Litterpick and Workday
Tidy Twmp – Update
The weather forecast for the LitterPick & Workday (25th Jan) was for a relatively dry day with the rain due in at 3pm – so when I left the house in the morning as the sun was trying to break through, I was quite optimistic. When I got up the Twmp I saw straight away that I had been mistaken, as I was welcomed by a thick mist and a cold wind that penetrated all of my layers.
As I waited for people to arrive I noticed that a big pile of rubbish had already been collected by someone – many thanks to whoever did that but it’s just as well the scouts we had asked to turn up couldn’t get there because there would have been nothing for them to do!
As start time of 10.30 arrived it was obvious that many prospective volunteers did not trust the weather forecast and decided not to come but we had some 15 stalwart volunteers ready and raring to go. A few set off in search of litter but as the council are currently working on surfacing the car park, much of the mess that is usually there had been cleared away, so there was only a couple more bags to add to the pile of rubbish previously mentioned. But the litterpickers were glad of that because they were keen to help out in the forestry where it was more sheltered from the bitter wind.
I was worried about the size of the timber we were aiming to move, but I needn’t have worried too much, because when Howard Vicary and his son David arrived with the tractor with extending arm and fork lift attachment they made a difficult task look easy. Some volunteers helped with the towing of the logs while others gathered the smaller brushwood for the Alamo infill.
The heavier logs were hoisted into the Alamo while the brushwood was left outside – this is because over the next few weeks we will be having further volunteer days to plant hedging within the Alamo and as the planting is done, the brushwood will be placed gently around the saplings to protect them until they are established.
In the meanwhile a few other volunteers had gone up onto the ridgeway to gather the self-seeded spruce trees which the contractors had cut down the previous day – these trees were hauled to the top Alamo using a quad bike and sheer muscle power. The landscape on the ridgeway is much more open than the forestry below and the wind made handling the trees much more difficult – so hats off to the volunteers who took on that task.
The shifting of the timber from the forestry was so efficient that it was practically finished by lunchtime when Sue and Gretta served up some very welcome hot drinks and hot-dogs. The timing proved most fortunate because towards the end of the lunch break the weather started to close in with driving rain and hail showers.
So we took some quick group photos before the weather got too bad. Some volunteers drifted away homewards and a handful remained to continue the work on the ridgeway – I must admit that I was still down the bottom at the car park when the worst of the weather hit with some powerful hail stone showers – so again much respect to those still up on the ridgeway working.
WE eventually packed up by 4pm and we all agreed it had been hard work but we had all had a good laugh and had achieved a great deal. Of the 900m of fencing that the contractors have erected over the last few weeks, today’s work has prepared at least half of it ready for the planting and infilling.
Please have a look at the gallery of photos from the day – note: the last three photos are courtesy of Mike West.