If you Go Down to the Woods Today…

It’s the start of a new week and what better way to start then by putting up a new post. Hopefully the start of brighter things this week too as last week wasn’t the best and I had a few problems to iron out (I guess I’m more sensitive to car accidents than most). Also why I’ve been a bit lax on the blogging of late but I don’t suppose you want to read about my woes!

We foresters have been working hard in the woods clearing trees in preparation for planting up as part of a grant scheme. Starting a few weeks back now, the first task was to clear the area and fell a roughly square / rectangular area. Paul and Debbie had a tough job that week coppicing the trees and cutting clearing the brash.

Paul contemplating his next tree

Once the majority of the felling was complete the next task was to clear the fallen timber out of the way. What, you may ask was I doing during this time? Dragging brash of course! As you can imagine, once Paul and Debbie have worked their magic and the tree is on the ground there’s still the rest of the branches and limbs to cut up and sort before we can tackle the main trunk.

Once a tree has been felled and de-limbed (see, technical term that!), it’s muggings here who usually has to drag the umpteen quantities of branches out of the way. To be fair I actually enjoy it and often I’m assisting Paul or Debbie clearing up, but hey, we have to be dramatic sometimes!

Since we’ve been working to clear a certain area the brash went to the edges of the defined area or in some cases piled around any oak’s we were leaving. The theory is that at some point we’ll enclose the whole area with a fence to keep those pesky deer out. If you’re not convinced about the damage the deer (and rabbits… and squirrels… and voles etc) jump over to our sister blog and have a read for yourselves! Those deer!

Me with brash!

With one half of the clearing, well… clear, we took the opportunity to plant up with some remaining hazel we had left over from the new hedge. At least I think that’s where they came from, blast my memory! One thing we all learnt in that week or two was to make sure that the trees were planted properly. I mean, really heeled in and make sure they don’t pull out again properly! Like Paul says, do the tug test! Certainly after the problems we had after the hedge planting, I think we were all keen to make sure it was done correctly.

Planting up with hazel was a relatively simple task: Just plop your spade it, wiggle back and forth to make a hole, drop in your plant and finally heel back over. Hard work actually after we did about 200 of them in the first stint! With all the trees planted in that half we used large tree guards and a cane for support, to protect them from the wild fauna.

With the first half planted up, the next task involved clearing the dead wood to the side for cutting up and dragging out the felled timber for cutting and eventually stacking. The dead or seasoned wood we cut into logs to supply the farm café since they have a new wood burner to keep the punters warm. The only problem we have at the moment is that they get through a hell of a lot of it in a week!

The dragging out of the timber was initially done with our trusty tractor and winch until someone managed to stall it while in the woods one Tuesday, not sure who that was, cough, cough, splutter! Hey it was going ok until the timber hit that hidden stump, so technically it wasn’t my fault! Fortunately Paul managed to get it working again a few days later and we continued dragging out and cutting up.

Towards the end, Simon also got John into the woods to pull out the smaller lengths and to finish clearing up. John is a horse incidentally not some elderly volunteer we thought we’d drag into the woods! Yup, a big ol’ Dutch Draft who pulls out most of our timber ready to be carted away at some later stage. The good thing is you can’t stall a horse! Although you do have to be a bit careful sometimes. For John’s latest efforts (along with Justin) in working, check out the movie clip on this link: John working.

At the start of the project we still had the landrover and since the weather hasn’t been the best in recent weeks we’ve been taking the long way round and coming into the woods from across a ditch. This was fine until someone slipped into it one day when going for tea break. Yes it was me again; you can’t keep a good clown down! Unfortunately this was after we put in a bridge!

Bridge over the river why

Without the landrover last week it was quite a trek with John down the tracks and across the field. Boy was I tired at the end of that day! Anyway, with the area clear it was time to finish planting up with newly arrived hazel. Of course to cut down on the cost of buying in tree guards we had a new task to undertake this time: Making the tree guards!

