Finishing off the holt roof and making storm damaged oak branches safe

Today I popped out with TCBC's Woodlands and Education Ranger Jon Howells to finish off Henllys CIW Primary School's otter holt roof and make an oak tree damaged by storms safe.

Firstly we, finished off the holt roof by collecting more brash material from our piles.

Jon dragging brash through the stream

We then added more layers in a perpendicular direction and topped off with some heavier logs.

Holt finished off

Following this we tackled one of the biggest oaks on the reserve who had lost some big branches in the various storms we'd had this year.


Can you spot the broken branches?

Jon used his extending Stihl polesaw which in fore and hindsight was much safer than him trying to climb it in his arb gear. We removed some of the load bearing branches which were keeping the larger branch up in the air. Towards the end they toppled down easily and safely and no longer pose a potential danger to members of the public.

I also had a chance to use the Tidy Towns funded compact camera to record some of it on video and a first attempt of adding some sort of text commentary:

Happy Christmas everyone and we'll have loads of stuff on in the new year.

Henllys Church in Wales Eco Heroes

Henllys Church in Wales have come down a couple of times in the last few weeks to make big impacts on Henllys Local Nature Reserve. Firstly, 30 children from year 1 came out to plant some bulbs and mulch around the reserve's mini-orchard. Secondly, the After School Eco-Club then came down on Friday 13th to construct an Otter Holt with the Friends of Henllys LNR.

Year 1 bulbs and mulchers

 The 5-6 year olds were disappointed not to be able to come out in the summer for a bug hunt due to bad weather. However, they really wanted to come out again and although we postponed this in October, it was third time lucky for the children.

Getting loppers in place to make pegs for the mulch mats

At the beginning of 2013, we received 10 local variety apple trees from Gwent Wildlife Trust and planted them out under their advice. Over the summer, the grass grew around all the trees creating a little bit of competition with our trees. At the end of July, the meadow was cut and probation came in and raked up a load of the grass and wildflowers. The children made good use of one of these piles and collected some of the rotted grass for the mulch. First, however, the children put down a mulch mat membrane and pegged the mats down using ash twigs cut from a previously thinned out tree. Under supervision they all had a go at using a pair of loppers purchased from a Keep Wales Tidy \voucher scheme. The well-rotted grass was then added on top of the mulch mat.

Apple tree inspection

 "The children were buzzing. I had fab parent feedback today so huge thank you to Friends of Henllys LNR." - Mrs. Sulway, Year 1 teacher.

Mulch mat, pegged and mulched over

"It was great to have these children on the LNR, doing extremely valuable conservation work. They could have collected leaves or done bark rubbings, but it shows that they are also capable of doing really good practical work too" - Chris Partridge, Friends of Henllys LNR

Eco_Club Otter Holt builders


 

The Friends of Henllys LNR, part built the holt using materials felled with Torfaen Council as part of the management plan and did as much preparation work as possible to help smooth the holt's construction. We started off the afternoon with a risk assessment done by the children and agreed a plan to work safely, including cutting back a low lying branch from the holt area to protect our eyes. We also had to work very carefully as we were near the stream and a steep bank.

"It was so much fun I really liked using the tools and sawing wood with Chris" - Laila Baxter

Checking the walls

The children had to organise themselves into building a wall each and work out how to stake the sides and make sure there weren't any really big gaps which would create draughts for any animals inside. They also had to build up a maze inside and cut some of the logs to size to fit the maze. Finally, they split into 2 groups, the collectors and the thatchers. The collectors had to bring the roofing material to the stream and the thatchers had to build the roof up. We just ran out of time to finish off the roof, so the Friends will do that before Christmas.

Group shot with holt without the roof on

It was great fun and made a start on the children learning to work safely outdoors, with risks from tools, weather conditions and location and they did really well.

"It was really muddy and lots of fun. I enjoyed putting the sticks on top of the otter holt" - Andrew  McCorkindale 

A-maze-ing

"It was brilliant, the best bit was passing the sticks over the stream" - Evie Philips

The weather was pretty poor in the afternoon, but an email from Eco-Coordinator Mrs. Sulway saying that the kids really wanted to come out even if it was raining was very heartening. It did rain and they got very wet and muddy, but laughed the whole time.

