We have finally started to burn off the brash at Berrybanks. We seem to have had quite a few wet days on previous workdays, so we left the brash until it was dry. Today was that day and we got a fair bit burnt off. We also made a wood pile with the larger branches.
Great to see four of us make it today. Marcus, Mick, David and myself. David is an ecologist and works for Sustrans, so it was great to hear his input and pointers.
Basically the recommendations are:
Ger a proper First Aid kit and two people need to be First Aid trained.
Health and Safety and Risk Assessment on each workday.
A bucket of sand or water in case a fire gets out of control.
How to cut branches and trees down safely and not compromise the health of the tree.
How dangerous tree stumps, that are not at ground-level, can be to cyclists and walkers.
How brash should be dealt with and not just left in huge tangled piles or just dumped onto the remaining scrub, but instead dead-hedged, stacked out of the way, or burnt off.
How we can make access for motorised vehicles difficult by smart hedging.
There are probably more things that David suggested and I am sure that I will remember by the next workday. It was great to get the pointers and to be fair to Mick, he has been saying the same things for the last few years!!
I think we maybe need to slow down a bit and, be a bit more thoughtful in what we do.
Next workday is our family weekender. This is going to be on Saturday 22nd October and hopefully will be our last one at Berrybanks for a while. We need to cut down any stumps to ground-level, sow our Kidney Vetch strip and our wild-flower meadow mix, and get rid of any remaining brash and overhang. 1:30pm start – beer in The Bear at 4pm!!
Thanks to all who made it today. Was a good learning experience.
Paul
Cawston Greenway 