Basically they consisted of a plastic mesh that we cut to size (35cm circumference) and then held together with cable ties. After much experimentation we settled on one tie in the centre of the guard to hold it together, with two loose ties on either end to tighten up later when they’re in place. Fairly simple task in the end I agree but a bit daunting when there’s 200 – 300 guards to make! Like the saying goes though, many hands make light work.

By the end of the week, we had pretty much finished the planting up and aside from collecting the timber and one or two other ends to tie up, it was done.

Photos supplied by Debbie. Except the last one I nicked from Simon’s blog, sorry boss!

Now, what’s the next job?

 

New Forestry Team Member

This is a shout out to our newest member of Team Forestry, he’s just coming up for a week since he joined us and all is going well. It was a bit touch and go at first, his brother (or sister) unfortunately didn’t make the grade but after some careful nurturing and looking after by Graham and Olga, he passed with flying colours!

The first I knew about them was last Tuesday when we stopped by Simon’s sheep first thing in the morning with a couple of bottles. Expecting them to have moved on during the night, we collected two very cold little lambs! Wrapped in their plastic macs we bundled them to the vehicle, doing our best to keep them as warm as possible.

As we fed them in the warm, Simon pointed out the mother, which I failed to spot at first. All sheep look the same to me! Anyway, she showed absolutely no interest in her newborns and never even looked up when the lambs began bleating at the tops of their little voices (everybody, one… two… three… awwwwwwww!).

We had them with us in the Landover all day that day, feeding them when we stopped work for a break and checking on how they were doing. By lunch, one was perking up a bit while the other was still quite cold and straining its neck back (not a good sign). Unfortunately by the evening it had passed away.

Returning to work a couple of days later, I discovered that only one had made it since Tuesday. First off was feeding time for Larry (the lamb) in his make-shift bale home, which wasn’t that easy as he wasn’t taking it very well at first. He soon got the hang of it though and sat quite comfortably with Paul and Debbie drinking his milk.

Walkies!

After a hard mornings work, we returned to Larry to check on things. Graham arrived not long later and explained that he had been trying to get Larry up and walking, getting strength into his little legs.

It took some coaxing and lots of wobbling and falling over but we got there in the end! I think it was about this time that I was informed that Larry was a boy and not a girl of which I had been referring too all morning!

Still in his plastic coat (left) he seemed to tottering my way all the time, maybe it was the gloves or just the sweet words of encouragement.

Eventually though it was time for his lunchtime feed and the battle lines were drawn. Graham was in on corner with his freshly prepared bottle, which Paul was in the other corner wielding the warmed up bottle from earlier! In the end a compromise was drawn and feeding was shared by all and little Larry drank his fill on the fields of victory.

Feeding time...

At the end of the day both Graham and Olga arrived to collect Larry and bring him home for the next few days. With Simon away at the time it was feared that he not last long in an open barn; prone to the cold, foxes and anything else that may go his way.

Currently Larry is doing well, getting all the milk he can and enjoying his new home! I guess that’s one lamb that’ll do well.

Speaking of lambs, this weekend is the start of the Lambing at Wimpole, so if you’re in the area come along and have fun seeing the cute little lambies bouncing round the… er… pens.

A bit of free advertising for the National Trust there, can’t argue with that. Or maybe you can, who knows? I’m sure they’ll plough lots of memberships out over those few weeks to keep them happy!

As usual thanks to Debs for the photos.

Caption Competition

This was originally going to be included in the previous post but I couldn’t think of the best place to slot it in. So here it is on a post of its own! There is no prize for the best caption apart from the satisfaction of knowing your number one!! Enjoy.

Tree Planting at Wimpole (Part 2)

Several weeks have passed and the tree planting plan continues in earnest. As part of the project Oxford Archaeology East (OAE) where brought in to use the holes dug for the trees to see what, if any, laid beneath the soil.

This also drew the interest of the local newspapers who showed up at the beginning of the hole digging to report and take pictures. Even today I was in town and bumped into someone I knew and the first thing they said was “I saw you on the front of the paper the other day!”

The day before the local news arrived and filmed a short piece on the ‘search for the lost village at Wimpole’ that included boss Simon and our colleague Debs digging a hole. I don’t think she was very impressed as it cut into her coffee break! I managed to escape this one (but not the photo opportunity sadly) as Shane, Paul and I had scarpered for a brew at the same time.

