Humberstone Bank: 29-10-2019

Guards! Guards!

Any NCV new to the group (or reader new to the blog) could be forgiven in thinking that the task involved watching something akin to a march past of the Queen's Guard this week. Tree maintenance at Humberstone Bank was to be carried out - and of course that entails checking out the tree guards. 

Well - no such luck. The task was far more hands on than that. Lump hammers and safety knives had to be deployed. Posts that had blown over had to be re-instated to the vertical. Others that were all wobbly had to be knocked further into the earth. Any tree guards (tubes) found to be devoid of trees had to be collected up. No sign of any smart red uniforms or shiny brass buttons anywhere. 

So - here's the tree guard parade ground pics......

Just another day at the office.

The wider view looked so benign,

 but at the work site itself there was a slightly different scene.

There was the odd barren wasteland strewn with defunct tree guards....

...and an area of waist high vegetation disguising the semi-bog of doom.

And so to work.

 

Many trees had blown over and needed re-verticalisation.

 On some occasions this worked quite well.

On others the perpendicular just wasn't possible.

 Ruth tried to demonstrate to the tree guards
 the position they needed to achieve.

 Yep - I think that's just about perfect Andy.

This piece of wood was all that was left of this particular post/guard/tree combo.

Even coffee time was held in a vertical position for the most part.

Ken came out in sympathy with the tree guards.

 

There was a choice of goodies - flapjack from Audrey AND chocolatey tray bake from farmer Jonathan. Thank you very much for that!

Then it was back to work and the righting of the guards.

Task leader Osian oversaw the job and measured each guard carefully with his protractor.

As the day wore on, smoke accumulated on the moorland.

The heather burning season is obviously underway.

Meanwhile - way down in Shropshire, thanks to flooding in the Rea Valley, Volunteer Co-ordinator Liz (who was meant to be on holiday) ended up having to work hard to dig a drainage ditch to alleviate the situation. A real busman's holiday!

Luckily help was at hand in the form of 

Grandpa Colin and Helpful Harry.

That's right Harry  put your back into it.

That should do the trick!

This little slug was hoping to hitch a ride from the undergrowth

 until spotted by Liz's beady eye.