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2005 (January - June) Wildlife Diary & News
29 June 2005 It's cooler! It's damper! It's wonderful! For the first time in about 2 weeks my eyes have stopped itching, my nose has stopped running and I haven't sneezed once today. Oh bliss! Exams, anyone? Flag's follow-up visit to the vet today has given him the all clear as far as a possible broken toe was concerned, so his 'only very badly bruised toe' is now getting some light exercise again. And so am I. The very first signs of purple heather are just appearing on the moors as the odd clump of bell heather (Erica cinerea) comes into flower. The ling (Calluna vulgaris) is still a few weeks behind, as usual. Strimmed the path around the wood, half of the woodyard and a section of the beck. 27 June 2005 The dog is still on lawn exercise only, the sun is still far too hot, the temperature, the pollen count and the sneeze rate are still far too high, so not a lot got done today. Tried some hedge trimming with the new trimmer (from the nice insurance people) in the relative coolth of the evening, but the dust from the bone dry hedge set my convulsive sneezing off again, so I had to stop before I accidentally cut anything of a non-vegetational nature. My emails are still NBG, so yet more apologies to anyone still waiting for a reply (including the kind offer of a trimmer!). 25 June 2005 A baby bunny caused a minor flurry of excitement when it decided to hide behind the dustbins just before 10 am on change-over day. Between the four of us (no dog) we managed to herd it safely back towards the orchard for a bit of basic re-programming from mum and dad. Pah! Kids today! Whatever happened to common sense?! 24 June 2005 After another 4 days of unbearable heat it was the Glastonbury Festival which seems to have taken the brunt of the latest thunderstorms and torrential rain. Sorry about that Glastonbury, but we are still sorting out the last lot, so it's somebody else's turn this time. Emails are still being sporadic, no matter what I try. I do seem to be receiving all (most? some? a few?) of them, but send mails from here is only occasionally successful. More apologies if you haven't had a reply, please phone me if it is urgent. 22 June 2005 More high temperatures (90ºF at Groves Dyke) and more high pollen counts (sneeze, sniffle at Groves Bank), neither of which is of any use to man or beast. I took the poor hot dog to the beach on Monday evening to paddle (me) or lie (him) in the North Sea. We both enjoyed that and then he met a little doggie friend and a great time was had by all, with lots of running and playing. As we left I noticed he had a minor limp, but by next morning he wouldn't put one front paw to the ground. The vet diagnosed a badly bruised, possibly broken, toe and so now it is lawn exercise only for the next 10 days. Helmsley and upper Ryedale continue to mop up after the weekend floods. No human lives were lost, but several bridges were swept away, many houses damaged and tens of millions of pounds worth of damage done. The main problem now is to find and dispose of the hundreds of sheep (and some cattle) which were swept out of their fields and drowned. Many of the now decomposing corpses are snagged up in the hedges and treetops, just to make the task even more unpleasant. 19 June 2005 Hotter! And sticky-er! Something nasty must be coming, so Flag and I braved the heat, the humidity and the pollen to spend this morning in the beck preparing for the next flash flood. He was lying in the water and keeping cool, while I was sneezing and hammering tennalised fence posts into the bed of the stream, getting hotter and hotter and less and less impressed with those who don't believe in climate change, (mentioning no names, George W Bush). Hopefully, the first post will catch any big branches washing down in the next flood and the second row of posts will catch the medium sized branches. That should leave only the small branches to get caught in the original screen, which may prevent the beck blocking completely again, overflowing again and flooding the garage. Again. By late afternoon there were distant rumbles of thunder and an occasional flash of lightening, as the poor dog became more and more distressed. The sky clouded over and the thunder and lightening increased, but at least both temperature and humidity dropped enough to become almost bearable. Within an hour the sky had become almost black, the distant thunder rumbled continuously and lightening flickered every few seconds. On almost the longest day of the year, when it should have been daylight until 10pm, the 6 o'clock diesel train went back up the dale with all its interior lights on. It rained a bit, but not too much and the thunder and lightening kept their distance from Sleights. By 7.30 pm the storm had eased, the black cloud rolled away, the sun shone again and poor Flag (not to mention the rest of us) began to relax. The television transmitter on Bilsdale Moor near Helmsley had stopped working earlier in the storm, so only those with satellite TV or listening to the radio knew about the dramatic downpour and flash floods affecting Helmsley and Sutton Bank, just 40 miles away in the far South west of the National Park. The River Rye had burst its banks, bridges swept away, parts of Helmsley under 4 feet of water, one building at Sutton-under-Whitestone-Cliff washed away and 2 RAF rescue helicopters (one from Anglesey, with special heat seeking equipment) were spending the night plucking stranded residents and visitors from the roofs of cars, houses and tree tops. C'mon, George W! Just how bad does it have to get before a Texas oil millionaire like you stops believing all those Climate Change denials from the oil industry? 18 June 2005 Hot! And sticky! It was 80º F at the back of the house by 10 am and the pollen count is high (sniffle, sneeze). Pity all the poor people with hay fever trying to do their exams this month. It always struck me when I was exam fodder that if only the person who invented the academic year had been a hay fever sufferer, too, then the whole academic process would have been shifted along by a couple of months... The maximum temperature recorded today in the shade at the back of Groves Dyke was 86º F. Far too hot for comfort. 16 June 2005 Warmer again, which is a bit more like June is supposed to be. On the way around the wood this morning Flag suddenly dived into the long grass and then surfaced with that 'Me? No, I haven't got anything in my mouth' look on his face, which means exactly the opposite! He wasn't keen to show me what it was, and I wasn't keen to put my fingers inside his mouth in case whatever it was took a nip. Eventually he opened his mouth and a baby blue tit fell out onto the ground with a shrill cheep. I put it safely by the edge of the path where mum and dad could return to feed it and led the poor disgusted dog away to have a much more boring breakfast. 15 June 2005 Managed to strim the path around the wood this morning, just before the rain returned again. Problems with my out-going emails continue, with only a random few getting through. Most of them just bounce, so more apologies to anyone still waiting for a reply. If urgent, please phone me (see Contact, above). 12 June 2005 Only managed an hour in the wood today, before being rained off. Almost all the sycamore poles which were stacked amongst the blackthorn behind the second hazel coup are now in a much more accessible stack by the side of the path. That should avoid daily disturbance of the long tailed tits nesting in the blackthorn, not to mention me getting soaked on wet mornings by pushing through the dense hazel growth! The new cord in the woodyard is now almost complete, thanks to carrying down two sycamore poles everyday as I walk Flag around the wood. 11 June 2005 The recently acquired pair of Gnome Man chest of drawers (made by Thomas Whittaker of Littlebeck, Whitby) has today been put into Groves Dyke, as bedside units in the double bedroom. If you don't know about the Gnome Man of nearby Littlebeck, click here. 9 June 2005 So far this month there has been ¾ inch of rain, the maximum temperature has been up to 74º and the minimum down to 36ºF. Apologies to anyone who has emailed me and not had a reply. Please blame BT-Yahoo, who have been playing silly beggars with my out-going emails. 8 June 2005 Hot and sunny, so off to Runswick Bay for dog walks on the beach and dog walker lunch at the Royal pub, sitting outside overlooking the bay in all its splendour. Back home after lunch for the exhausted dog to recover and for the exhausted dog walker to get kitted up and strim the beck (rotational mowing again, to encourage the wild flowers), the steps and bank, the front of Groves Dyke and half of the woodyard. Enough already! 5 June 2005 Dry, warm and sunny. Lopped back a few briars and sagging branches around the path, then strimmed the edge of the drive. 3 June 2005 Two very heavy and thundery showers gave ½ inch of rain today, bring the total so far this month to ¾. 1 June 2005 A wet morning, ideal for catching up on admin in the office and jetlag in the brain. The dinky digger has not returned to continue work on the Stickery flood damage, but all the grass has grown and is ready for strimming again and the hedges are all ready for trimming - but I still haven't heard from Electrolux with the price of a replacement for the soggy / muddy trimmer...