Before everyone gets excited I should just mention this important fact. We aren’t looking for a lost village! I know it would be exciting and a huge crowd puller but the holes are there for trees not for seeking lost villages. Which incidentally aren’t near the hall in any case. As much as I enjoy archaeology, this was a secondary objective and we thought it’d be worth the look as we were digging up the lawn anyway!

Slowly but surely...

Enough of the media coverage though, I’ll add a link at the bottom of this post if you’re interested in reading the article. I have to say that the Royston Weekly highlighted the tree planting, so thumbs up for you!

So we assisted (or is it the other way round?) OAE in digging the 157 holes needed for the trees, which conveniently doubled as small test pits. I’ll be writing a piece about test pits on our sister blog some time in the future for you budding amateur archaeologists!

While OAE dug the sensitive areas by the hall (blue stakes), the rest of us dug the not-as-important white staked areas. A scattering of pottery, mainly Medieval was found in some of the test pits; along with animal bones and a reasonable quantity of building rubble.

Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been the greatest of late and although it made the holes easier to dig, the mud tended to stick to everything (being mainly clay soils at Wimpole) and everyone! It also had the added bonus of filling many of the completed test pits with water that then had to be bailed out before we could plant the trees.

Before I got to dig any test pits though, I took over from where Peter left off. Namely mark up every blue and white stake with an ID number and the tree species that was designated to it. So for a good day or two I set of with my set of maps and ID numbers and labelled every stake. It also helped OAE as they had to record any finds and the location of every test pit with GPS. It wasn’t without its headaches though as during that first week there were severe gusts that made map reading and ID sorting not the greatest of jobs!

Eventually though as you can see from the photo above, I did eventually manage to dig a few test pits. In the beginning (there was light!) I had started my first test pit and went over to check with Paul. I noticed he had dug up quite a number of animal bones and being both an archaeologist and an osteoarchaeologist I swapped so he could carry on digging while I handled the more delicate of the two.

The more I dug, the more bones were revealed to me and as I unearthed each new bone I began counting, calculating a quick MNI number in my head. MNI stands for ‘Minimum Number of Individuals’ and is used to work out how many individual animals are present at a time (more on this in the future). First there were two lambs, then three…and by the time I had got to the bottom of the test pit I lost count but I think I was up to about five! The photo below was taken near the start of my mini excavation and the board was literally covered in bones by the time I had finished.

 

Look at the bones!

It took me the best part of that day to finish digging one test pit (tree hole) it was that full of bones and even I was getting a bit tired of pulling out bone after bone and not finding the end of them. First off I was thrilled because I’d never dug a test pit with this many finds in it before but that had completely disappeared by the end of it!

After each test pit was completed, it was left open to be recorded by the OAE team and we erected a simple tripod of stakes to a) identify easily the location of each hole and b) to stop the general public blundering into said hole by accident and suing the National Trust for damages.

The tripods were Shane’s idea that very morning, since we were trying to come up with a solution that was quick and easy without too much faffing about. We did find it quite funny though when Simon decided to draw us a tripod to make sure we knew what the end product would look like! In the end work almost ground to a halt as we set out to work and left the technical drawing with all the dimensions behind!! Fortunately Shane remembering from scratch what a tripod looked like and we were all saved, well done Shane!

With holes dug and tripods up, we were well on the way. Starting in the east corner adjacent to the Pleasure Gardens, we worked our way across the park and up the hill to the wood belts at the far side of the parkland. It took a good while but after much digging and tripod raising the job was done! All that was left was placing a spiral guard round every tree; wire mesh to protect against foreign invaders (bunnies) and a metal guard to protect from the farm livestock…

News link: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Royston/Search-for-lost-village-06022013.htm

Thanks to Paul and Debbie for the photos!

 

Hedgelaying Competition Bonanza

The beginning of February saw the annual hedgelaying competition at Wimpole. Now into our fifth year and with many familiar faces, the group trekked out to the competition site on the far side of the Wimpole Estate. Well, actually we all drove down in various vehicles rather than walked as it would have taken too long to get there otherwise (yes, it’s that far!).

