We spent a day with our volunteers down in Burdiehouse gathering resources for our current project down in the Hermitage of Braid hills. We found and harvested Willow, Ash and Hazel. Once it was cut we then divided our trimmings into 3 separate piles.
The trunks for stakes. longer branches for weaving and finally our third pile was smaller branches/twigs to create bundles.
Our second and third day we spent in the Hermitage building revetments by the side of the river.
We used the willow as stakes which was a reasonably difficult task
considering we were driving these stakes into a river bed complete with rocks and boulders. Pinch bars and the use of a Mell came in very handy.
We then weaved our precut Ash and Hazel to boost the strength of our newly made section of path. It was then backfilled with type1 gravel and topped off with soil for a pleasant finish.
These bundles as I mentioned earlier were bound together using twine and were then attached to the main stakes.
sitting there in the water their purpose is to buffer the water, slowing down the force of the current and saving the banks from further erosion.
We finished our section off in time, there’s more to do so we’ll be back very soon.
I’m just glad no one fell in the river.