Thursday 21 August 2008

To wet to work in the pond

5 Volunteers turned out on sunday, and shared lifts to Speke Hall.
Due to heavy rain in the preceeding 24 hours the land arround the pond that we were supposed to be working in was waterlogged / underwater. As the planned task needed the staff to import a considerable quantity of soil from elsewhere on the estate using a tractor it was not possible to proceed.

So we ended up on plan b - cutting and burning more Rhodi - though the fire was a struggle due to the combination of wet conditions and "the wrong sort of Rhodi". There was very thick stuff and very thin stuff but very little normal sized stems - which made the fire more than a little challenging.

Thursday 14 August 2008

Holiday Catch Up


Despite summer holidays the group continues with varying turnouts...

3/8/8 at Lyme Park, ten turned out and spent a day in sunshine and showers. The task was clearing, patching and top dressing a path through the edge of Pursefield wood, near Paddock Cottage.

10/8/8 on Kinder Scout, 8 volunteers turned out - we could have been nine but I ran out of room in my car for giving lifts! (there wasn't enough time to get someone else to collect half of my passengers). We had another August day of sunshine and showers in spectacular surroundings. About 6000 cotton grass plants went in leaving the local NT staff to do a few more this week - as the planned total for this summer is 150,000!
I'm still getting layers of in ground peat out of my hands - perhaps I should of worn gloves...