For those interested in hedgelaying in previous years, Simon has Video clips up on the sister blog at: https://sadeik.wordpress.com/blog/competitions-at-wimpole/hedgelaying. The only year missing is the first in 2009, which wasn’t taken unfortunately but the rest are there including this years so enjoy!

Layed, staked and binded

Moving on, our old colleague Boz joined us for the day and took part in the competition as well as helping to collect various tools. This obviously included some left over birthday cake! I won’t say whose, wink, wink.

Soon, the vehicles arrived on location and everyone got out onto a windy field ready for the struggle ahead. The sun was shining down as everyone busied themselves gearing up and preparing for the long road of competition hedgelaying. It wasn’t long before Simon was shouting and gathering all before him, ready for the drawing of lots. A bit of confusion ensued as people weren’t sure which style of hedge they were laying and general ‘not paying attention’ you get at most meets.

 

 Each competitor drew a number out of a hat (Simon’s pocket in reality – no innuendo’s thanks Paul!) that corresponded to a length of the hedge. With their chosen style it was each participant’s task to lay their stretch of eight metres, stake it up and bind the top with withies.

Not being one of the competitors myself and mainly going along to lend a hand, I ended up being camera man. Justin was also there as official paparazzi photographer so I think we covered the event quite well. A lot of the time I was walking up and down, observing and taking an interest in how different people approached the laying of the hedge.

You call that a knife?

You might think that a group of people on a gusty day chopping into a hedge might seem a bit dull and samey but every person has their own individual way of tackling the problem and getting the job done. Even though the majority used chainsaws, there were a handful of personages doing it by hand with just an axe, loppers and saw! As you can see by the size of the hedge and the tools used (photo to the right) this can seem quite daunting! Having said that even the guys (and gals) with chainsaws had trouble on occasions there were some monster pieces of hedge to get down.

 

At set intervals we had parts of the hedge that were marked to leave as trees after the laying had been done. Although I did notice that a couple of people had chopped through them! You would have thought they would have noticed the big strip of hazard tape wrapped round the trunk, but never mind, it’s all part of the hedge now!

Incidentally the two different styles used are the Midlands and South of England. The Points system used to judge these two styles can be seen on the same link above as the videos.

Speaking to Boz on the day, apparently the SoE is a bit easier to lay than the Midlands but Midland style is better for teaching because it is easier to see the hedge and pleachers after it has been sided up.

After the laying usually comes the staking, with which I leant a hand to Paul and Debbie every now and then. One of the tricky parts of the competition is due to the adjacent competitor laying their own bit of hedge if you (or they) are laying slower. If you’ve done your section and you still have upright plants next door than it’s either drop it to the side and hope you can lift it back after, or wait!

It all turns out good in the end though as everyone kinda helps each other so there are ways around and a helping hand if you need it.

Although I haven’t done any hedgelaying myself, I’m used to the staking and binding having done it at Wimpole previously so I was able to assist those that needed it (i.e. Paul and Debs again!). I have to say I enjoy doing the bindings the most when it comes to hedgelaying though we only tend to bind the top of the hedge when it’s more likely to be seen by the general public. A word of warning though, when binding make sure those nearby are aware as it’s very easy to whip them with the end of the binders as you weave them in and out!

Overall a good time was had by all. There were the winners and the not quite winners but everyone enjoyed themselves, especially with the venison stew that was provided by Simon once we all got back to the Home Farm. Just what a group of hedgelayers need after a hard days work; a hot spud, some of Simon’s homemade bread using heritage wheat we grow on the Estate and a steaming bowl of deer casserole!

To top it all off our Debbie won third prize as well! Don’t worry we won’t tell about getting help from the judge when it came to the bindings!

 

A job well done

 

For the other winners and runner-ups, jump over to the sister blog and to find another account of the hedgelaying competition. Don’t forget to check out those videos either!

(https://sadeik.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/wimpole-estate-2013-hedge-laying-competition)

Photographs courtesy of https://sadeik.wordpress.com as I haven’t received any for myself yet!

