Greetings!
So this Tuesday we were once again walking the woods of Dunbar creating more habitat piles, thankfully all the ponds were created last week leading to some very relieved VO’s (just me really) and some even more relieved volunteers. There are now so many habitat piles that, to butcher a famous phrase, you can no longer see the trees for the wood. Its a great place to work as everyone that walks through tells you what a great job you are doing which keeps morale high.
On Wednesday we were back at Beecraigs, continuing the seasonal work of Christmas tree felling. The pile of felled trees is now getting sufficently high now (one might say it forms a habitat pile…) as we are still waiting for the chipper to arrive. Excellent work for the day, the tree thinning lines are getting extremely long – although nobody has reached the end of one yet! (Apparently the person who gets to the end of a line first wins a free Christmas tree – but as you will have to take it home yourself, and these trees are … I dunno … a little on the tall side…so I’m not sure if that is an incentive). We were trying a new style of cut (the ‘step’ cut) on the felling – curtesy of Chris and his chainsaw course – and this certainly seemed to be more effective. Admittedly it was a quite hard to get both cuts paralell – so there were a few ‘step’ cuts with a wheelchair access! (a bit of a ramp in other words!).
Lunch was spent outside, on the log piles. In the afternoon I took the group on a walk round the area – looking at tree identification.
This was as entertaining as ever, as its become a bit more ‘hands on’ and involving than before (i.e. I am now ‘testing’ people – so get learning!).
On Thursday, summer came to Beecraigs – about five months early, suprising given that it was snowing on Monday. So in glorious sunshine and warm temperatures the majority of us delved into the cool and shaded wood to carry on the racing lines of tree felling. Still noone has reached the end but Martin and Pat take ther plaudits for the day having removed what must have been 20 more trees than their nearest rivals (and yes, most people agree it is a competition apparantly)
Lunchtime was spent sunning ourselves overlooking the Forth and Pat sprung a surprise – Its his Birthday!!! i won’t reveal ages as its sometimes seen as rude, though last year he was 76. Because of this we were all kept quiet with the largest chocolate cake in existence (though obviously it didnt last long)
A sure sign that spring has arrived is the explosion in the number of ladybirds at the park, for proof see the attached photo of Rob being attacked.
The working theory is it wanted cake.
The other task for the day was taking down the rabbit proof fence that surrounds the woodland, a flawed fence in many ways, huge gaps mean it is only keeping out the stupidest of the bunnies at the moment. Whilst clearly not much use in keeping out rabbits, the fence had been made to a very high standard normally associated with keeping prisoners from tunneling out of jail. The depth of the fence meant that progress in the morning was initially slow but as always with BTCV projects – practice makes perfect. The guys soon had a system that meant by the end of the day they had an entire section out and only running out of time kept them from carrying on with the rest.