NCV barn: 10-12-2019

Last day of term!!

😃

This week's task was the last of the year. Once the work clothes were washed at the end of the day they could safely be put away for four weeks. However - before that could be done there was a little matter of some work to be seen to. Originally we had intended to continue laying the hedge at Longside Farm. However - due to the dire weather forecast - plan B was put into operation and everyone met at the barn to shift the giant grass heap from the side of the building, ready for it to be transported elsewhere, and fix the neighbouring boundary fence, as well as a few other little jobs.

Looking at Plan B in action......

Firstly - and most importantly - the wood burner had to be
 lit to take off the chill at one end of the barn.
Within a short space of time Tony had a roaring blaze going.

 Jan and Phil took the cosy option of remaining in the barn, 
near the wood burner, to carry out tool maintenance.

Well, someone has to do it.

Outside, a team of grass shifters got to work.
This was not easy as the grass was compacted 
and had started to compost down.

As the grass heap on the far side of the wall got lower, 
so the one on the near side of the wall got higher.

NCVs armed with hay rakes got busy 
keeping the new heap under control.

                                Lower and lower...............................Higher and higher.

By coffee time the job was well underway.
Note the land towards the wall at the right of the picture is higher than the left.
It is NOT all grass. Phew!

The barn was a little cramped for coffee as a 
good deal of floor space was taken up with the hedge laying tools 
that had been left ready to collect at the start of the day.

It was clear that these were going to have to be shifted before lunchtime.

So, without further ado, new recruit Brenda got busy.
"Now - where are these kept?"

 Some handy hedge rails were spotted up in the rafters.
"We'll have them" thought Liz.

So - out they went to the van to be 
transported updale, to Longside farm...

...along with some useful posts.

Liz then cut up some old wood for the wood burner 
and David transported it into the barn.
David - does your head go to the top of that hat?

Meanwhile - how were things at the side of the barn?

The grass heap had all but disappeared....

...and Andrew had gone up in the world.

A huge heap of old bits of wooden stake had been collected ....

 ...leaving the way clear for the fence to be put to rights.

Paul's extra long legs made it relatively easy to use the post knocker.

Andrew showed off his staple hammering skills 
as the old stock fencing was put to good use.

And a final top wire was pulled tight to finish the job.

Just a bit of tool cleaning to do and we were good to go just after lunch.

Paul went the extra mile and chopped up some 
kindling for the wood burner before he went home.
Give that man a medal!

Longside Farm: 03-12-2019

Last week it was to pastures new, to plant a new hedge.

This week it was a return to old pastures and the laying of an old hedge, namely that at Longside Farm. 
Regular readers of this blog will know that it is almost 2 years since the NCVs took this hedge to task and managed to reach the half way stage (possibly a bit further than that). Now was the time to get a crack on and make a bid for the end of the field. This hedge just wasn't going to lay itself. If left to its own devices it would just grow tall and thin out at the bottom. 
So - NCVs - Are you ready? Are you steady? Let's go.....

BUT WAIT!! First a hedge has to be prepped.

Lots of forward facing branches had to be pruned out .

This, of course, led to the generation of 
heaps of  brash to be transported out of the way.

By the end of the day the brash pile stretched out - 
almost another hedge in its own right.

First out of the blocks when it came to pleaching was Tom with an axe.

Others were close on his heels wielding billhooks.

The cutting involved precision engineering rather than speed.

Liz's chain saw got a lot of use on the 'too thick for a saw' stems....

...although this team decided that they would stick to the old fashioned way.
Luckily they had the mighty Osian in their tool kit

The stems started falling right, left and centre - 

some more willingly than others.

Dave decided this one required a warrior pose to assist in its laying.

Lump hammers and mells were deployed to insert the posts.


Much trust was put in the person hammering by the one holding the post.

Coffee time and lunch time were spent lounging on the picnic tarpaulin....

...which gave the NCVs some fun and games 
when it was time to fold it away in the strong winds!

Eventually railings started to be attached to the posts.

It was starting to look like a laid hedge!

Some of the blackthorn suckers that were sprouting up were dug up 
in order to harvest them to fill in any gaps.

By the end of the day the NCVs felt that they 
had done a good job, though there was still a long way to go. 
Back next week for more!

Riverside, Pateley Bridge: 26-11-2019

艾 克 斯 诶 豆 贝 尔 维 艾 娜 诶 艾儿

"A hedge of 420 trees begins with a single sapling."
Lao Tzu (from the 'Tao Te Ching' - 6th century BC) 

This summed up the philosophy of the NCVs when faced with what seems to be an enormous task. With 420 trees to be planted in one day, along the riverside at Pateley Bridge, all you can do is start with the first one and go on from there. 
And here are the trees:

It is probably the same approach that the Woodland Trust decided on when they started their Big Climate Fightback. Their aim was to get people to pledge to plant 1,000,000 trees around the 30th November 2019. This group of 420 will be quite a nice little chunk towards that!

As it happens - the approach worked very well. The trees were shared out and all got planted. With a team of 17 on duty everyone only ended up having to plant, on average, 24.7 trees each. Easy peasy! 

And here they all are, beavering away - all for the good of the environment.....

At first the planting plan was revealed.

Then all the canes were inserted at an appropriate density 
over each 10m stretch, to ensure that the trees would 
be evenly distributed along the whole fence.

Spiral guards were next laid out, one per cane...

...and then planting could begin.
Ken was first off the blocks with tree number one.

Some members of the group doled out a variety of species 
to each 10m stretch, but this NCV got distracted by a 
swanky tree planting device - the wonderfully named 'Pottiputki'.

She immediately decided to try it out for size.

Having got the taste for this tree planting lark, 
Ken eschewed this 'one at a time' approach and made off with a fistful. 
Or are these his entry for the next carrot competition at the Pateley Show?

It was 'eyes down, look in' all the way along the fence line until,
 not too long after coffee time, the job was done!

Talking of coffee time - field owner Fran provided not one, 
but THREE cake choices at her 'cake station'

Everyone soon made short work of these delicacies.

Once the hedge was complete there were a couple of tidying jobs to be done.
First one - to create a habitat pile out of this heap of brash.

 Phil knocked in the necessary posts and 
Osian kept well clear of the lump hammer.

 A pile of a million sticks begins with a single stick.

 Slowly but surely, as this new, contained, habitat pile grew larger...

 ...the original pile disappeared.

And there you have it. The end result - a perfect home for all kinds of wildlife.

By this time the rain had really set in but, thanks to Fran's 
hastily erected gazebo, everyone could keep dry for their lunch.

After lunchtime all that remained to be done was to 
shift all this wood away from the bottom of a lovely old lime tree 
(now featured on the Woodland Trust's ancient tree inventory map).

 So - that's what the NCVs did.
No problem!

 Over the field to the side of the shed went the wood ....

...leaving the trunk of the tree visible.
Well done everyone - a good morning's work.
Have the afternoon off!