Holt done

"I thought it was great that all these children got really stuck in doing something that we did with a group of very experienced adults did a month earlier on the LNR. With more practice, the children will develop these skills which can only be beneficial for the children and the school in the long run. I was really impressed, especially seeing their muddy faces at the end, only to find when I got home, mine was exactly the same" Chris Partridge, Friends of Henllys LNR

"The children have had a great experience whilst completing the Otter Holt project. The building of the Otter Holt not only allowed the children to develop their knowledge and understanding of the local area, but it helped the children to develop their team building skills." - Mr Durbin, Headteacher. Henllys Church in Wales Primary School

Next Event 8th Dec at 10am

Our next event will take place on Sunday 8th December at 10am meeting in the car park.

The aim of the event is to prepare for next Friday's event with Henllys Church in Wales Primary School's Eco Committee where we will be building an otter holt from material thinned out from the Local Nature Reserve.

Bring clothing suitable to the conditions and we may get a bit dirty.

It is all about the kids

Children from Henllys Church in Wales & Coed Eva Primary Schools and 1st Henllys Scouts have made a great difference to the LNR this year. Our winter work starts up again this week with the After School Eco Club from Henllys Church in Wales making signs from greenwood harvested on the reserve. They'll be along the lines of the new signs to the otter holt:

We'll collect, split the wood, tidy it up and then draw information on the waymarker posts, while the posts will have a spike put on them with an axe.

To help with any greenwoodcraft work, yesterday we built a device which will help to rive, shave and mortice wood. The children will also get a chance to use these devices over the winter.

In the next few weeks, we'll be finishing off and installing the hedgehog boxes and either making another otter holt or constructing a bird hide with the Eco Club too; exciting times.

A little bit of time to myself, working with greenwood again

I was meant to be out with the Ranger today on my day off, but he called in his office sick, so I still fancied getting up to something on Henllys LNR.

Following on from last weekends brilliant otter holt construction with Cardiff Trail Scrubs using material thinned out from the reserve, I decided on a little me time. Firstly, I want to make sure that the wood cut down on the reserve is used to benefit the reserve. So we hope to perform any felling in stages and use the wood when needed.

Over the last few years, we have been really successful with our willow coppicing and revetment works and I keep building temporary mangers from willow to stack the willow ready to be bundled up. I decided with all the timber we had, I would make a Kentish notch device, an old tool made from wood and loops of cord or wire, which allows bundles to be stacked and tied with just one person. So, to do this I made some stakes, this involved getting my side axe out of spring, summer and autumn hibernation to spike them.

My old side axe back out in daylight

I then knocked them into the ground in a rectangle of approximately 2 foot wide by 4 foot long. I fencing stapled wire to the tops of the two 2-foot apart posts, creating two loops 4-feet apart. In theory willow stem longer than 4 foot will be held above the ground.

The posts knocked into the ground and wires looped between adjacent posts

some brush from last year as a tester

   I returned then to the harvested wood area and collected a few pieces of ash. One section I clove to create two signposts and to a longer section with a slight curve in one end, I clove it and created two similar handles to complete the Kentish notch.

I shaved down the sides to a reasonably smooth finish for the signs. Following this, I permanent markered some information and added a liberal coating of oil. In hindsight, I should have waited and borrowed a pyrography kit. Anyway, you live and learn (but then rather frustratingly you forget).

I was tempted to do it all properly with wood, but ran out of time, so drilled and nailed with aluminium clout nails (these bend if you just look at them with a mildly aggressive frown).

As you can see from the picture above, I have imitated a child's handwriting to deter vandalism, never was much good at art. Anyway, the holt looks really good still after 1-week following construction.

I wandered over to the willow coppice area, knocked in another post into ground which can be best described as homoeopathy levels of soil in water. As a result, I had to knock the post deeper into the ground than I was expecting, so had to cut the top of the post at an angle and attached the Kentish Notch Device sign.

Sign for the Kentish Notch device made from freshly split green ash wood

Finally, I checked by Woodsman's grips and they worked a treat even on this tiny bundle. I may modify these at a later date to either thicker wire or rope.

Woodsman's grips work well on this tiny bundle

All in all it makes me think how nice it would be to construct some other greenwood devices, maybe I can convince one of the schools to come along and help Henllys Church in Wales or Coed Eva???