31 May 2005 I have just returned from a wildlife holiday on board the MV Sea Lion in Alaska, with Lindblad Expeditions. They specialise in everything from 'belly botany' to 'charismatic mega-fauna' and it was all very impressive. Their Daily Expedition Reports (DERs) for the time I was there (as well as all their current reports) can be seen on their website (click here: http://www.expeditions.com/dersearch/derdetail.asp?id=8092 ), but suffice it to say that it was great. Lots of Humpback Whales, Sea Lions, Harbour Seals and Porpoises, Grizzly Bears, etc - not to mention the Tufted Puffins (nickname: Toasted Muffins), but I will anyway. This wasn't quite the trip that Anthea and I had originally planned, but it was a wonderful experience and I recommend it highly. 15 May 2005 A lovely warm, dry and sunny day for pottering around the wood with a pair of secateurs, cutting pegs and layering the long flexible hazel stems around the edges of the four hazel coups. By pegging the stems down to touch the damp soil these branches will grow roots this summer and come winter they can be severed from their parent this winter, to create new and independent trees to extend the area of each coup in the traditional manner. After all the noise and excitement of yesterday's high tech mechanical visitor, this was a very restful and relaxing occupation. 14 May 2005 The dinky digger arrived just before 8am and spent most of the day removing the whitebeam tree (that stump was very well rooted!) and then digging out and reshaping the landslide by the garage. Another visit will be required next weekend to slope off the trench a bit more and then remove what remains of the concrete floor inside the garage. It is rather sobering to see just how much work is required to undo what Mother Nature managed to achieve in just a couple of hours of torrential rainfall last month. On the way around the wood this morning Flag was led astray by a very provocative and badly injured hen pheasant which suddenly leapt into the air from just under his nose, calling loudly and flapping gamely as it struggled to keep just ahead of his teeth. Some of us, a little older and only just slightly wiser, stayed stock still and watched the spot where she first appeared... and sure enough, there were the young pheasant chicks crouching, still and silent, in the long grass. Having led him a merry dance and a safe distance, the 'injured' mother flew off strongly, leaving poor Flag to gallop about wildly in entirely the wrong place. Pheasants 1, Golden Retrievers 0. Mother Nature wins again! 11 May 2005 Cool, grey and with a chill Northerly wind. Still no sign of the ash trees coming into leaf. Moved about a ton of the newly sawn whitebeam branches from the car park and stacked them behind the pole barn. That must be about 4 years' wood supply by now! 9 May 2005 A very pleasant day to dig holes in the woodyard, not to mention sawing up more of the cord of bendy beech branches and stack the resulting firelogs in the woodshed for next winter. It feels a bit strange to be sawing up next winter's firewood while still lighting the woodburner in the chilly evenings and still burning last winter's stockpile - but this has been a late spring. The green woodpecker called loudly from the wood and appeared briefly in the woodyard while I was having my lunch. The first willow warbler of the year sang in the wood. 7 May 2005 The whitebeam by the side of the garage has been felled, in preparation for the dinky digger which will dig out and slope off one side of the trench alongside the garage, then rip out the remains of the garage floor ready to lay down a membrane before pouring a new concrete floor without a drain in the middle. Apart from the slightly leafy whitebeam branches to trim and stack in the woodyard, there is also the whole garage to empty of all its contents. All the trees in the wood are now in leaf except for the ash, so perhaps it will only be a very small splash? 4 May 2005 Already this month there has been a ¼ inch of rain and the temperature has reached 72º F, but overall it has been warm, sunny and dry with occasional heavy showers. Isn't that supposed to be April? 2 May 2005 On May Day some people go Morris Dancing or cheese rolling. Me? I just get a ladder and climb down into the damp, dark, overgrown and bramble filled trench along one side of the garage. Armed only with a pair of secateurs and a leather gauntlet, I snip my way along, throwing all the cuttings up onto the orchard. After a couple of hours work all was revealed. The flood waters from the blocked beck had filled the trench several feet deep, caused a mini landslide on the orchard side, blocked the outlet drain, escaped under the garage wall, burst up through the concrete floor and flooded the garage. Wow. Very impressive. Flag came to admire the newly cleared trench. Thinking I had just dug it, he gave up his own mini-excavations and just lay down and looked at me and my trench, full of admiration - and jealously. 1 May 2005 Continued to trim up the smaller sycamore branches, still snagged on top of the second hazel coup and accompanying blackthorn. This is time consuming work but it does clear the hazel coppice, will create some blackthorn walking sticks and provides another ton of firelogs for next winter. This afternoon I finished scraping the sand and silt off the drive, then trimmed back the edge of the trench at the side of the Stickery, clearing the way for tomorrow's flood damage assessment.
30 April 2005 Flag proudly carried his 'freshly killed' tennis ball up the drive after lunch - and completely failed to notice the roe deer standing in the corner of the field, just 20 yards to one side. It watched us pass and then strolled off down the side of the field, too cheeky to run or jump the fence. The tennis ball was carried as far as the gap in the stone wall to where the newly hatched blue tits were calling from their nest deep within, and then abandoned for some urgent snuffling. The big oak tree is now definitely in leaf, while the leaning ash shows no sign of leaf. A couple of cowslips are in flower near the Stickery, a dozen early purple orchids punctuate Bank orchard and a red campion is fully out, too. This afternoon I swept the flood debris off the drive, now that it has been seen by the nice insurance man. 29 April 2005 The builder has removed all the broken slabs of concrete from the stickery floor, exposing a glazed clay pipe which drained the trench on one side of the building and carried the water away. What was also revealed was a badly made junction with another pipe, which was what allowed the flood waters to leak out and burst up through the concrete. Oh dear - not quite as straight forward as first appeared! 28 April 2005 The County Council is working on the arrestor bed at Blue Bank, the steep hill between Sleights and the moortop. All that heavy rain ten days ago had washed the PFA pellets (pulverised fly ash) out of the upper 30 yards, leaving just a 3 foot drop to a very hard concrete floor. Today the pellets are being replaced, so that next time a vehicle's brakes fail on the 20% descent it can drive into the arrestor bed where the pellets will collapse under its weight, absorbing its energy and increasing the drag as it sinks deeper and deeper until it is brought to a halt. Safely. Much better than careering down through the village at increasing speed until it crashes into another car or somebody's house, as has happened all too often in the past. 27 April 2005 The Loss Adjuster visited today to examine the damage to the floor of the Stickery cum Garage. He suggested I get someone in to 'start investigating' and provide a quote. 25 April 2005 Another very pleasant afternoon, so I dragged several bundles of sycamore branches down to the woodyard, sawed them into cord lengths and added them to the ever growing new cord (now about ⅔ complete). Restacked the last of last year's firelogs in the woodshed into one corner, to make room for dismantling and sawing up the cord of bendy beech into firelogs for next winter. An odd sound from the next field turned out to be my first cuckoo of the year, but it did sound very strange. Today's score is: Flag 1, Pygmy Shrew 0. Who needs Longworth traps to do a small mammal survey of the wood? 24 April 2005 Hot, dry, sunny and definitely summer again, just perfect for a couple of hours trimming up and stacking medium-sized sycamore branches in the wood. Probably a bit thin as firewood, but since I've paid for them I'm jolly well going to use them. A Green Woodpecker yaffled at the other side of the wood and Flag managed to dig up, catch and kill a pygmy shrew all by himself. Opened the Stickery this afternoon, mainly to dry out the building and get myself a suntan in the process... 23 April 2005 Today I fixed the reed matting on top of the raftings over the deck. Now Groves Dyke guests can retreat into the shaded end of the decking if it get too sunny and now meals on the decking can be eaten safe in the knowledge that the House Martins nesting above are well protected from the humans - and vice versa! 