using canes is a relatively new idea for the National Trust, instead of using plastic tree protectors which not only are made of plastic and therefore not ecological, they also need removing once the tree trunk has grown to a certain circumference, thereby increasing the work load. Although tree-guards made from recyclable material are being trialled, for now the cane seems the best option.

We returned with quite a variety of tree's to plant. Vicky gave a demonstration of how to plant them, each species (other than the oak) were to be planted in groups of 3 or 4 or 5 to make them look more natural when established and were to be planted 2 metres apart (this wasn't so the tree's are social-distancing, along with us!, more that it gives them enough space to get established before they are thinned out in future years).

Once the other species were planted, the oak would be used to infill the gaps between them. 

Working in pairs, with one person digging the hole, then standing back while the other planted the tree and heeled it in, we'd planted most of them by lunchtime. Vicky collected, probably around 100 more trees and canes after lunch, including some different species.

We'd completely finished soon after 3pm and reckoned that we'd planted around 600 tree's between us. We loaded up Vicky's trailer and walked back to the car park to go home. It was great to do something 'constructive' for a change rather than the destructive rhody bashes and tree thinning that we often do because we love doing them.

On the whole, the weather was ok, mainly dry, although we had a bit of a shower  but it resulted in a double rainbow, so no complaints there - to be honest, it was just fabulous to be outdoors, doing something useful and being able to socially-distantly chat to other people and share a laugh:-)

For interest, this is a list of the species planted: Pedunculate Oak, Crab apple, Scots pine, Hornbeam, Sweet chestnut, Hazel, Wych elm, Small leaved lime, Silver birch, Downy birch, Rowan and Aspen.

Thanks to Adrian for additional photo's.

Tree thinning at Dunham Massey on Sunday 11th October 2020

14 eager MNTV volunteers met Craig in the car park at Dunham Massey for our second workday since lockdown.  This was my first work day at Dunham Massey for quite a few years so I was eager to see how the top tree plantation was getting on since we planted it up over 10 years ago.

The weather was kind to us and it was a beautiful autumnal day, there were lots of visitors in the parkland enjoying the fresh air and hoping to catch a glimpse of the deer.  I took a photo of this deer enjoying the sunshine at lunchtime.

On reaching the plantation Craig gave us our COVID safety talk and then explained the task.  We were to thin out the trees - the trees were already marked up with red dots so we knew which ones to thin out and chop down.  

Pictured below is the plantation before we started working.

Trees marked up with red dots ready for thinning and chopping down.

The group all split up so that we were working well apart from each other; one group of people thinned out trees and another group dragged branches and stacked them into habitat piles.

The plantation was quite overgrown when we started and some of the trees had trunks that were too thick to cut down with our bowsaws so we thinned the branches on those ready for Craig to bring in his chainsaw later in the day.  Pictured below is one of the smaller trees that could be felled.

 

There was plenty of wildlife in the plantation.  We saw ladybirds, caterpillars, frogs and lots of horse chestnuts.

Time for a break and some cake....

This is a great example of how to tell the age of a tree, each ring equals one year of its life, I wonder how old this one was?

At 3.15pm we called it a day ready for the walk back to the car park.  Pictured below is the plantation after we had thinned out and chopped down, it is lovely to see the sun shining through.

There is more work to be done here on future workdays.... until next time.

4th October 2020 - no workday

Keeping in touch - edition 7

Dear All

I hope this email finds you well.  I wanted to let you know that this will be my last edition of KIT as we have had some invitations to start back volunteering.  Obviously if it all changes again I will be back in touch with edition 8!

Our first workday back was last Sunday at Styal.  We had a fabulous turn out of 11 volunteers. I would have typed this email last week but I was very busy with work and then away on holiday, therefore the workday was rather hastily arranged and actually a little bit of a trial to see if people would be want to be back.  It seems the answer is Yes so .... I'm trying to get workdays sorted for the rest of the year, but with currently only three properties coming back to me to say they would like us it's going to be a bit of a challenge and a little repetitive.  I apologise [Editor - no need to, Ally!]

There will be no work day this coming Sunday 4th October.

I have some workdays that are confirmed already but I would like to get a couple more confirmed before publishing them.  Other workdays may have to be organised on a week by week basis so please bear with me.  If you have not heard anything by the Friday before then assume there is no workday that week or if you have anyone's number just text them to ask them.

Last time I emailed the quiz I gave you was London Distances.  Answers in Red

“For each of the following, can you name which of the two options is closest to London as the crow flies?” 

1.  The North Pole or the Equator?  The North Pole (2,668 v 3,547 miles)

2.  Stonehenge or the White Cliffs of Dover?  The White Cliffs of Dover (63 v 75 miles)
3.  Niagara Falls or Victoria Falls?  Niagara Falls (3,562 v 5,049 miles)
4.  Blackpool Tower or the Eiffel Tower?  Blackpool Tower (202 v 212 miles)
5.  Land's End or the Angel of the North?  The Angel of the North (244 v 263 miles)
6.  Mount Everest or Mount Kilimanjaro?  Mount Kilimanjaro (4,366 v 4,610 miles)
7.  North Korea or South Africa?  North Korea (5,355 v 5,842 miles)
8.  Edinburgh or Belfast?  Belfast (322 v 332 miles)
9.  New York City or New Delhi?  New York City (3,461 v 4,171 miles) 
10. Australia's Christmas Island or Chile's Easter Island?  Australia’s Christmas Island (7,463 v 8,476 miles)

Who got ten out of ten?

I wasn't able to give you a recipe last time as my oven was broken.  You will be please to know I had a new oven fitted this morning and although I have not had time to bake today I'm sending you a recipe I tried during lockdown whilst staying with my parents:

Spinach and Cheese Muffins - Savoury cake ... a first for me.  Here is the recipe should you wish to try them - makes 12 to 14.

30g/2 tablespoons of butter

0.5 small red onion finely chopped - I used half a white onion

360g/2.5 cups of plain/all-purpose flour

2.5 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper

250g/2 cups of grated cheddar cheese

220ml/1 cup of whole milk - I used semi skimmed

1 egg

130g/4oz baby spinach leaves

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C (325F) Gas 3

2. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat then cook the onion til soft. Set aside

3. Put the flour, baking powder, cayenne and cheese into a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix the milk and egg together, then slowly pour into the flower mixture and beat with a handheld electric whisk until all the ingredients are well mixed. Stir in the onion and spinach with a wooden spoon until evenly dispersed - for this part it was all in the electric mixer and worked fine

4. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full and bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 mins or until deep golden and muffin bounces back when touched. A skewer inserted in the centre should come our clean.

5. Leave the muffins to cool slightly in the tray before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely

As summer turns to autumn these are very nice with some soup when the weather is slightly chillier outside.

And so for the last time;

I love hearing about and seeing what you have been up to so if you would like us to feature something that you have been up to you can still send us a quick email so we can let the group know.  This could include pictures from your daily routine or that socially distanced picnic in the park, glorious goings on in your garden, brilliant bakes you think we should try or what about that awesome fact you just found out that left you wandering around your house dumbstruck!

We also wanted you to still feel part of a group in these strange times so have put together a WhatsApp group for all of us to keep in touch.  If you would like to be part of this then please send us your mobile number so we can add you to the group.  Just to let you know although KIT is coming to an end the WhatsApp group is not and so you are still able to join and see what we get upto when not MNTVing.  This includes brilliant bakes, wonderful wanders, glorious gardens and vast views.

Until next time

Keep safe and well

Ally

On behalf of your MNTV Committee