Hackfall Woods: 14-01-14

At 10am sharp eleven NCVs joined Paul in the Hackfall Woods car park to be assigned tools and duties for the day. Unfortunately the winter storms had taken their toll on the wood so there was a good deal of hard work to be done.

Three NCVs joined Paul and set to work clearing a number of trees that had been blown down and blocked footpaths. One particular tree was a really sad sight. It was the very large silver birch near the entrance to the wood that is listed on the ancient tree data base. Its top had been completely snapped off by the high winds. As can be seen in the photos below the ladies team were faced with a real challenge. 

How the mighty are fallen.

Thank goodness Laura has her magic yellow hat. 

It will make this clearance job so much easier.

Angela and Laura set to with bow saws; Anita wielded her loppers. With one mighty bound there it was, gone.

A lovely brash pile appears out of nowhere.

Well, almost. There is still just a little bit left....

The tree clearing tasks gave Paul some chain sawing practice. 

Paul makes the first incision of the day 

in another deceased silver birch.

Unfortunately one of the branches that he sawed off landed on his lunch box. It is no longer a lunch box; more a collection of plastic fragments.

Right - this one next. Easy peasy - only a skinny one.

Oops - that wasn't meant to happen.

Further down the hillside three other teams got to work along the various paths through the woods. Many of the culverts had filled up with soil and leaves, causing the water running off the hills to overflow onto the paths and turn them into quagmires. Our task was to remove the debris with spades and mattocks. Naively I had assumed that the pond digging task at Pyefield farm was our last bit of mudslinging for a while. How wrong I was. Once more we were ankle deep in oozy mud with thick clay pulling at our wellies and stubbornly sticking to the spades as we tried in vain to throw it to the side of the path.

Tony (the new) and Ron experience the effect 

blocked culverts have on the state of the footpaths.

Some of the paths were running with water and needed new ditches cutting to divert the flow. No problem - we could do this. Eventually.

Colin and Ros E. start to get that sinking feeling. 

It was going to be a long day.

OK Tony - so how, exactly, do you propose to dig 

out the ditch with that particular piece of hardware?

There you go - a ditch.

My team also had two under path pipes to unblock - they had filled with silt and rocks. Colin became the expert at cutting thin poles to insert into the pipes and ram the blockages through. It was very satisfying to see a swoosh of water suddenly emerge at the far end as the offending obstacle was swept out.

OK clever clogs - what now? 

This water is not disappearing.

Easy - let me just get my swooshing stick.

By 2:30pm all the culverts were cleared and, as we finished the task at the Alum Spring, some of us took the opportunity to clean the mud off all our outer clothing and tools in the cascade.  Of course there was still plenty of mud removal to be done once we got home. My washing machine was soon churning around full of filthy fleeces, trousers, hat and rucksack. A hot bath did the trick for the rest. Apart from my glasses. I even had to wash those too!

Ros E.