Damp Squib

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

All the expectation was there today with John, Kerrie, Chris, myself and Mick, but everything was just so damp, and no wind to fan the flames, that we eventually kicked the fire out and called it a day.

We did bring down a lot of brash ready for the next workday, however.

IMG_6295

At one point we looked like professional loggers, with trees down all over the place. The fire just could not keep up and, with all of us with other stuff to do throughout the day, we just tidied the path ready for next time.

IMG_6289

We are so close to finishing this bit. Probably two or three more sessions and then rake off the bank to expose bare earth. It will be so interesting to see what comes up in the spring.

IMG_6287

Clearing the way.

Next Saturday is our family weekend workday starting at 12. At the moment it looks dry on the days leading up to it. The plan is a big bonfire and burn off all the brash lying about, and add to our hedge of tree-trunks.

Thanks to all who came along today.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The end is in sight….

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Beautiful day today and five of us volunteered our time and effort to crack on with what hopefully will be Bluebell Cutting.

IMG_6223

Chris, Mike, Aaron, Mick and myself got a fire going really quickly and half of us brought down some trees whilst the other half of us stripped and burned the brash, and also dug out a load of old brash.

We put a lot of branches onto our dead-hedge and this is going to be hugely beneficial for wildlife in the future. Many insects, mammals and fungi will slowly get established here. We maybe could of packed it down a lot more densely, but again, time is not really on our side to make everything pretty and perfect.

Just one last bit to do and we are finished on this bit. This is a picture of what we need to clear. The whole area was as dense as this, back in August.

IMG_6227

Just remember that we are trying to create a haven for wild-flowers to grow, to attract butterflies, bees and birds, and small mammals.

Thanks to everyone who gave their time today. We are making great progress.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Clearing.

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

A lovely morning where we just spent the time catching up.

IMG_6198Mike, Aaron, Chris and myself. We caught up with burning off the brash from last week, and adding the the hedge at the top of the cutting. We also planted a load of bluebell bulbs that were kindly given to us by a local resident.

IMG_6197

Next weekender is Sat 7th November starting at 12:00.

Same place next week where we can carry on towards The Bear. There is a lovely mature tree that will make a nice feature of the cutting. This is where we need to get to.

Great day today.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Leave a comment

Back on it…

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Chris, John, Aaron and myself today on a fine autumnal morning. We quickly got the fire going and I dragged out a load of the old brash and burnt it off, whilst Chris took the bigger logs up to the top of the cutting and added to the hedge that we are creating.

IMG_6106

Aaron and John brought a few more trees down and we managed to burn off a fair bit of the brash from them, but soon enough it was time to let the fire burn down, so we left a couple of felled trees to be stripped and burnt off on our next work day.

IMG_6112 The clearing is slowly getting bigger and bigger. As soon as all the leaves have fallen we can rake it.

IMG_6115

In the mean time we can just keep pushing on up the path. The speed that myself and Aaron were able to break down a felled tree was amazingly quick, probably about five minutes or so and the trunk was stripped and added to the dead-hedge.

Thanks for today, same time and place next week.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Weekend Family Workday

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Our second weekender and a good turn-out with seven of us in total.

Lee cut down the stumps with his chainsaw, which improved how the clearing looked straight away. Mick, Chris, Tim, Tim’s daughters, and myself cleared all the new brash and had a good old go at the old brash on the other side of the path.

IMG_6098

We moved a lot of the tree trunks to to the top of the cutting, to build up our dead hedge. This will be superb for mammals and insects to make into a protective habitat, and also gives the clearing a nice feature.

IMG_6102

This photo shows just how clear the ground is now. When all the leaves have fallen we will give it a good rake over to expose the bare earth, and see what grows in the summer.

IMG_6092

The start of the fire. With little wind, the fire took ages to get going, but we eventually got there.

We now have to make a choice as to what to do. We can carry on up the path towards The Bear for a few more metres, and down the path the other way, all the way to the underpass. The two things to consider are, managing the clearing in future years and, eventually we need to clear out the other two clearings before the bird-nesting season starts next spring.

There is a lovely mature tree up the path, that I spotted today, just at the point where the cutting becomes flat by Berrybanks. I think it would be good to push on towards that, for now.

Next workday is Monday 12th October at 9am back in Bear Cutting.

Thanks to all who made it today.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged | Leave a comment

Stumped!

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Great turn-out today with six of us, Mick, Mike, John, Aaron, Chris and myself. We built the fire around three of the tree stumps and it seemed to get going pretty quickly, but the stumps stopped anything that we put on the fire from falling down onto the core, so we took ages to get it properly hot. Eventually Mick got it really stoked and we could finally start to throw on the mass of brash that had built up.

After about two hours of intense burning, we let the fire burn down and there stood the three stumps, just slightly charred.

I am well and truly stumped!!

However, a productive day and we pushed on with more canopy removal. We are getting to the end of where we need to be at The Bear end and need to push down towards the underpass end. We cleared out a load of the cutting just past the underpass, a few years ago and it would be good to get along to this bit.

