history

For last Thursday night, a notice in a local shop mentioned Holt Local History Society putting on a talk "The making of the Maelor Saesneg"
A landscape history lecture for the area around the River Dee catchment area from South Cheshire and the border with Wales and Shropshire. A touch further south than the field, but still an insightful talk on an area with interesting landscape that I've spent a good few years exploring.

Afterwards, a good chat with some of the Society members regarding the more immediate landscape around Holt and Farndon. Modern geophysics techniques have been utilised including magnetometry and Lidar maps - as well as field walks. Access cooperation with local landowners around Holt Castle is being looked into, hopefully an area I can help with regarding the field.
Whilst planting the trees recently, the west half of the field which appears slightly higher, has around 6 to 8 inches of silt / soil deposit beneath the present turf, but above a previous grass level. There is also the lump of sandstone to drop off with the museum that was in the ground near the junction of two tracks on the field boundary.

Another couple of frosty nights, but still the leaves are on a few trees - particularly the quince.
Quite a bit of time levelling and mulching around the fruit trees and fitting commercial grade amenity tree-ties to the stakes, then some time back at home looking after the landscape machinery.
A couple of visitors, looking at the trees as well as the wider landscape.

Also noticed increased Police visibility lately, on both the English and Welsh sides of the River. Hopefully this will reduce some of the random anti-social activities in the area.

Unfortunately in one corner of the field an entire wing, of either a tawny owl or pheasant?

From Meadowcopse 2011

A bit of time back at the day job, hopefully seasonal river flooding will hold off long enough for more groundwork, fencing and hedging during my next spell off - if the river level stays consistently low I might chance another spell camping before the year ends too...

Another weekend

Various mushrooms in the grass at the field:

From Meadowcopse 2011

From Meadowcopse 2011

A rather busy week, 15 young but rather large cider apple orchard trees transplanted...
Quite a bit of work to get them out with as much root as possible:

From Orchard 2011

Also a lot of preparation work to get them planted and secured:

From Orchard 2011

Many thanks to the donor who sadly was moving away from their location and thanks to a colleague from a few years ago that made the arrangements.

About 90 mixed orchard trees now, with only about 36 being apples.

Working into darkness to get the latest trees in, various mammals still moving about the undergrowth and an adventurous mouse looking around the mulch was briefly mesmerised by the head-torch - still about 5 owls to be heard at night too and the buzzards in the daytime.
There is also a large random domestic type cat (white & tabby mix) that is around day or night.

Driving to the field this afternoon, i noticed the River Dee noticeably higher, but still no concerns about Flood Warnings yet.
I think this time last year there was snow, bizarrely mild - although a chill stiff breeze was creeping in late afternoon.

The weekend

Towards the end of last week I spent some spare time looking back over the various Chancery Deeds from the National Archives for Farndon and Crewe by Farndon.


A slow start to Saturday (a combination of Crohn's Disease grumblings and a Goth night in Wrexham late on Friday). First stop was a light lunch at DeliFine in Holt, then over to the field to mark out more orchard plantings.

A sudden revision to the planting plan, due to the opportunity of transplanting a young, but established cider apple orchard of up to 15 trees (the owner, a specialist micro-brewer with CaMRA recognition is moving, but had put a fair bit of thought into what he had established for a premium small scale cider production and was understandably reluctant to abandon it).
I'd been put in touch by a respected work colleague from a few years ago who, since retirement has gone on to specialise in fruit tree culture and grafting.
Some sizeable holes for the trees were dug and with a few other minor jobs around the field, it was dark by the time I'd finished...

During the day, the chance to chat to a couple of respected local folk, the nearest neighbour mentioned that suspicious vehicle activity and anti-social behaviour at the top end of the access track / minor road was still a problem, dog walkers confirmed that the sheep 2 fields away were prone to straying (glad I put the extra wire net fencing up now) and at the edge of the village, the gift of a pot of local honey.

Quite a few pheasants about, yet more mole hills, and owl hoots as darkness falls.

Saturday was a mild evening, so I carried on into darkness. Then things got interesting...
My Cousin said he might call, I left the gate to the field open whilst digging holes for the trees. A car came part way down the track, then cleared off. Another vehicle, a 4x4 was making it's way through the darkness, through the gateway and I assumed it was my Cousin. For a laugh, I put my oil lamp down a hole, turned off my head-torch and lurked in another planting hole. Only when the 4x4 slowed by my Landrover and put it's full-beam on did I notice the blue and lime-green chequers and the word 'POLICE'
Hmm, this could get interesting explaining a wheelbarrow and shovels at my side...
Turns out to be an unrelated incident involving vehicle movements along the lane at the top of the track. They saw the funny side, as if it's normal to be planting trees in near darkness in the middle of nowhere...

