Wet Lands!

Thursday, February 23rd 2017

With the coming of Storm Doris we were unable to finish the willow spiling as the beck was high and rising. We were not short of work; still having a lot to do on the willow coppice block adjacent to the Field Centre.

With the coming high wind and steady rain our chainsaw gang, Sean and Simon, were grounded, enabling us to catch up with all the pollarding and coppicing we were determined to have cut before March. The excess timber was stacked nearby and brash left for chipping at a later date.

We ended up dividing up to do the various jobs today; Tony, Mike and I went to the Wetlands where Willie was re-enforcing the pond bunds with his small digger.

We only had a small amount of bund to repair by hand, plus a dam which was unreachable by the digger, so were very glad for the bulk of the work to be done by the heavier equipment saving us weeks of manual labour.

Signs of spring are with us, I spotted these Common Frogs as I checked around the pond edges.  

Some jobs need that extra time to achieve, luckily Jackie was on hand to do some of them in the Field Centre, like defrosting the freezer!

One of the jobs which had us scratching our heads was how to get a felled tree trunk out of Risedale Beck. Willie who knows the reserve like the back of his hand is more than able to cope with things like this and tracked his digger up the beck….

....to lift the trunk out, then enabling Jonathan and I to secure it to the bank.

We had a few path repairs to be done, but the rain did not put off the enthusiasm of the volunteers as they carted gravel ….

…..and replaced the side boards, and wack-a-plated the surface to make good.

It was a mixed bag of a day which, considering the weather, was a massive success due to the commitment of the volunteers and the much needed assistance from our contractors, thank you to all.
 

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