20 April 2005 The warm sunny weather continues (It's summer again!) and it looks like the oak is going to beat the ash (Oak before ash, In for a splash - ha! That was a heck of a splash the other night!). Saw the first house martins of the year fly over Woodlands just after lunch (3 of them) and then the first swallow (1) flying over Aislaby later this afternoon. 19 April 2005 Today's Whitby Gazette carries the story of a man who tried to drive through a local ford on Friday evening and was surprised to find his car stopped by the water, the waters rise up to his chest, having to kick the car door open, swimming up to the surface, grabbing onto something wooden and eventually dragging himself up onto the footbridge alongside the ford and lying there cold, exhausted and shocked until he was rescued! The accompanying photo of the ford at Grosmont shows the depth gauge at '6 feet' deep. 18 April 2005 The insurance company has noted my report and will be sending a loss adjuster 'but it may be a while because they are all a bit busy...' 17 April 2005 I had left the torn and ripped leather gauntlets I used yesterday to pull handfuls of debris from the drains on the wall to dry overnight, and this morning they were hard with frost. Very odd! This morning I split and stacked the very last of the sycamore logs in the wood, then started to salvage any branches that were almost worth having as fire logs, even if they were only just over 1 inch diameter. Having just paid almost £300 for the chainsaw work to clear up after the Big Wind, I'd better make full use of all the produce, not just the nice big bits! Unlocking the garage doors this afternoon, I discovered the full extent of the recent flood damage: The garage floor was an inch deep in slimy mud, with a one foot high 'tide line' all around the walls. Flag's sofa is a soggy write-off and, worst of all, the concrete floor of the garage has been cracked wide open and burst upwards by the force of the water, leaving a void of indeterminate depth below. I think this will have to be an insurance job... I sat in the warm sun with the garage doors wide open so that both garage and I could dry out and recover. 16 April 2005 Wow! Yesterday evening it really rained, like I haven't heard it rain here before. A gusty wind threw torrential rain against my kitchen window all evening and I could hear that the River Esk and the little beck through my garden were both in full flood. Thank goodness I had enough sense to stay well away from them until daylight this morning! The ditch down the side of Dyke orchard had blocked and the water had backed up, over flowed and been flowing through the gateway and off down the drive. Clearing the accumulated twigs from the entrance to the pipe did the trick and the flow returned to its normal course. I did the same to the gratings on the main drive and the pond subsided. In my own garden, the beck had also blocked behind the stone seat and water had been flowing around the seat, across the lawn and back into its proper course again a few yards further down. This had happened once before, years ago and I had then marked the pipe entrance with a fence post. Thanks only to this landmark, I was able to dig down through a foot of accumulated silt, sand, gravel and twigs until, with a satisfying gurgle, the pipe entrance was exposed again and the beck resumed its normal course under the stone seat and lawn. The landscape of the beck and pond had been altered so radically overnight that I couldn't begin to locate the inlet pipe to my stone patio pond. (The pond, I noticed later, now has an inlet delta of sand and silt which must weigh over a ton - and all of which will have to be dug out with a bucket...). Twenty yards downstream the inlet to the culvert under my garage had also become choked with debris. The beck had backed up until it had overflowed down the concrete steps, around the sides of the garage, under the garden gate and onto the main drive, choking the grating 50 yards 'downstream' and continuing another 100 yards until the next grating. Removing handfuls of debris from the protective grill to the culvert allowed the water to flow normally again and gave me my first chance to survey the whole situation a bit more calmly. I have known this little beck for 30 years and I have never seen this garage culvert get blocked completely before, nor seen the water overflow down the garage steps before. A look up at the fields above and behind the house showed that every single blade of grass has been bent 'downstream', as a vast sheet of shallow water must have flowed down the whole daleside from Aislaby moor, several hundred feet above. Yet, strangely, my rain gauge registered only 1 inch of rain - had all the really heavy rain fallen only on the moortop? - or had it rained SO hard that it had just bounced back out of the rain gauge again? Very odd. Newcastle (c100 miles further north) recorded 3 inches of rain that night. The rest of Saturday morning was spent removing debris from all the watercourses, just in case it rains again tonight. At one point I looked down on a heavily swollen River Esk and watched a full-sized tree being swept downstream at high speed, without even the slightest pause or check as it passed over the 6 inch step in the water level which was all there was to indicate the position of the Salmon Leap weir far below the surface. Wow! 15 April 2005 The new bathroom in Groves Dyke was completed on time and looks wonderful! The suite is entirely new and the lay-out is much better, with far more circulation space and the new carpet looks much brighter. Yesterday and today have been cool and wet, with sheets of rain blowing across the moors. Whatever happened to summer? I have even started up my wood burning stove again! 13 April 2005 Guess what my builder found when he removed the side panel of my bathroom window, fitted by Everest Double Glazing Ltd in 2002/3?
One strip looks like ¾ inch ply and the other ½ inch ply and together they make up a bit of subframe about 1¼ inches across and about 3 feet long. This fills in the space between the Everest window frame and the brickwork, all the way down the right hand side of my bathroom window. Now Everest might say that this is part of the original house, but since the house was built more than 50 years ago (was plywood invented then?) by a local master builder called Garbutt, I suspect that this carpenter's cock-up must be much more recent. And since Garbutt built the house so well that no repairs have ever been required (until I asked Everest to 'improve' it by adding their 'Fit the Best' double glazed windows), I can only assume that this botched plywood subframe was installed by the Everest Fitter who fitted the Everest window in 2002 and wasn't spotted by the Everest Inspector who declared that all 7 of the only-just-fitted windows would have to be repaired! And if anyone should ever question whether I am telling the truth or not, I have taken the following precautions:
Any other questions? This morning was grey and damp again, with more rain forecast for this afternoon, so I finished off the bonfire season with a small one in Dyke orchard to dispose of the hedge clippings, then a slightly bigger one in Bank orchard to remove the last traces of the storm damaged oak limbs. 11 April 2005 Flag has spent the last few days digging somewhere just beyond the woodyard, returning when called with a great big grin on his muddy face. Today his excited barking indicated that something was only-just-out-of-reach..., but then he sounded distant again. And then nearby. Then distant again. Then nearby. I went into the wood to investigate and found him standing beside the Major Oak and barking in frustration at its roots - then he scrabbled into the freshly dug hole underneath its roots and disappeared until only his back paws and the end of his furiously wagging tail were still showing - and barked, very indistinctly and very well muffled by the hundred tons of the 200-year old oak tree he was busy under-mining! Once he had shuffled out again I tried to explain why this wasn't a good idea, as I filled in the hole and reinforced it with a barricade of branches. I've had quite enough of trapped dogs and of trees with hinges, thank-you. 10 April 2005 Warm, dry sunny weather has returned and I spent the morning up in the wood splitting and stacking the remaining 'drums' of sycamore. By lunch time only half a dozen drums remained intact. The rainfall so far this month is about 1 inch. 9 April 2005 The sound of surf pounding the coast is clearly audible from the garden this morning. Still a bit blustery but I lit a bonfire of the hedge clippings anyway. This could have been a mistake as the smoke swirled around the orchard and sparks were carried into the wood. Luckily everything is still damp from yesterday's hail, sleet and snow. Wet again this afternoon, so I took advantage of the pole barn to split and stack the last of the oak logs. 8 April 2005 Northerly gales brought a return to winter weather, with a good dusting of snow on the high moors. On lower ground the hail, sleet and snow just melted away on contact with the warm ground. 