A New Year - An Old Task
The NCVs welcomed in a new year of task days by revisiting Longside Farm, to lay yet another length of the hedge they have been working on. If you remember, their last planned visit there had to be cancelled due to bad weather; but this time no plan B was needed - the weather wasn't the best but work could go ahead.
And go ahead it did. With 17 NCVs reporting for duty an impressive 47 'Tom strides' of hedge was soon laid, leaving just 30 to do. The consensus was that one more day next month should finish the job. The end is in sight!
Here's how they got on....
Work got underway immediately with many on their knees.
The hedge started to lay down nicely...
...although the next bit (to the left) was virtually none existent,
consisting only of three very large hawthorns.
These had to be coppiced down to rail height, with nothing in between.
Some additional saplings will probably have to be found to fill in the gaps.
Their stems were so thick the chain saw had to be deployed.
I'll just move this little bundle of sticks out of the way, shall I?
OK - then should I see to this hefty specimen then?
blackthorn free ground was at a premium.
The wood for the fence rail came in very handy in the morning,
but then it was needed elsewhere.
The three stooges worked well as a team, shifting rails from A...
....to B.
From B they were then moved to C.....
How's that for a nicely curved rail?
This hedge laying lark is driving me round the bend.
Just set back from the curved rail was a very nicely curved line of brash.
Question - what do you do when you reach
a tree stump obstacle to your rail's course?
Answer -why, cut an artistic groove through it!
Nothing was going to stop that curvy bend being achieved.
No comments:
Post a Comment