Tree Planting at Wimpole (Part 1)

There is currently an ongoing tree planting plan on the Wimpole estate to put back the avenues and former trees that would have been seen in the 18^th Century. I can’t remember who’s landscape plan we are referring back to; might be Bridgeman or Brown (Yes, THE Capability Brown!). Certainly over a long-term plan of 5 – 10 years, the landscape at Wimpole will be a fuller place.

If you’re interested in learning about the tree histories on the estate check out the sister blog at: https://sadeik.wordpress.com/blog/wildlife/trees.

The tree planting plan itself is thanks to the hard work undertaken by Mark who worked on the estate between 2011 and 2012, in conjunction with the conservation department in the National Trust. With the planting plan in place and approved by those higher up, we set about implementing the scheme that will run for the years to come.

So as not to have a big impact on the landscape in a short period of time and to not wear out the spades and the knees of the poor workers (i.e. us), the work has been spread out so only a hundred or so will be planted per year.

At the start of the project in 2012, we put in 60 trees in Folly field with mesh netting to protect them against foraging animals. The trees we planted were a mixture of species; Oak, Ash and Horse Chestnut to name but a few. In case you’re wondering, yes I can’t remember exactly what other species there were. There may have been Sycamore, Lime, Maple, Hazel and a few others but I’m not 100% certain we actually included those!

Incidentally the species were chosen for specifically for different locations as they would have been the original type of tree planted. Of course after we had put the 60 trees in last year, there was the Ash disease problem occurring with European imported trees so a guy from the Forestry Commission had to pay a visit to make sure the Ash trees we had just planted weren’t carriers.

Fortunately all the Ashes we had delivered were healthy and showed no signs of the disease.

View looking North(ish)

This view across the parkland to the north of the Hall was taken in 2008 and is a good representation of how the landscape currently looks. I’ll take a photo in the future to show how it looks with the new trees added. A kind of ‘then and now’ comparison.

On to 2013, and preparations for this year’s trees (all 157 of them) are being made. Last week in the snow and ice we were out and about marking the places where the trees will be planted. Bramwell, a NT conservation chap, popped along with his GPS equipment and started to plot out the locations.

While he plotted, I followed up with blue and white stakes to mark the location while Simon finished off by hammering in a solid wooden stake deep into the ground. Why mark the position of the tree twice you ask? Put it this way, have you seen the kids run amok in the countryside touching things and moving anything that isn’t welded down… yeah, that’s why! To be fair to the children (I have a nephew of my own) it’s also the mischief makers you have to watch out for.

We have different coloured poles simply because of the area the trees are going to go into. Blue for sensitive conservation locations, mainly those places where there is known, or thought to be known archaeology under the turf. White stakes are obviously the less sensitive areas out in the middle of the parkland were not much is expected to turn up. Of course there is also the possibility of digging down smack bang on top of a Roman mosaic, but that is highly unlikely judging from the archaeological landscape.

 

Wimpole Hall looking East

Speaking of archaeological landscapes, this view of the Hall looking east has some good examples of ridge and furrow seen in the foreground.

Ridge and furrow is the old medieval way of farming before the landscape at Wimpole was managed and re-designed in the 18^th Century.

The furrow was used as drainage from the main crop planted on the ridge. This was especially important with low draining soils and helped to prevent crops becoming waterlogged in particularly wet periods.

Of course in context with this post, the photo also serves as a view of the front of the Hall before we begin planting the new trees this year.

Taken in 2009, there has been no change to the landscape since then. Apart from the smaller trees nearer the Hall, which have metal tree guards round them now to prevent damage from stock.

The tree guards are in keeping with the historic landscape with a similar design from the time of Bridgeman and Brown. Same goes with the park-rail fencing seen across the estate.

 

I should also point out that the old avenues can still be seen throughout the parkland if you look close enough. There is the walnut avenue running diagonally from the front of the Hall, and the oak avenue to the north. Interestingly enough, apparently when the trees and avenues were originally planned in they are located along the grid lines seen on maps!