5 April 2005 The accumulated clutter of assorted external pipes, gutter heads and overflows from the bathroom was removed today and rationalised into a much simpler and neater system. And now none of it ever needs painting. Wonderful. 4 April 2005 Work began today on the new Groves Dyke bathroom and by mid-afternoon the old suite had been ripped out. Getting the bath out involved removing some bricks from under the new (2002) Everest window, revealing a wooden block of untreated, white softwood - not the 'All our sub frames are Mahogany' I had been told before Everest started work! (When I had protested that Mahogany from unsustainably managed tropical rain forest was very inappropriate, they had changed their story to 'Well actually, its sustainably managed European Redwood', which I then agreed to). All I can say is, if this block is of 'European Redwood' (which turns out to be common or garden Scots Pine), then what on earth is all the dark red wood they used for my window sills, etc? Is that actually tropical rainforest Mahogany, after all?! How dare they! (Don't you know about my problems with Everest Double Glazing and the work they carried out at Groves Dyke Holiday Cottage a few years ago? Oh, do click here to find out all about it...) This evening a roebuck stood stock still in Dyke orchard, watching Flag hurtle blindly down the drive on the trail of some exciting scent. Once he had gone past within 5 yards, the buck strolled off in the opposite direction to disappear into the wood, leaving poor Flag searching vainly in entirely the wrong place. I think I could even hear the deer chuckling to itself as went past! 3 April 2005 Log splitting and stacking this morning up in the wood. By lunchtime about half of the sycamore logs were done and so was I. After recovering, I carried half a dozen armfuls of hedge cuttings up into Dyke orchard and dumped them on top of the well charred willow stumps. The sun was strong enough and warm enough this afternoon to spend a very lazy hour just sitting still and enjoying its warmth. Highly recommended! But the tall, floppy and overhanging garden hedge required some serious surgery before too many birds start nesting and this occupied the rest of the day. 2 April 2005 Flag and I spent the day de-brambling the last remaining patch by the big bonfire site in Bank orchard. Had the bonfire gone up as imagined, these brambles would have been burned off in the process - but since the fire struggled from beginning to end, a little bit more Men's' Downhill with Secateurs was required instead. 1 April 2005 The new suite for Groves Dyke bathroom was delivered today. More sun today!
31 March 2005 A weasel ran across the patio to investigate the stone walls under the feeding station and later a female great spotted woodpecker, the first I have seen or heard for several months, fed on the peanut cake. The sun finally broke through the all pervading cloud cover for the first time in what feels like weeks. Wonderful! 30 March 2005 The fire risk is still Very Low, so I decided to light the top edge of the big bonfire, hoping it would burn away most of the fuel nearest the phone wires first, before moving downslope and really getting the main body of fuel going. How embarrassing it would be if it just took off, melted the wires and I couldn't even phone for the fire brigade before the whole wood caught light... What actually happened was that the whole pile was so wet and so sodden that I had to coax each individual branch to catch light, nursing the poor pathetic fire every inch of the way, adding cardboard and using the weed wand to revive the flames from time to time, with never any danger of a decent fire. It was 4 hours later and mid-afternoon before the flames really got going, by which time the phone lines and the wood were quite safe. Phew! Relax... and breath again... 28 March 2005 More than an inch of rain fell last night, so this morning was spent unblocking drains and removing the countless twigs brought down by January's big wind from as many water courses as possible, just in case the heavy rains continues. Dryer by mid afternoon, so I moved a bit of the medium sized bonfire in Bank orchard down the hill and away from the big oak. It burned well and I was able to gradually dismantle the original bonfire, throwing each bit onto the fire and eventually cleared the whole site. Work was interrupted twice by having to go and kill Flag's latest trophies: first a bank vole and then a shrew. He looks so disappointed when his latest new 'toy' suddenly stops squeaking! Only the big bonfire left to do... 27 March 2005 The East weekend was cool, grey, overcast and miserable. This morning was mizzling so much that the splitting axe kept slipping out of my hands, so I abandoned splitting and stacking the sycamore in the wood and retreated to my nice new pole barn to carry, split and stack willow logs in the dry. 21 March 2005 Bonfire Day! The perfect weather continued and 5 different piles of lop and top in Bank Orchard were burned in 2 small and 1 medium-sized bonfires. The orchard looks much better now, with just one medium and 1 very large stack still to burn. The former is almost underneath the General Oak (just a bit inferior to the Major Oak) and the latter is just too damn near the bottom of the wood, not to mention the phone wires. Both will have to be dragged a bit further downhill before they are safe to light. The frogs have all disappeared now, but flowering wood anemones have joined the 'wild' daffodils, 'tame' daffodils, primroses and dog's mercury. The willows are just coming into leaf and the sunny weather has been replaced with mild and grey. 20 Mar 2005 Another warm, dry spring day. 15 minutes watching the feeding station produced: Blue Tit 5, Chaffinch 5, Blackbird 3, Great Tit 3, Robin 3 (squabbling again) Dunnock 2, Marsh Tit 2, Coal Tit 1, Long Tailed Tit 1, Wood Pigeon 1, Bank Vole 1 and a single Chiffchaff calling in the wood (1020-1035, F1SW, 8/8). Just after the count a young Roe buck suddenly leapt into the garden and stood in the middle of the lawn behind the pond. It look around and then strolled towards the pond. Now I knew, and it didn't, that Flag was lying fast asleep and just out of deer-sight on the patio between me and the pond and that when the deer got a bit closer he would suddenly wake up, leap up and set off in very hot pursuit and doubtless follow the deer over several barbed wire fences and through several fields full of pregnant ewes - and so, sadly, I gently waved my hand and the deer ran off silently into the wood. Flag slept soundly through it all and was none the wiser. The morning was spent in the wood splitting a ton or more of the sycamore windrows. The cylinders split easily but are still heavy with sap so I re-stacked the firelogs onsite for another few months of drying. 19 Mar 2005 Perfect day for a bonfire, still, damp and overcast. The big pile of lop and top from the storm damaged willows in Groves Dyke orchard has now been burnt on top of the willow stumps, so stop them coppicing. Normally I would encourage them, but these two are just too near to the septic tank and willows are renowned for having very intrusive root systems. 18 Mar 2005 Heard the first chiffchaff of the year in the wood today. The ground has dried out again after the last few days of mild, dry weather and already some of the sawn-up sycamore has been carried down to the woodyard. 17 Mar 2005 The mild spring weather continues, with 3 lapwing displaying on the moor top at Silla Howe. The frogs in the pond continue to purr contentedly and the willow twigwam is just coming into leaf. This evening I noticed three newts walking across the back yard from different directions, but all heading for the pond. The Long March has begun! 16 March 2005 Spring arrived this morning with 30 to 35 frogs jostling for position in the pond, all calling loudly like a friendly little group of mopeds. Half a dozen hand span blobs of frogspawn were added to during the day, until it all became one big blob about 2 feet across. This is the highest number and largest blob I can remember in the 6 years that the pond has existed. 14 March 2005 A 1 hour drive to Redcar, the South Gare and the Tees estuary. Surprisingly few birds around but a grey seal, a red breasted merganser drake and a red throated diver all enlivened a fairly thin sprinkling of redshank, oystercatcher, turnstone and gulls. 13 March 2005 Two newts in the dog dish by the Stickery, the first of the year. 12 March 2005 No spawn, just a layer of ice on the pond instead. 11 March 2005 Several large (female) frogs croaking in the pond this evening... spawn tomorrow? 