One man went to mow...

...went to mow a meadow! At the moment in my case, it is one man and his cat to follow on.

We have around two hectares to mow....
that's around five acres in English money...
and the grass needs to be removed...
to lower the fertility and allow the weaker species to grow more successfully...
and hamper the efforts of  les orties* [nettles].

To mow we have "Betsy"...
our big two-wheel tractor with its 53" cutter bar.
To rake we have me and a Bulldog wooden rake...
so at the moment we slowly get a field full of humps and rows that become humps....
and humps that become bigger humps....
and so on....
and on!

Driving Betsy... the grimace is obligatory (as is the hat!)

When Betsy arrived she wasn't heavy enough at the cutter bar, so a cut of around three inches...
[or fifteen centimetres... I am of old measure]...
became a one foot high trim whenever the wheel hit a molehill.
It was very tiring to use and left me aching...
then the suppliers, Trackmaster, sent me two weights to attach to the bar and all changed...
she still bucks at humps but it is easier to get the front down again and she is, overall, more controllable...
which is vital when working near the willows!!
And I have since added a pair of large, wide skids... as those that are supplied as standard, just cut deep two-inch furrows!!

It is a big meadow.... this is the smaller bit....

The other reason for being able to mow large areas quickly and easily is that the meadow has Creeping Thistle [Cirsium arvense] Chardon des champs...
which needs to be kept cut before it flowers and the wind dispersed seed blows everywhere.
This is what the Wildlife Trusts have to say on the subject.
So you can see that it would not be beneficial to the birds to eradicate it completely...
not that I think I could!!
And, in 2016, thanks to the Barn Owl Trust and Mammal Society....
and Pauline's research....
the mowing regime has changed yet again... but that will be another post!

The selected areas of nettles [*les orties] that I am mowing are to reduce their competition with the grass.
I have no intention of trying to win the that battle either as...
[1] we want the butterflies that use nettle as a foodplant for the young... and
[2] we use the nettles as fertilizer and occasionally as food.
Well, that's my excuse, anyhows!!

Still mowing.... here at least you can see one of the paths along the edge of the bief (millstream).

Betsy is manufactured in Italy by part of the Ferrari works and moves at walking pace...
so I'm driving one of the slowest Ferraris on the planet....
but there is a big advantage with that...
we are working the land for the wildlife it contains and being able to stop instantly and walk forward to inspect for nests when birds fly up is a great help...
also, by cutting the grass and not chopping it with a flail or a whirling blade, allows the grass to fall aside and allows small beasts to fly, walk, run away.

Occasionally I get flying voles...
these rocket out of the grass and run along on the top, before diving back into the sward...
when they run ahead, this is usually repeated a few seconds later.

One of the first 'humps' is visible to my right in this picture.... it grew as the year wore on....
and had finished at around this height when I mowed through it last week.
We will be able to harvest compost from the bigger of these piles.

Betsy has another attachment...
a big wood-chipper that can handle up to three inch trunks....
but that's yet another posting.

/|________________________________________________|\

* Les Orties = The Nettles

(Thank you Susan for the correction.  

[The Nettles is a Celtic band - J.Nettles is an actor])

2010 & 11... Almost caught up!

As mentioned at the end of the last post we started off the willow plantation.
I purchased and collected the willows from Yorkshire Willow...
they came as 10" cuttings... well, lengths...
of one year old stem with about six to ten buds.

The willow sticks in their nursery bed...
some were too young to leave home!!

The idea is to plant each length of willow stem where it is going to finally be...
in our meadow?
You are joking!!...
it was difficult enough to find them the way I planted these ones.

The willows were of seventeen different varieties in bundles of ten.
One hundred and seventy twigs...
what we bought are listed below [the ones introduced as 20cm cuttings]...
and these should be buried with around two inches/two buds above ground.
So I decided to create two nursery areas...
the one pictured above and another one in a damp spot out in the meadow.
I have altered the table below to show the survivors... some have thrived....eg: Bay Willow and Cohu Blue.... others I have struggled with... and some, like the Sekka pictured below... have succumbed because they are not suited to this environment.

On each row I used a Crack Willow stick to hold the label on the left in the photo above...
this year I will plant out the twenty-odd young Crack willow volunteers that were the result...
they will form a coppice area towards the riverbank.

These are the Sekka catkins...
grey against the red bark.
And, in 2017 the last Sekka had vanished...

The majority of the bought 'twigs' took hold in the pictured nursery area...
but the success rate was poor in the meadow.
That wasn't surprising...
I purchased them in late March and planted them in early April...
not really the right time...
and as we were still in the UK for much of 2010...
they weren't able to be regularly watered either.

These are the wonderful Cohu Blue catkins...
they start steel blue-grey, then "heat-up" and, finally...
catch fire.

