Clearing a blocked path

Back to Fromebridge today for the regular Friday Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust session, but this time I didn’t spend any time on the reserve. An area further along the canal had some trees felled which were blocking access to the path. In additional, there was another tree in the middle which needs to be removed anyway for the new tow path.

The biggest challenge was to remove the arisings. There is no natural place in this part to build a dead hedge. It’s on a flood area, so you don’t want to encourage small mammals to seek shelter and then get drowned.

We had previously had a fire area about 200m away from the trees, so we dragged the tree branches there, which was a bit of a challenge.

We don’t normally have fires, for lots of reasons, but one is that we don’t want dense nutrient amassing in a single spot. However, this area is where the ponds will be dug next year, so doesn’t really matter.

Most of my effort went into dragging the material along the bank to the fire area. It was a hefty work out. The branches look light, but were tall and heavy when dragging two. I switched to a wheelbarrow to move more of the smaller stuff, but that was challenging also to wheel over without it toppling.

In the end though, we completed the task and the whole area is much more accessible to the public. Still needs a chainsaw and final brushcut to finish off, but that can be done another time.