9 Mar 2005 The Inspector Called - to check that Groves Dyke was still up to Yorkshire Tourist Board 3 Star standard - which it is. He approved of the new conservatory and deck, understood that a 7 week let in January and February had delayed (but paid for!) the bathroom refurbishment - which is now booked in for early April - and we discussed my plans for the kitchen refurbishment and new utility room in November and December 2005. 8 Mar 2005 A day of driving drizzle, adding another ½ inch of rain today to the 1 inch of wintry showers so far this month. 6 Mar 2005 Today I stacked about 4 or 5 tons of the newly sawn sycamore into three North / South windrows, just to get them up off the ground before they start to rot. Each piece is up to 16 inches diameter and 18 inches long. These cylinders of sycamore were laid on their sides onto runners (straight-ish branches) reaching uphill for several yards from a substantial tree, then another layer on top and another on top of that. The wind can blow all around to dry them off and the sun can shine on the easterly ends in the forenoon and the westerly ends in the afternoon. I will try to split them into firelogs before they dry out too much and re-stack them on site for a year until they loose about 50% of their weight by evaporation. Then (and only then!) will I start to carry them down to the woodyard! Another 2 or 3 tons of Sycamore will remain in the now-vertical-again tree stump, which will probably grow a set of coppice poles (Thinks: must remember that when these are very tall and very heavy, the next big storm may hinge the whole damn thing through 90º again... Another thinks: this could be a handy way of carrying out tree surgery without having to climb the tree... must try to patent that!). Another ton of branches has been roughly stacked for carrying downhill when the path is less slippery and dangerous. That leaves about another ton of useful branches still snagged up in the neighbouring trees, not to mention the same again of minor lop and top. I am sure there is a good 2 or 3 years' worth of firewood available all told - but then it will take me 2 or 3 years to carry it all down to the house, anyway... The Green Woodpecker and the Nuthatch were calling as I worked (and Flag played), as was the steam train shuttling back and forth to Whitby. 5 Mar 2005 The thaw has well and truly begun, with green fields reappearing in all directions. The river Esk is almost full with melt water off the moors and the path around the wood is so muddy as to be almost impassable - but I have managed to carry a couple of logs down to the woodyard every day. As I sawed these up for the new cord, the long lost sound of a steam train whistle echoed around the dale. She was a special excursion from Grosmont to Whitby, marking the reopening of the Esk Valley Line to steam. All 7 carriages were full of happy smiling faces and everyone waved at everybody else at the slightest provocation. Began to stack the oak logs in the pole barn to form the final section of 'wall', while Flag dug a new hole designed to kick mud all over the stone approach to the barn. Now there is mud absolutely everywhere, including those few places which weren't already muddy - still, if a thing is worth doing... 3 March 2005 Snowing steadily again this morning and the lawns are now more white than green. Three roe deer strolled from the wood to the drive and Flag got excited but failed to connect. A 15 minute bird count at the feeding station showed: Blue Tit 3, Great Tit 3, Long Tailed Tit 3, Chaffinch 2, Coal Tit 2, Dunnock 2, Blackbird 1 and Wood Pigeon 1 (0915-0930, 7/8 cloud, calm, light snow / hail showers, 32ºF. Geoff and Selina came back again today to chainsaw the fallen oak limbs in Bank orchard and drive them to the pole barn in the pickup. The main roads across the moors are completely black again, but with an endless expanse of unbroken show stretching for miles on either side. 2 March 2005 This morning, to my astonishment, the tree stump they had worked on yesterday had flipped upright again! Sometime during the night the whole root plate, some 24 feet in length and weighing many tons, had toppled back into its proper place, returning the tree stump to the vertical again. Phew! Good thing it didn't happen while they were still standing on top and sawing the counter weight branches off! Snowing heavily again this morning and beginning to lie, but then it stopped, the sky cleared, the sun shone a bit and the lawns turned green again. Still too cold to melt on the moortop, I'm sure - but I have no intention of going up there to check... 1 March 2005 Geoff returned with Guy to chainsaw the big wind-thrown sycamore on the western edge of the wood. With its huge root plate standing on edge, the 4 main trunks lying horizontally but 6 feet off the ground and its branches pressing down on the blackthorn spiney and the hazel coppice, this was a very tricky operation. Standing on the horizontal trunks, they gradually worked their way from the crown towards the root plate, cutting off the branches and shortening the trunks as they went. By late afternoon the tree was reduced to a man-sized stump, still lying horizontally in mid-air and supported only by the up-turned root plate, while all around lay the sawn branches and the 18 inch long 'drums' of the cut trunks.
28 Feb 2005 On the regional TV news this evening was the relief of the Lion Inn high on Blakey Ridge, where the publican and one walker were marooned by the snow on Tuesday 22nd. It was Saturday 26th before the first snowplough managed to clear the road to them and the camera crew was able to go and record the 15 foot snowdrift up against the side of the building. Howzat for a lock-in! 27 Feb 2005 This morning I burned all the lop and top from the fallen willows, clearing the right of way for the first time since the tree was blown over in early January. Flag continued to dig and chew (yes, chew) his way under the stump in his quest for some elusive wood mouse. I don't know just how many calories there are in an average wood mouse, but over the last day and a half Flag must have expended several thousand calories trying to dig it out! 26 Feb 2005 I spent the day carrying, splitting and stacking the willow. About half of it now forms the 'walls' of the pole barn (stacked between the perimeter poles) and the other half I stacked in the orchard where the ground is now so wet and muddy that the wheelbarrow just sank. 25 Feb 2005 A much quieter day weather-wise. The lawns around the house are still green, but the moortop is very white. Geoff and Selina arrived to chainsaw the last of the fallen willow tree behind Groves Dyke orchard and to fell the partly uprooted willow next to it. 24 Feb 2005 This was the day of the Big Blizzard! Down here in the bottom of the dale it was very windy, sleety, green and soggy - but whatever the weather is doing down here, it is always ten times worse on the moortop. Just a mile away at the top end of Sleights everything was covered in several inches of cold, white, fluffy stuff and the A169 going up Blue Bank onto the moor was down to one lane. Beyond the Littlebeck turnoff, a 'Police. Road Closed' sign in the middle of the road was ignored by one local driver who wanted to get to Pickering. After a few miles of tricky driving and somewhere in the middle of nowhere, he caught up with the snowplough gritter wagon just as it gave up at a snowdrift three times taller than it was, did a three point turn and headed back to Whitby. He followed it. The weather had eased by early afternoon and the main roads were reopened. On the regional TV news this evening was the story of the RAC patrolman who got stuck in a snowdrift on the Hamer road between Egton Bridge and Rosedale. Just what he thought he was doing on such a minor little road in such awful weather was not recorded, but he was eventually rescued after 8 hours in his van, calling for help on his radio and his mobile phone. The snowplough was unable to reach him due to the deep drifts across the road. The RAF rescue helicopter was unable to reach him due to the 70 mph winds and horizontally 'falling' snow on the moortop. It took a local farmer in a powerful tractor to get to him, with the immortal words 'I thought you were supposed to rescue me!' 22 Feb 2005 Sleights is still surrounded by green fields but the moortop is inches deep in snow. It seems the A169 to Pickering was blocked for a time yesterday, probably due to either snow drifts at the Fox and Rabbit or a lorry stuck on the steep hairpin bend at Saltersgate. The snow showers continued off and on throughout the day and by evening even the fields around Sleights were turning white. My rain gauge has recorded over an inch of rain in the past couple of days, most of it falling as sleet and melting on contact with the ground. If the temperature had be a degree or two below freezing instead, that would have been about a foot of snow. 21 Feb 2005 Yesterday I went back to the big sycamore up in the wood. Flag got on with the serious business of digging enough holes nearby to catch a poor wood mouse (which I had to kill for him), while I just wasted time clearing away more squashed blackthorn and hazel from underneath the fallen tree. We both abandoned our tasks when a particularly heavy hail shower started and refused to stop, but the hailstones are still just melting away. This morning it was back to wintry showers of hail and sleet, which melted away before the next shower. A walk around the wood just after one snow shower revealed lots and lots of rabbit prints, suggesting either a couple of very active rabbits or else far more rabbits than I had imagined. In the past few months I have only every seen 2 at the same time. Geoff arrived to inspect the various trees I asked him to chainsaw: the original 2 intertwined oak limbs which came down in Bank orchard before Christmas and then the various trees damaged in the big wind in early January: the fallen willow behind Dyke orchard and the partly uprooted one next to it; the partly uprooted apple in Bank orchard and then the big sycamore up in the wood. That should be enough firewood for the next 3 winters! Always assuming I can carry down the 10 tons or so of sycamore from way up in the wood... Let me see... at a rate of 2 logs per dog walk per day for 3 years... Yes, it should be possible. Who needs to pay a fortune to keep fit by joining a gym and run nowhere fast on a glorified hamster wheel?! 