Today, Mick, Aaron, John and myself continued to push down towards the last clearing.

We cleared out the brush-cut scallops and burnt off the brash from these, along with a load of other piles that were left from the last brush-cutting that we did.

Rather than cutting this bit right back, we decided that we would leave a blackberry hedge running adjacent to the path. We still cut away the scrub in front of it, but just tidied it up. This will allow birds and mammals to have some ground cover, and also be a fantastic food source in the Autumn.

Looking back, we can see how wide and open the path is. If we just keep pushing back every year, it will slowly get a nice wide flat path that is dry.

The bird-nesting season starts at the end of March, so we do not have a lot of time left for cutting back the scrub. Four weekday workdays and one weekender. In April everything will start to grow and a lot of the bramble that we have cut back will start to sprout new shoots. We decided today that it would be a good idea to dig out the roots and replant the bramble on the dead-hedge on the tops of the cutting. This will make the hedges a lot more dense and create a super food source for birds, butterflies and bees.

We had a good old bonfire that kept us all warm.

Great work today and great ideas for our blackberry hedge and our dead-hedges.

Next workday is our monthly weekender – Saturday 5th March at 12:00 in the same place.

Paul