These young trees were then planted out in blocks...
or patches where there were only two or three survivors...
last year...
the year of the very hot, dry summer....
again not at all good for young trees that haven't got roots down deep.
If you look at the tree list page, you will see a column marked survivors 2012...
I will be going round next week trimming the survivors down to two or three buds on each shoot...
[and planting the cuttings deep, in situ, to extend the blocks/patches].


Tree Table of those species on site

English Name	Species	French name [if any]	Survivors [2011] [2017]	Uses	Comments
Crack Willow	Salix fragilis	Saule fragile	N/A	Crop for biomass	On site
White Welsh	Salix fragilis decipiens		1 ex 10 2017 none!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
White Willow	Salix alba	Saule blanc	(3) ex 10 2017....one left!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Scarlet Willow	Salix alba 'Chermesina'		10... 2017 one!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from cuttings
Flanders Red	Salix alba fragilis		3 ex 10 2017 one!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Golden Willow	Salix alba vitellina	Osier doré	5 ex 10 2017 one!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Dog Willow or Sage-leaf Willow	Salix candida		6 ex 10 2017... two left!		Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Tora	Salix viminalis tora		5 ex 10 2017.... None left!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Continental Purple	Salix daphniodes	Saule faux-daphné	10 ex 10 2017.... eight left... not happy!!	Coppice for rods, colour and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Black Willow	Salix nigricians		2 ex 10 2017....one left!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Bay Willow	Salix pentandra	Saule a cinq étamines	9 ex 10 2017.... No change!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Purple Osier	Salix purpurea	Osier rouge	5 ex 10 2017.... two left!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Cohu Blue	Salix purpurea		8 ex 10 2017.... No change!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Green Dicks	Salix purpurea		3 ex 10 2017.... two left!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Sekka	Salix sachalinensis		9 ex 10 2017.... None left!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Black Maul	Salix triandra		11 ex 20 2017.... None left!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Common Osier	Salix viminalis		5 ex 10 2017....one left!	Coppice for rods, colour and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Grey Willow	Salix cinerea	Saule cendré	1 2017.... No change!		On site
Eared Sallow	Salix aurita	Saule à oreillettes	1 2017.... No change!		Self seeded at allotment
Pussy or Goat Willow	Salix caprea	Saule marsault	1 2017.... three more self-seeded!	Plant more as early bee fodder	Self-seeded - On site by bridge

A Bit of Fencing.... 2009

We had a break from the felling routine in 2009 and did some planting [as before] and some fencing.

The fencing was needed to define the boundary between our property and the neighbouring field...
the original fence was very 'tired' and in places...
completely missing [having, in our absence, been driven straight through by a digger!!]

The fencing was done in two stages...
when Stuart was here, in March, we aimed to get the posts in place and the strainers fixed up with the three carry wires attached and strained.
The strainers were done as "Colonial" two post, rather than the more usual post and a diagonal.
This technique lends itself to rocky soil like ours...
where it is difficult to dig a decent post hole to a good depth.

I've seen the method used quite a lot around here...
so it is not a strange thing to see a double header version at a corner or bend, the central post of three being the 'joint'.
And just I originally posted this, I saw a triple upright, double tensioner version over near Chaumussay....not sure why.... but with the work involved, there must have been a reason!

This is the major fence line, the one between the properties.
The "Colonial" strainer is in and tensioned and the post line is in place.
The thin posts are rose poles that I used as sighting poles...
the most difficult part of fencing is getting the line right in the first place!

You will see from the picture that a winder is used to tension the frame...
when fixing the stock fence in place, you start to strain up the fence at the second post...
leaving the piece that covers the strainer frame able to be removed as necessary for re-tensioning the fenceline.
All the posts used were reclaimed chestnut ones from other places on the site...
mainly from the bank of the bief.

Stuart and I managed to get both the lines finished and the straining wires in place without much difficulty...
despite using 'second-hand' posts.

This is a corner of the second fence line, the one by the road.
The three strainer wires can be seen quite clearly.
The wooden rail from the corner is not a "colonial" strainer,
but a length of timber performing much the same function on a very short run.

When Pauline and I returned in May, we stapled the stock fencing in place on most of the fence line, leaving just two sections that I wrote "I will be completing in the next couple of weeks... honest?". {Update 2017.... they are still to be finished.... }
This entailed rolling out the cattle mesh and crimp-stapling it to the top wire...
before going back down the line and doing the same on the other two...
trying to hold a 22 kilo roll of cattle mesh upright and unroll it at the same time is no joke...
it seems to be very tired and wants to lie down all the time!!
But we got there...
with much shouting and cussing!!

This is the main fence line, once the cattle mesh has been added.
You will see that the bottom wire does not run along the bottom of the mesh,
but along the next 'rung' up... this allows the mesh to be 'moulded' along the ground.
Any bigger irregularities are taken care of with offcuts of mesh wired on and buried....
not necessary here as the farmer is arable... and we don't keep stock!