19 Feb 2005 Fine, dry and sunny one minute, then cold, wet wintry hail showers the next. The temperature is still just above freezing, so the hailstones just melt away in a few minutes, but everything is wet and sloppy. The rain gauge now shows about ½ inch of rain so far this month. In view of the short, sharp showers I picked a job which involves walking past the house every few minutes, so that I can seek sanctuary as required - carrying the oak branches from the uphill end of Bank orchard, along the drive, through the gate, up the 16 steps, around the 4 sharp corners, through the yard and into the far end of the pole barn. I lost count of just how many branches there were, but while I was doing that Flag had enough time to dig a great big pit under the big oak tree itself. That should make it a lot more stable, thanks a bunch! 16 Feb 2005 A cold night with ice on the pond this morning, soon melted by a warm, bright sun. The wind has gone and now that the woodshed is down to half-full, I spent a very pleasant morning in the woodyard sawing pieces from last winter's cord. Each 4 foot 6 inch long piece of cordwood needs just 2 cuts to produce 3 firelogs, each 18 inches long and just the right size for my wood burning stove. Being a lazy sort of person, I just threw each newly sawn firelog from the woodyard, across the back lawn and into the yard by the house. Meanwhile and unbeknownst to me, Flag (being a retriever sort of dog) was also busy - collecting each freshly landed firelog from the yard and carrying them all back towards the woodyard... 15 Feb 2005 The Whitby Gazette today announced that Network Rail (formerly Railtrack, formerly British Rail) has just completed the £2½ million upgrade of the Esk Valley line from Middlesbrough to Whitby, via Sleights. In the past month over 10,000 tonnes of stone have been brought in (by train, thank goodness!), as well as new sleepers and new continuous rail, so that the line can now carry the heavier steam trains as well as diesels. This job has been postponed so many times that we were all beginning to think we would never see another steam train in Whitby. Now all we need is for Yorkshire Forward (sorry, but that is the best they could come up with for what used to be called the Yorkshire Development Board) and the Yorkshire Tourist Board (recently taken over by Yorkshire Forward) and the UK Government (via Yorkshire Forward) and the European Community (in the form of the UK Government, via Yorkshire Forward) to put back the 10 miles of track between Pickering and Malton (ripped up by dear old Dr Beeching in the 1960s 'to save money') and then - and only then - can we once again have direct rail communication from Whitby (via the steam preservation line from Grosmont to Pickering) to the National Railway Museum in York. Just think of all the Special Steam Excursions we could have then, each delivering 1000 people into Whitby town centre with not a single car involved! Until that wonderful day, however, we will all have to go on travelling by rail from York to Darlington, change and wait for a Darlington to Middlesbrough train and then change and wait for a very infrequent Middlesbrough to Whitby train. Nobody will, of course, so we will all continue to use our cars - aided only by the £2 million Park and Ride by bus scheme planned for Whitby by North Yorkshire County Council (90% funded by Government). Then we can sit in a Park and Ride bus, stuck in the middle of the same traffic jam in Bagdale and Whitby town centre as all the other traffic - while a heavily subsidised (and almost empty) diesel train trundles down the Esk Valley and into Whitby town centre. Good, innit? 13 Feb 2005 Continued working on, around and under the fallen sycamore yesterday and today. The weather is cooler thanks to strong Northerly winds, with occasional wintry showers. The female Great Spotted Woodpecker returned briefly to the feeding station this morning and just grabbed a bite to eat. 9 Feb 2005 A good day for a drive across the moor with friends. I was surprised to see just how many trees have been brought down, with noticeable numbers at Skelder Plantation, Egton Bridge (but the Giant Redwoods there seem to have escaped), Rosedale and Hutton-le-Hole. Wintry showers this evening brought the first measurable rainfall (⅜ inch) so far this very dry and mild month. 7 Feb 2005 Today was a 'Let's see how much of the lop and top I can remove from under the fallen sycamore without bringing it all crashing down on my head' day. Answer: Quite a lot. The sycamore branches ('legs') are being left well alone; the blackthorns, up to 6 inch diameter, are being sawn through one by one, while the pollarded hazel stems are being carefully snipped as little as possible and pushed and pulled back into the vertical as much as possible. Once the whole area is cleared a bit more, the man with the chainsaw can be invited (in one of his quiet moments) to come and cut through the now horizontal 2 foot sycamore trunk and bring the whole thing safely down to the ground... 6 Feb 2005 Spent today de-snagging a snapped-off ash limb from a neighbouring oak. Both were planted in the 1980s, but all the ash trees we were provided with tended to fork about head height into two main stems - and eventually splitting down the middle in a strong wind. It was while I was busy bringing this one down to ground level that I gradually realised how much brighter the sky was. Not just better weather, not just more daylight, but mainly due to the disappearance of the 100 year old sycamore that used to stand in the hedge behind the blackthorn spinney that is next to the second hazel coup. Where is that big sycamore now? Lying across the blackthorn spinney and pressing it down onto and into the second hazel coup! In fact, he whole 10 tons of it is precariously propped some 6 feet up in the air by the occasional sycamore branch, a few blackthorn stems and several hazel polls. The butt end is still firmly attached to its root plate, which is now vertical. Oh good. That'll be fun. Either I just didn't see that this mature tree had been brought down by the big wind or, more likely, it was critically weakened by the hurricane but remained upright - and then keeled over several days later. Not only was it standing on the western edge of the wood, but it was also heavily covered in ivy. It's not that the ivy that actually the tree, it's just that the additional sail area created by the ivy leaves provides enough wind resistance to snap the roots of the tree itself - and down she comes. 5 Feb 2005 The bright, dry sunny weather has returned, but with a bit of a cooler edge. This morning 3 roe deer scampered around the wood, utterly confusing poor Flag, who galloped off in all directions but didn't manage to bump into any of them. Several clumps of snowdrops are now in full flower in both orchards, with just a few individual daffodils in almost bursting yellow bud... Cleared another self-sown multi-stemmed sycamore from Bank orchard (hopefully without crushing too many of the daffodil shoots) and carried the 6 pole sized stems to the woodyard for stacking into the newest cord - which is now almost up to half its proper height of 4 feet. At dusk a roe deer strolled up the orchard and right past the sycamore stool I was working on this morning. Took a few of my Unique Walking Sticks (click here) to sell at 'Earth Wind and Fire', the Whitby shop on the corner of Bridge Street and Church Street. Nice to have such a central location. Yesterday a female Great Spotted Woodpecker, the first I have seen for weeks, landed briefly on the feeding station but didn't pluck up enough courage to actually eat anything and flew off without sampling any of the delights on offer. Women!!