On Sunday I took the Landrover and trailer to the Wirral to start extracting the orchard trees.
A fascinating conversation regarding specialist brewing and the desire for something good to come of the trees. 15 in total and ranging from 10 to 15 feet tall!
Varieties: 'Kingston Black, Chisel Jersey, Harry Masters and Broxwood Foxwhelp.

Initial digging was 'challenging' - the large garden of a traditional estate cottage, one end had at sometime had a path and the ground was a bit stony as I initially dug a very generous diameter around the first tree to establish root spread.

For replanting at the field, I'll be part filling the holes around the roots with Barker & Bland's composted wool and bracken mix and with a sprinkling of mycorrhizal RootGrow granules and the fine alluvial soil from the field mixed in.
I am a touch concerned by the size of the trees compared to the root structure after digging up, particularly as they still have some leaves on. I'm hoping that some fine fibrous new root growth might start before winter dormancy completely sets in. Because of the size of the trees, staking is essential for a few years (although they all impressively stood unaided when the planting holes were filled in at their final location in the field.

By Monday afternoon, 9 from the 15 were satisfactorily transplanted.
The final holes to dig on Wednesday and hopefully transplanting completed by Thursday and looking forward to a fruitful collaboration for small scale cider production in years ahead...

By dawn's early light

Back home in Cheshire after 2 weeks of night shifts, I haven't quite adjusted to daytime living yet.
Up at 4 am and down to the field for 6:30am before properly light.
The overhanging willows are trimmed back a touch along the bypass hedge to the north of the field. Hopefully enough room now to get in and clear a neglected drainage ditch.
Owls were hooting before daybreak and the sound of a buzzard coincided with small mammals scurrying through the undergrowth along the old trackway.
It looks like the sheep netting from last month has done its job keeping neighbouring sheep out. Traces of human activity are random small lumps of limestone hurled into the bottom quarter of the field from the track (now removed before they compromise the next time the tractor and mower come out. One random golf ball at the west of the field and minor extra graffiti on the inside of the west underpass - surprisingly the east trackway underpass remains clear since I repainted it late summertime.

The trees have lost their leaves or those remaining have autumn colours - apart from the quince, which are still quite deep green.

A fair amount of mole-hill activity while I've been away and the ground noticeably softer after a couple of weeks with rain.

Winter around the corner?

The field now gets a short rest whilst I get on with my proper job...
I sometimes wonder what the immediate impact on wildlife is when I spend time down there? (Longer term I'm hoping it is positive, although some of the hedgerow and grassland work is bound to have caused some compromises until re-established and stabilised. I do look into and assess what is around a while, before doing work).

Anyway, almost a week in a large tent and the daytime has birds from robins to buzzards and at night time there are about 5 owls, bats, badgers and foxes.
The bees in the hollow tree are still active on warm days and something has pawed up an old honeycomb of ground nesting bees.

I still wonder about the possibility of dormice - an old birds nest was full of dry hawthorn leaves and 'ropes' of twisted hay in a ball - unfortunately full of dry silt too as it was below the winter river flood level.

A diverse range of fungi have started to appear in the grass.
I didn't manage to get the 'thatch' from the scarifier removed as quickly as I'd have liked, due to rain as I was finishing the task and for most days I was free afterwards.
The Wessex collector works fine, as long as the surface debris isn't sodden.

Somewhat hurriedly, 150 metres of wire stock fencing has gone up (with very handy help from my Uncle), due to sheep reappearing for winter 2 fields away. Last year I'd have been happy for them to have stayed and grazed when they strayed in, but not now with the orchard and young native trees in.
The wire fencing is temporary and positioned to allow enough working space for filling gaps in the hawthorn and for work with a post borer on the tractor for a long term livestock proof fence along the hedge boundary.

Some interesting and good natured talk with local folk and interesting to consider the range of views of people who live and work in the countryside as well as the various walkers along the track. (A large walking group on Saturday were doing part of the Marches Way).

My first night in the tent last week coincided with a ground frost overnight, fortunately the woodburner kept the chill off until about 4am, although a Cadbury's Wholenut bar managed to melt some distance away from the stove.

I was quite pleased during the recent tree work to get a birds-eye view from the hydraulic platform.

Maybe more than coincidently, a carved pumpkin I left on the gatepost for a couple of nights seems to have kept some of the less desirable visitors at arms length.

For the next few months I'll have to be more mindful of the risk of flooding from the River Dee (the daily height trends are on the Environment Agency website and I get alert and warning notifications).
The next areas of work are hedges and ditches and planting clusters of native trees at either end of the field.
Dandelion reduction is back on track with a replacement removal tool swiftly sent from Fiskars.

Now the darker nights and less clement weather are here, a bit of catching up of paperwork and planning ahead, as well as delving into surrounding history.