In 2010 we did some more planting and started the willow plantation...
more about that next week.

A nice Spring day

We have a nice start to the Spring today, after some of the "drear" we've had this week....

Last night the Wikileaks were around... possibly in the meadow... for those that don't know us, the Wikileaks are Stone Curlews [Burhinus oedicnemus] Oedicnème criard...
their call sounds like "wikileaks...wikileaks...wikileaks"!

Today, in the warmth....19 Centigrade.... the Brimstones [Gonepteryx rahmni] le Citron and other butterflies were all around us...
male [probably] Mason Bees [Osmia rufa] l'Osmie were hanging around in front of the insect hotel...
Pauline sat deafened by one of the Wrens [Troglodytes troglodytes] Troglodyte mignon...
it ignored her presence and pumped itself up into a frenzy of song.

Wall lizards were out in force... and to cap it all on the reptile front...
a Viperine Snake [Natrix maura] Coulevre vipérene was soaking up the warmth on the barn door!!

I decided, given the warmth, to set up the moth trap....
even though the moon is almost full I will catch something....
on my way back to the house from turning it on... I saw a bat...
so sat with the bat detector on my lap, my back warmed by the house wall...
a useful ten minutes...
Common, Kuhls and Nathius's Pipistrelles all registered as top bat choice....
as did a Lesser Horseshoe!!


Photos/corrections to follow...

Le Pré de la Forge.... Five old Saules... part four of the saga - 2008

Making a start...
removing the small and dead branches.

The routine continued... but like last year we had my wife with us, so Stuart and I were able to crack on much quicker, leaving Pauline to cook and clean up after us!
Well, not really...
the third pair of hands actually meant that some of the more difficult tasks were...
"three head, six hand" jobs.

Lopping the easy branches first to clear the view.

And that was really useful...
especially when we hit a big snag...
the last trunk to fall.
It had a twist...
and didn't give any indication of a bias to fall any particular way.

The last three branches...
the last one is the furthest left...
with a great big double bend!

So whilst I stood and looked, and paced around the tree.....
and stood and looked, and paced around the tree.....
and stood and looked, and paced around the tree.....
Pauline kept me supplied with coffee and helped Stuart shift the timber from the first branches that we'd dropped.

Eventually I decided to rope guide the direction of fall.
That meant getting a rope around the trunk as high as possible...
higher than I could get with the ladder.
There was a group of three branches slightly lower than I'd have liked to position the rope...
but they were reachable with a hammer throw.

A strong string attached to the hammer, it was hurled violently upward towards the first branch of the trio...
and my aim was good.
Yes, I hit the branch square on!!

Second try missed it perfectly and the string was over the first...
and by sheer luck, the second.
Fate was sitting up there watching....
and having a good laugh....
I hit the third branch a glancing blow and the hammer fell....
back over the second branch!
Threw it back over the second branch on the third attempt....
and eventually the third!!
The rope was then hauled over and round, a slip hitch tied and it was pulled tight to the tree.

Because I didn't have a winch of any sort, the other end was anchored near the bief...
a metal bar was then "looped" into place about halfway between the two anchor points.
We attached three long butt-ends of the other branches to the rope...
just above the metal bar...
as it took Stuart and I to raise the ends into position whilst Pauline tied them into place...
I would estimate that we had the pulling power of about four people at that point...
but in the form of undamageable logs.

I was cutting from the back of the tree which meant that I was going to be higher up than the bole... this was alright by me...
it meant that I could cut straight through, with just a shallow sapwood cut lower down to stop the bark tearing.
Once felled, I tidied up by doing a second clean cut to finish off.

A tidy, cleaned up bole and a stack of firewood.
The darker wood is a previous years harvest.

Job's a goodun...
all five trees pollarded [tetardé]

The view with all the trees pollarded.

Then, after the last bonfire....

The smoke from the last bonfire drifts Eastwards across the meadow.

....it was back to tree planting...
mainly extending the areas we had already worked on...
and getting more young twigs into the tree nursery.

The view of the nursery area from the kitchen window.

The row of trees nearest the bief are waiting to be lifted.
There are three trees in the green binbag, waiting to be planted out...
some root loss was unavoidable, but as before...
we compensated by planting deeper.

The duckboards over the already dug soil can be clearly seen in this shot from the bridge.

The duckboards allowed us to dig the trees out without us getting bogged down in the soft mud.

Once all the trees were out, new rods were planted behind where you see the duckboards...
in virgin soil...
this is to allow time and tide to refill the 'used' area.

Other small and specimen trees, including some Scarlet Willow...
and a spawn of the Headingly "Original Oak"...
were planted out in the verger.

The nursery bed in the verger for the smaller and specimen trees.
The "Original Oaks" are in the blue-green pot.