30 Jan 2005 A slightly better day after an overnight frost. At 1010 am it was 1/8 cloud cover, calm, dry, sunny and mild and a 1 hour Big Garden Birdwatch produced: Long Tailed Tit 8, Blue Tit 7, Chaffinch 3, Blackbird 2, Dunnock 2, Great Tit 2, Robin 2, Coal Tit, 1, Kestrel 1, Magpie 1, Marsh Tit 1, Wood Pigeon 1. The heavily pregnant Bank Vole obliged with several appearances, but the Heron waited until afternoon before landing by the beck, and the Jays in the wood were even later. Later still, a Green Woodpecker yaffled briefly from the wood. Later I dismantled the fallen dead cherry tree, brought down by the storm. The local parish magazine records that at St John's church in Sleights the big wind at the beginning of this month felled a tree which destroyed part of the churchyard wall, while at All Saints' church in nearby Ugglebarnby ('Owl Beard's village') roof slates and two large [sandstone] coping stones were blown off the roof, causing damage worth up to £1000. 29 Jan 2005 I woke to a normal dawn chorus today, instead of the recent and all too familiar song of the weekend chainsaws, still clearing up the fallen timber from the big wind. After a 1 hour watch of the feeding station (for the Big Garden Birdwatch), I carried the last of the coppiced sycamore from Bank orchard to the woodyard. The poles are ready to be cut into 4 feet 6 inch lengths for the new cord and the rods were woven into the woodyard fence. In Whitby 2 Turnstones scuttled on the concrete walkway by the swing bridge, completely ignoring all the afternoon shoppers nearby. Upstream, 150 redshank roosted on one of the pontoons by the new luxury housing development (what is so 'luxury' about those huge high blocks of ticky-tacky flats?) near Spittal Bridge (which was originally 'hospital' bridge, meaning the leper hospital built 1 mile outside the town centre for all the infected soldiers returning from the Crusades). On the golf course some 30 Oystercatchers loafed on the empty greens, while on the beach the surf was still quite high, even though the tide was well out. The remains of 2 guillemots were found in the tideline and the sheltered sandy gully used last year by the nesting sand martins is now part missing and part fully exposed to the elements. 28 Jan 2005 Sheets of rain have been sweeping across the moor today, still driven by a northerly wind. It really is quite remarkable to watch the heavy raindrops falling at 45º to the vertical! I hope it improves a bit for this weekend's RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch... 25 Jan 2005 Strong northerly winds on Sunday evening brought cold, raw weather with frequent wintry showers. Only ¾ of an inch of rain had fallen so far this month, but these wintry showers will soon push up the month's total. The sound of the storm driven surf pounding the coast three miles away can be heard from here. The noise is tempered by the trees and muffled by the miles but is still unmistakable. 23 Jan 2005 Spent the last couple of days working in the wood and orchard. It has been fine, dry, sunny and cold with ice on the pond for several days. Poor Flag hasn't yet worked out that licking the ice on his bucket of water in the yard isn't quite the same as having a proper drink. Yesterday a 15 minute bird count at the feeding station revealed Blue Tit 5, Chaffinch 5, Blackbird 3, Robin 3, Dunnock 2, Long Tailed Tit 2, Wood Pigeon 2, Coal Tit 1, Great Tit 1, Marsh Tit 1, Magpie 1 and a Kestrel soared above the wood and perched at the top of the leaning ash tree (1010 - 1025, 1/8 cloud cover, Force 2 northerly. Later, 6 Long Tailed Tits arrived and a male Bullfinch basked in the woodyard. No sign of the female Great Spotted Woodpecker which reappeared yesterday for the first time in months, plucked up just enough courage to land on the feeding station twice, but not enough to actually feed. Dyke orchard has now had all its brambles snipped, but the first snowdrop is already in flower and the first daffodil is in bud, so I made no attempt to rake the cut brambles off. In Bank orchard the brambles are as before and the snowdrop and daffodil shoots are several inches high. Several more sycamores were coppiced and the big pile of lop and top from the fallen oak limbs has been restacked, after being blown downhill and scattered by the storm. Further storm damage includes a partly uprooted mature apple tree which may, I hope, re-root and not topple down the slope. 17 Jan 2005 Good news for air travellers was announced today: a new international agreement now means that flying will become even cheaper. Great. But aren't these lucky air passengers the same people who complain about higher insurance premiums due to increasingly frequent and increasingly severe heat waves, droughts, floods and storm damage? Obviously, 2 + 2 must equal 22... 16 Jan 2005 A lovely morning, calm, dry, mild (mid-40s) and sunny. A leisurely stroll around the wood to trim off the occasional bramble or briar and straighten the odd willow sapling. Discovered that a 20-year old goat willow had been partly uprooted and needed a couple of branches removed to keep the path open. The daffodil shoots in Groves Dyke lawn are now almost 6 inches high and snowdrop shoots are also showing, so too late to strim the Dyke orchard. Instead, I snipped as many brambles as I could find with secateurs and then stopped walking about on it. The afternoon was spent in Bank orchard, clearing the remaining bramble clump by my newly-invented method of walking backwards into it, while kicking backwards to 'roll' the entire clump down the steep slope, snipping through any rooted bramble stems with mini-loppers as they become exposed. I think this new sport has a real future and, when it is eventually accepted by the Olympic Committee, I might just enter the Men's 100m Downhill... Cleared (almost) all the brambles in the orchard, except for the bit where the bonfire will be sited. Coppiced several of the sycamores which will be inaccessible once the daffs are flowering, leaving others which can be reached from the top of the retaining wall. When the traditional varieties of apple, pear, damson, quince and medlar saplings (planted over the last 8 years) are well enough established to prevent any landslides, then all the non-fruit trees will be removed completely. Until then, I think it is best to let the sycamores continue to hold the soil in place. 15 Jan 2005 Spent this morning sorting out the fallen willow tree at the back of Dyke Orchard. All the firewood-sized branches were thrown back onto my property, all the lesser lop and top was stacked ready for a bonfire when they dry out a bit and all of the main trunk, still at a funny angle, was left well alone for someone else to deal with. The bits of Hazel rod rescued from the poor hazel tree now lying crushed underneath the Willow were used to strengthen the deadwood fence of the wood yard. After lunch I sorted, split and stacked the ton of very green oak which Geoff (who cuts the grass in the summer) had tipped inside the pole barn a couple of days ago. I must remember to ask whose tree it used to be, before the Big Wind flattened it. 12 Jan 2005 Clearing up after the storm continues, but then Whitby had another problem to cope with. The intense low pressure system associated with the storm (946 millibars when it was off western Scotland a few days ago) moved off towards Scandinavia. The resulting tidal surge moving down the North Sea reached Whitby just as the spring high tide was due, raising the already very high tide another metre and flooding parts of Whitby. There was a flood warning, but it was issued 30 minutes after the shops, pubs and restaurants around Dock End were ankle-deep. The new owner of Trenchers restaurant (who paid £3 million for it just before Christmas) started his 'open all year' policy just in time to find himself sweeping the salt water out the front door. Just as well that these floods were only due to a normal spring tide and a North Sea surge and that there was no onshore gale nor heavy rainfall on the moors as well. One shopkeeper asked the firefighters why they weren't pumping the ankle-deep flood waters out of his premises and got the response: 'Where to? This is sea level!' 