Pancakes on offer?
If the NCVs were hoping for a day of pancake related activities today then they would have been sorely disappointed. There wasn't a pancake pan, a whisk or an egg in sight. Just spades and lump hammers. The reason for this is that they were spending the day planting 300 trees to fill gaps within a hedge that they laid at Lime House Farm exactly 1 year ago.
If you read last week's blog entry you will know that 420 trees were planted by coffeetime. This week there were three fewer workers out to play, so how long would it take to wrap up the job?
Let's take a glimpse into the non-pancake day that ensued.....
Well - there are the trees.
On your marks. Get set. Go!!
Planting into gaps in a laid
hedge all sounds easy.
How wrong can you be?
Osian soon discovered.
Ros and Tony drew the short straw.
They ended up planting this section.
Now - I wonder why nobody else
came down here?
First they had to clear the brambles.
But finally they managed to win the battle.
Tom struggled to find the soil underneath
the thick layer of grass.
Not sure if Andrew was sunbathing
or simply overwhelmed with
a heavenly vision.
At coffee time the replica iron
age hut was a bit dark inside...
...so everyone sat out on the picnic benches.
Apart, that is, from Liz and Ken,
who had to sit very still on this
seesaw trolley if they didn't
want to end up on top of each other.
After coffee the last of the trees
were planted. Early finish again?
NO!! The NCVs moved on to deal with
this area of willow, which was
very much in need of coppicing.
Spades and lump hammers were
swapped for loppers and saws.
Once again, everyone got busy.
Dave sat back to admire
his beautifully coppiced stool.
Bit by bit the willow wands fell.
Andy just happened to have brought
his chain saw along and put his newly acquired
chain sawing certificate to good use.
Brash was dead hedged along
the fence and a willow hurdle
created to make it look neat and tidy.
Unbeknownst to willow weaver Ros,
Osian was busy creating hedge
stakes and storing them in
such a way that she could not escape.
Seating tickets at lunchtime
were sold at three prices.
(a) Premier seating for the upper classes.
(b) Comfy seating for the middle classes.
(c) Bargain basement seating for the groundlings.
Lunch over, coppicing , dead hedging
and hurdling continued until, by 2:30pm
they had got this far. Finishing off
will be a job for another day.
Time to leave the hurdling
and go home.
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