Back to the prickles!!

Having had two weeks away from hard graft, thanks to our moorland training walk and the half term holiday, this week the NCVs were back to a familiar task at a new venue. One of our own group members has bought Day Ash Farm, Thornthwaite, which he is trying to develop into a much more wild-life friendly environment. The land includes a number of small woodlands, one of which is rapidly being taken over by holly. Halo coppicing of this prickly invader, for the sake of the other trees and the underlying woodland flora, was desperately needed - so that is what was on the agenda for the day. Unfortunately the AONB don't provide full suits of chain mail for their workers but they DO provide work gloves. These were definitely going to be needed! The pictures below show what was achieved.......

Uh oh. It looked very holly dominated in there.

And from the outside it looked a bit daunting too!

This dead birch was in danger of falling 

onto the path - it needed to go.

It wasn't going to go quietly.

In fact it was hanging onto its friend next door for dear life.

However - it surrendered eventually and can now decay on the ground in a safer place.

Gradually things starting to improve in the vertical position

 but this, of course, led to things worsening in the horizontal.

What was to be done with all the brash?

We all know that Anita will always rise 

to a challenge and so she did.

 

By close of play a neat dead hedge was constructed 

along the path that used up all the unwanted holly.

These 2 NCVs kept supplying the hedge

 builders with building materials.

This trio attacked the holly along the wall from the rear.

Eventually a two pronged attack ensured that 

the wall was visible from both sides.

Whilst everyone else toiled hard, up to their elbows in prickly 

holly this NCV simply lay back and watched the proceedings.

At lunchtime Anita laughed uproariously at a joke from Brenda.

Phil, however, was a harder audience to please.

Liz was joined by  a yellow visitor whilst eating her sandwiches.

Eventually the job was finished.

Now THAT looks a whole lot better. You can see the wood for the trees!

Once the holly was cleared you could hug the trees more easily.

Not surprisingly Anita and Brenda took quite a shine to this one.