10 Jan 2005 A full walk around the wood revealed lots of broken branches (mostly the ones already dead from Grey Squirrel damage) as well as a fallen Cherry (very poorly) and a mature Sycamore on the top boundary with a limb snapped off. My milkman had a very narrow escape on Saturday when a huge oak tree fell across the road to Ruswarp just as he drove past, but luckily only the small, topmost branches hit the rear of his milk float! Part of Sleights (not me) had no electricity from Sat dawn to Sunday teatime, 6 mature Lime trees have been lost on the Esk Hall avenue, an dangerously leaning electricity pole at the bottom of Blue Bank has had to be replaced and lots of houses have lost lots of slates. A mile away at Aislaby one old house had part of its slate roof sucked upwards and the loft hatch lifted and then crashed upwards against the rafters before falling back down again woke everyone in the house. Nearby a traditional pantiled cottage has the roof 'rippled' and now stands with alternate vertical stripes of sound and dislodged tiles. At Grosmont (4 miles up the dale from Groves Bank) an amateur met station recorded a gust of 125 mph. According to the Beaufort Wind Scale details sent by SA (many thanks) this is 50mph more than Hurricane Force 12. Aye, it's been a bit fresh! Any coincidence that I could fly from my nearest airport at Middlesbrough to Stansted for just £9 and from there to almost anywhere in Europe for just £18? Or that gas guzzling 4x4 'Chelsea Tractors' continue to choke our city suburbs, for no apparent reason, other than fashion? Or that there is still no VAT on aviation fuel and still no USA acceptance of the Kyoto Agreement? And we all wonder why the climate is changing and why more severe weather is happening more often! Good, innit? 9 Jan 2005 The Daffodil shoots are already appearing in Dyke orchard, where the wind thrown Willow is still snagged at 45º on my neighbour's hedge. The sound of chainsaws in all directions was non-stop while I paused for lunch. Returning to the Willow after lunch, I found that my nice neighbour had already removed much of the fallen tree. That's why the chainsaws sounded so close! Finished the penultimate bramble clump in Bank orchard. 8 Jan 2005 Wow! That was a windy night! A 'gale' is Force 8 on the Beaufort Scale, a 'Severe Gale' is Force 9, a 'Storm' is Force 10 and I'm not quite sure what comes next, but it got pretty damn close last night. It was dry (only ¾ of an inch of rain has fallen so far this month) but the wind was very blustery, buffeting everything from almost every direction for hours on end. The noise woke me about 6am. The radio switched itself on after every power cut. Listening to BBC Radio 4, it seems that their transmitters were off air on several occasions, even when the electricity here was still on. I got up to find my yard gate had snapped its rope and was swinging wildly back and forth, trying to batter itself to bits. A shortened walk around part of the wood, avoiding as many mature trees as possible, just in case they were about to topple over. Then the rescuing of the stainless steel barbecue, which was rolling about on the patio, and the bins in the yard and the bin lids in the orchard. The dog's breakfast was served in an unconventional receptacle, as the proper dog dish was only rediscovered under the hedge some time later. The house is intact (well done and thank-you Mr Garbutt, the local Master Builder!), both the conservatories are intact and the pole barn is still in one piece (well done & thank-you Nephew Chris). A very relaxed morning was spent in my conservatory, watching the birds make the most of the feeding station (5 Robins sharing, with only the minimum of bickering) as the storm blew itself out by lunchtime. A walk up Woodlands Drive, now littered with snapped off twigs and occasional branches up to 6 inches diameter, gave a view across the dale to Esk Hall, where that magnificent double avenue of mature Lime trees, a local landmark for miles, now has several gaps. Another walk around my own patch revealed that at the back of Dyke orchard a big Willow tree, about 18 inches butt diameter, has fallen across the right-of-way and is now snagged on my neighbour's post and rail fence. By dusk, I had cleared a way for Mick the retired farmer to get under the fallen tree to reach his small rare breed flock of Teeswater Sheep. If I leave it overnight, chances are that the tree will settle down to ground level and then I can really get on top of it. Literally.
Elsewhere in Sleights there are reports of slates ripped off roofs, in Goathland windows broken and more slates ripped off, and the roads to Beckhole are blocked by fallen trees. Further afield high sided vehicles are banned from the A66 and the M62, North Wales and Cumbria have dozens of flood warnings. The entire city of Carlisle is cut off by road and police are appealing for small boat owners to come and help rescue people trapped in their flooded homes. In Dumfries and Galloway the Larne - Cairnryan car ferry has run aground near Cairnryan harbour, with 100 people on board. And what does the national news have to say about all this? 'Blustery winds continue to affect the North.' Ha! They had a damn site more to say about it when it was a bit windy one night near London, way back in 1987! Still, the main UK weather story really has to be the major flooding of Carlisle. It seems they had 9 inches of rain (about the average for 2 months) in just 36 hours. Any storm damage here is relatively minor compared to that! 7 Jan 2005 Very windy last night, still gale force today and tonight an 'Emergency Severe Weather Warning' (almost unheard of) from the Met Office for all of Southern Scotland and Northern England, warning of even more severe gales. It seems that the A66 was closed this afternoon - the emergency services were unable to recover an overturned wagon because every time they tried to cone-off the affected lane, the storm just blew all the traffic cones away! Oh dear. Mustn't laugh... New supplies of proper peanut flour fat cake delivered today and the Long Tailed Tits were delighted with 'the real thing' within 10 minutes of hanging it up. Luckily, the male Sparrowhawk visited the feeding station just a few minutes too soon. 5 Jan 2005 Another suitable afternoon to work on Bank Orchard and the strimming is now complete. That is not to say that all the brambles have gone, however, as one clump is just too thick and strong for my brush cutter! Back to good old fashioned secateurs, mini-loppers and rake, I'm afraid - which will delay completion a bit longer. Still, it's an awful lot quieter. 4 Jan 2005 The strong Westerly winds and occasional showers ended by lunchtime and the afternoon was spent strimming another third of Bank Orchard. The steep slope was still a bit wet and slippery and the low sun reflected off the inside of my visor, making it almost impossible to see what I was strimming. Eventually the ever increasing layer of mud flung onto the outside of the visor made it completely impossible to see what I was strimming. Still and all, George (the autopilot) seems to have done a good job and all the easy bits are now done. That just leaves the really difficult, thickly brambled third for another day... I seem to have run out of the fat cake made with peanut flour, which the Long Tailed Tits appreciate so much. They were not at all impressed with the block of lard which I put in their usual feeder as a substitute and quickly abandoned it for the whole peanuts in another feeder instead! Must get onto CJ Wildbird Food to order some more. Quickly! 1 Jan 2005 An overnight frost. By 10 am the sky was cloudless with a light breeze from the North West. A 15 minute count from my conservatory overlooking the feeding station produced: Blue Tit 5, Chaffinch 4, Coal Tit 2, Robin 2, Blackbird 1, Dunnock 1, Great 1, Kestrel 1, Long Tailed Tit 1, Marsh Tit 1, Nuthatch 1, Wood Pigeon 1. A Bank Vole also appeared. Rain is forecast for later today, so I continued work in Bank Orchard, planning to get a couple of hours' work done before the rain arrived. I had planned to use the strimmer again, but it was such a lovely, peaceful morning that I took pity on all those with hangovers and decided not to. Instead I coppiced the self-sown Ash and Sycamores (which shouldn't be in the orchard anyway) using my nice new ratchet-ing mega loppers - which are absolutely wonderful and slice through stems up to 2½ inches thick with very little effort. I wish I had bought these years ago! The rods created were trimmed, carried to the drive and woven into the deadwood fence alongside the drive. Still no sign of rain after lunch, so I continued for another couple of hours until it finally arrived about 3pm. And very welcome it was, too - even Flag was glad of a rest from digging holes! Click here for Current Wildlife Diary & News
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