Tunman Wood, 22 May 2011
A new site for us and a recent acquisition for the Wildlife Trust, this
mixed woodland is isolated and peaceful with very few visitors. The job was
to see how best to remove the many stones and concrete
bits
sticking up out of the tracks through the woodland. Most of the tracks
through the wood had been strengthened with the liberal distribution of
rubble. Through this rubble had grown an interesting variety of wild flowers
and other flora and the best way to maintain this would be with regular
mowing with a flail mower. Unfortunately, hitting lumps of rock doesn't do
the mower much good. So, we needed to find a way to remove as many
protruding rocks as possible, filling in the resulting holes with sand.
Ten of us turned out on a reasonably sunny day, with the occasional heavy
shower, to tackle this task. The stones came out easily enough with the use
of mattocks and spades, but then another and another was found, resulting in
ever expanding holes that needed filling with sand and tamping down. The
trick was to decide which stones presented a hazard and which could be left
in place, not an easy task as removing one stone left others exposed.
In the end we did about 100ft of track, but with stones still being
discovered hidden in the grass. And we soon ran out of sand, leaving some
holes inadequately filled. With the many metres of track to do, this will be
a slow old task and we left Phil to decide whether it was worth persevering
or whether to get in a digger, risking the destruction of the very plants
that need protecting. An enjoyable enough task, not least because I got to
drive the 4x4!
Julian
