River Nidd near Lofthouse and Greenhow: 14-08-2018

This week's NCV task day felt more like 'Groundhog Day'. We were doing exactly the same tasks as last week! The only thing that changed was the venue for the sign post installers - this time up at Greenhow rather than at Low Riggs farm.

So - the blog need only be short - unlike the balsam plants that the NCVs continued to uproot from along the dry bed of the River Nidd, near Goydon Pot, and from the hillside just above. As has been noted before - there is only so much one can write about the ins and outs of balsam pulling and it's probably all been written before. Shall we just let the photos tell the story? 

Up at Greenhow the finer points of post installation were debated 
by the lucky few who were chosen to do this job. 

What do you think lads? 
Is this thing going to remain upright?

This time the signs were about the UNLP wading birds 
project, rather than hay meadows..

The job was completed before lunchtime, at which point 

Jan decided to skive off and enjoy coffee and cake at the Toftgate cafe.

Bonus points were awarded to Tony and Andy who resisted the 

temptation and, instead, went updale to join the balsam pullers.

The recent rain seemed to have encouraged further 

growth of the remaining balsam.

However, the area around this telegraph pole, deep in HB....

 ...was targeted from the start....

...and was an HB free zone by coffee time.

Coffee and flapjack revived the flagging team 
and off they went again.

It was at this point that the two reinforcements arrived from Greenhow.
A very welcome sight!

Anita finished the morning session with a flamboyant fling
 before setting off down the path for her lunch....

...where she was joined by a little dinner guest.

.Although there was still HB on the hillside we felt ready 
for a change and so moved down into the, currently, 
dry bed of the River Nidd.

There was a little bit of water here and there 
but the rest had gone down a swallow hole..

Although some specimens down here were 
tiny, others were multi-stemmed giants..

Some HB was very difficult to reach.

But we did our best to climb up...

...and climb back down again  to get to all the stems.
However - there was NO WAY we were going to be able to pull it all up.
By 3pm we admitted defeat and withdrew from the battle.