Here we are looking from near the top of the cutting. Loads of light coming through, even on a drizzly overcast day. In August this bank was a mass of scrub and bramble.

With the bigger bits of timber we are creating a dead-hedge at the top of the cutting. This will be great habitat for mammals and insects.

Very much work in progress on this bit at the moment. We have left it reasonably tidy and the path is clear, but there is always going to be an overhang of brash until the last day that we work in this area.

This Saturday is our monthly weekend workday which is from 12 to 4pm. I will light a fire away from any stumps and we can burn off a load of the brash from today, and also a lot of the brash dumped on the other side of the path.

Thanks to all who made it today.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hot One!!

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Four of us made it today. Chris, Mick, Aaron and myself. We had a slight change of plan and caught up with burning off the brash. The fire was full on pretty much from the start and we just kept throwing as much as we could on to it.

IMG_6018

When I got the fire really stoked I thought of a plan for the stumps. If we build the next few fires around the stumps, they will just get burnt away to ground level. Job done!

IMG_6023

We can see the stumps in this picture. I reckon we can get rid of three with each fire. There is still loads of brash on the other side of the path, and we need to take a load more trees down on this side. The sunlight is starting to hit the ground. In the summer the sun is higher in the sky, rather that behind the trees and creating the dappled sunlight.

Good progress today. Next workday is same time next Monday and then it is our weekend workday on Saturday 10th October at 12:00. All in this cutting.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Let there be light!!!

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Four of us today, John, Aaron, Chris and myself, and the plan was to clear all the brash that was left over from the last workday. However, the temptation to start hacking down more of the tree canopy proved too much.

IMG_5965

Everything was very wet and the fire was really feeble and took about an hour to get going. Every time I looked behind me I just saw the pile of branches getting bigger and bigger. Not much pressure!!

IMG_5981

Eventually I got it going and threw everything onto it. After about an hour or so, we could see the floor again.

IMG_5987

It was drizzly and dull but from the photo above, we can see how much light is hitting the bank. This will be full of wild flowers next summer.

We made a decision to crack on with this clearing until it is completed. We have a weekend workday on Saturday 10th October so that gives us two more Monday mornings and the Saturday to try and get it finished. There is a large tree that is at one end of the clearing and we want to make this a central feature, so we need to clear the same amount of ground on the other side of it.

I am very aware that we need to remove the stumps at some point. Any ideas gratefully received.

As with last week, there are piles of brash and felled trees ready to be thrown on the fire next week. Very much work in progress.

After Saturday 10th October we can work on the other two clearings. We have about six months before the bird-nesting season starts, so plenty of time, but also plenty to do in other parts.

Thanks to all who made it today.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Me, Aaron and John today, and it was just going to be burning off the pile of brash from Saturday, but it was a bit wet so we lost about half an hour waiting for the fire to really get going.

IMG_5951

So we decided to remove some of the canopy, and got a little bit carried away!! This let loads of light in, even on this drab day. I can hear the cries of all the tree lovers out there, but these are poor quality trees that are all too close to each other, so have become very spindly and are choking each other.

IMG_5947

We were chopping quicker than we could burn, so the area looks very untidy. However, we can burn all this off on another workday, so don’t panic if you see broken trees all over the ground. We will keep specimen trees and because these will have the space to fully flourish, the net effect of the ones that we remove will be lesser.

We have not chopped at ground level because it is hard work to get down on the ground with just a hand saw. I may drill holes onto the trunk and hammer copper nails into them to kill them off.

We now have three clearings. Birdbox Cutting, Picnic Cutting and Bear Cutting. We need to keep the path between these cuttings clear, which is relatively easy, and then balance our time on across the three clearings. The priority is to finish Bear Cutting. This is the one that will give us the best return on our efforts, due to the south facing bank, and needs to extend all the way to The Bear pub. Picnic Cutting is not too bad and just needs to be brush-cut and tidied. Birdbox Cutting needs to be extended north and south and brush-cut.

I am going to walk the two mile length of the greenway this week and put together an action plan for work over the winter.

It seems like there is loads to do at the moment, but another great workday and another step forwards.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bear Cutting

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Good hard work out on the greenway and what a difference myself and Aaron saw.

IMG_5920

This bank was a tangle of bramble, scrub and brash six or so weeks ago. Thanks to all the people who have helped to clear this. We finally started to see a return for all of our efforts.

IMG_5926

Dappled sunlight hitting the ground at the moment. When we clear out the first line of trees, this will be constant and things will start to grow.

IMG_5933

This picture shows how we are getting a lot of width onto the path, and how it is drying out. It needs to be like this for the whole length of the cutting. I am going to make an effort to bring down a couple of trees on each visit.

IMG_5912

Roaring fire as usual and no fire brigade called out, not that they would of found us, we were so away from any roads.

Fire burnt down and ground raked around it to ensure nothing can catch light from the hot embers and, stack of brash ready for the next workday, which is Monday 14th September at 9am.

Next weekend workday will be Saturday 10th October starting as 12:00.

On Monday we are back in Bear Cutting and then we need to balance our efforts with the other sections, or they will start to become overgrown.

Paul

Posted in Newsreel | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments