Wind in the Willows (or is that a hawthorn?)

On a very windy morning 3 GG Yorkies joined forces with St Nicks volunteers to help on the nature reserve. Our task today was split into two groups, one to carefully coppice an area, another to dig up the right trees to build up a mid-layer canopy in the newly cleared space.

Despite the fear that a phrase like "the right trees" strikes into the heart of less green-fingered GoodGymmers, we chose the latter in the hope that a bit of digging would warm us up. After a quick lesson in "This is a Hawthorn. Hawthorn good" "This is a Blackthorn. Blackthorn bad" we set to it, merrily digging away at the (hopefully) correct sticks, getting more ambitious as we went. There were a few false starts where tiny twigs were attached to giant roots, but we got some rather large trees out in the end (including my triple hawthorn personal best), and soon the wheelbarrow was full of trees with hopefully enough roots still attached, and team two whisked them away for planting.

Despite some perilous bankside digging, noone fell over, minimal brambles attacked us, and my hat was only stolen by the trees a few times. It certainly warmed us up, and the sun even came out to say hi!