Oop Twmbarlwm they are having a Tidy Tump Day

Dear all, our friends up on Twmbarlwm are having a Tidy Tump day on Sat 25th January and welcome all volunteers to come along and join in. Details for this event are below:

You can visit their new website here: www.twmbarlwm.co.uk

Erode is long!

One of the regular volunteers with Friends of Henllys LNR recently mentioned that one of the footpaths off the LNR was in a dreadful state due to prolonged torrential rainfall. Upon a closer inspection the stone footpath had been washed away in places 50cm wide and 35 cm deep.

55 cm wide and 30 cm deep

 

Water flowing along the footpath from 2 stream breaches

The cause of this appeared to be from 2 places where the stream, which is elevated to the footpath, broke its banks in 2 places. Some of this is due to silting up and blockages from fallen branches snagging and building up dams forcing the stream along different paths. We decided to take action on Friday, before it became even worse and just in case it gets repaired and the underlying cause was not investigated or treated.

Water pooling around LNR access gate

We decided that we could build a couple of fascines from brash collected on the Reserve from trees felled as part of the management plan with TCBC and volunteers. The woodsman’s grip mark II worked a treat...

Woodsman's grip II improved with a surplus electrical cable

...and the two bundles were tied up with wire and transported across the muddy reserve by wheelbarrow.

Could do with an ox

They were then put in place after several different orientations to best limit the flow onto the footpath.

Fascines in place note the water still running down the breach

We built on or fascine experiences on the Local Nature Reserve over the last 4 years and knew that these would silt up in time and would stabilise the banks, however, we needed to do a fix now, to stop further erosion. We decided to use some of the silt that had accumulated nearby to the fascines (probably adding to the problems) and backfilled behind and on top/through the fascine nearest to the bank. After a good load of this, the breach did appear to be blocked.

Backfilled with silt, breach appears repaired

A little further downstream and by standing in the stream, the second breach appeared to be caused by blockages in the normal route of the stream including branches and a carpet flytipped from the houses above in Llys Gwyrdd. These were unblocked by hand and 2 defences built up near the breach to try and halt the flow of water onto the footpath.

No more water flowing over breach 2

At the end of the footpath where the pooling was most prominent, we dug two drainage channels back towards the stream, but the flow away didn’t look fantastic considering the channel was over 30cm deep in places.

On the Saturday night, there was another yellow weather warning, more blocked drains and again more water cascading down the roads and into this stream. Sunday heralded a lovely day and we were fearful that these defences would not have held. However, it is nice to be surprised occasionally and the path near to the gate was immediately drier.

Much drier due to drainage channel

Moreover, the eroded channel was much drier with water in just the deepest sections.

(Sun) This was full of water on Friday and with heavy rainfall on Saturday evening drained away really well

Walking upstream, we were pleased to see that both the breaches had successfully held, which was brilliant news for us. A great result for a couple of volunteers.

Out with the Bouncy Bridge

Today I assisted TCBC Woodland Ranger, Jon Howells,  in making good a previous repair to the bridge over the stream near the Principal entrance of the Birch Grove Car Park. Originally the bridge wearing boards were made using mahogany, which is a very tough and stiff wood and now thankfully it use is much more controlled today as it grows in tropical rainforests. So when, the edges started to rot away, they were replaced with 1 inch thick decking boards. These are not quite the same as mahogany and when they were screwed down at the edges and middle, they were very springy....

starting to pull up the boards

so much so, that as people walked over them eventually, the screws were lifted out of the wood, increasing the "bounceupability" (Oxford English Dictionary take note of the word's first proper use) of the planks. So I'd be going backwards and forwards to the bridge putting in new screws. Anyway, the new Welsh Government Tidy Towns funded grant gave us a little bit of money to spend on the bridge to make it sound again.

This old one was thick and a bit rotten in parts so out it went

We then cut the new boards to length and laid them lengthwise and impact driver'd them down.

Over the boardwalk

These were the foundations for the old boards to go back on top in the same orientation as before, first we had to cut them down to fit the width of the bridge.

Cutting and laying the boards down

We put all the boards down, spaced them out and screwed them down again with the impact driver. While we were finishing off 3 LNR users came over the bridge and said how much better it was, so not a bad day's work all in all.

Bouncy bridge bye bye

Before I end this blog update, I'd like to shamelessly plug a colleague of mine Gareth Davies who works for Environment Wales, who recently completed a year doing loads of different activities raising money for Recovery Cymru and Keep Wales Tidy. My personal favourite was him giving up alcohol for a whole year in memory of his Mam. A brave, touching and fantastic achievement. If you have a second there is a 3 and a bit minute video showing some of the stuff he got up to which can be viewed here.

 

If anyone wanted to, Gareth's "Just Giving" link is here too.

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