Since this post is all about trees and apart from the ones within the landscape on the above photos, there isn’t actually a picture of one. Here you go!

 

All of the photos are my own this time round,

Until next time…

 

January Clearance

It’s the start of the new year, but not the start of the forestry work as we have been well underway with various works for the last couple of months or so. As it’s the new year though we have started on something fresh to start it off. 

From Cobb’s Wood farm, beyond the field of horses lies a little copse of woodland where we are currently carrying out planned felling work. Well, I say little copse but it’s actually one part of the main Cobb’s Wood so not that little!

Of course the first challenge is the crossing of the horse field, which can be quite entertaining when you’re a bit clumsy like me who manages to find all the holes that jump out and then get accused of being on the whisky again! No names mentioned of course J. Usually the only two residents are Simon’s big Dutch Drafts, which are used to haul out the big loads of timber. For more information check out our companion site at https://sadeik.wordpress.com (Shameless plug #1).

Once at the far gate it’s a small trek to the working site to cut down some more trees. Before you wave your arms in horror at the prospect, it’s part of a planned scheme, I think as part of the HSL but it might be forestry commission or something like that. Either way it’s done for a reason and encourages tree regrowth as seen from previous work we’ve done in the area.

Hopefully you can see where the original cut was made and the growth of the tree around it. Ignore the buffoon on the photo as I’ve no idea where that dude came from! (For those who think I’m being rude don’t worry I know him – It’s me!)

The main problem we have with trees this young and also with the coppicing we do is that a lot of the time the shoots get grazed off by wild animals; mainly deer. This completely reduces the proper regrowth of the plants and in some cases ruins them altogether. Fortunately we are able to reduce the munjac deer numbers on the estate as one or two individuals have a shooting license, but more on that in next post.

The main clearance, or coppicing I should say, is done by felling the lines of Ash that were planted about 25 – 30 years back. Part of the reason is that Ash is quite a prolific plant that grows well and doesn’t take long to get to a height. Unfortunately this inhibits the Oaks growing beside it, so the Ash are taken out to give them some clear air.

Where's Paul?

For the ‘Where’s Wally/Waldo’ enthusiasts, let me present our own version of: Where’s Paul! Any eagled-eyed person able to spot him in the above photo?

Aside from that, the tree in the immediate foreground with the pile of stakes is an Oak. Now with an unrestricted canopy it can maximise it’s growth and do well. As for the stakes, these are cut out of the felled Ash and once sharpened they’ll be used in the upcoming hedgelaying competition the 2^nd February (Shameless plug #2). For more details check out shameless plug #1!

With the Ash trees on the floor, they are de-limbed and cut up into three metre lengths. Stakes are thrown to one side (literally!) ready to be pointed, while the timber is stacked on shorter bars for ease of picking up later on. 

Cutting, measuring & stacking, pointing stakes

As it stands I think there’s still a bit more work to be done before we move on to the next job, but it’s quite intensive like a lot of the work we do. By the way if you think I should be wearing my ear defenders on properly and not doing an orange ‘Mickey Mouse’ impression; rest assured I’m well out of the action at the far end of the row.

It’s also nice just being in the woods and enjoying the wildlife and peacefulness around us. Peaceful when there isn’t the roar of a chainsaw going off that is! Debbie (our illustrious photographer and forestry worker) pointed out some long-tailed tits the other day, which was a pleasure to see and all last week we’ve had the calls of Raven’s nearby. Foxes and even a shivery dog have been seen in the area too. The dog is actually Simon’s and usually accompanies us wherever we go; unless its tea-break time then he manages to pull a disappearing act just when we want a cuppa! But that’s another story.

One last word on the stakes; once they’re cut to the right length and pointed they are bundled up and stacked at the edge of the woodland for retrieving later. Currently we have just about two stacks with around 800 stakes in and easily more to bring out. Just don’t mention to Shane about carting them through the woods to stack up, as both of us did that all day over a week back. I’m sure my arms are longer now…

As always, photos are supplied by the lovely Debbie unless mentioned otherwise and feel free to check out our companion site too.

Oh and no one mention the Ash die-back ‘cos we ain’t got any here yet!