January means beanpoles and peasticks

I’ve been a little distracted of late and you will have noticed I’ve not been posting as much. Sadly my mother died suddenly just before Christmas and I’ve not had much time for posting on the blog as a result. Normal service will be resumed eventually and I will shortly post something appropriate, as if you ever received one of her hand crafted cards, you will know she was quite a talented caligrapher. Meanwhilst the seasons don’t wait and if I don’t get the birch cut soon it will be too late, particularly with the warm weather we’ve had.

On sunday we had a good sized group of Volunteers working on the commons and managed to clear through a patch of birch which yielded plenty of peasticks and few good beanpoles. I even managed to persuade our more enthusiastic burners not to burn them all.

We joined up with some of the Allotmenteers from the nearby Shottermill Ponds allotments so plenty of beanpoles and pea-sticks were taken away but there were still some left for me as well.

I particularly like this way of working on the heathland as it is a living landscape and this is the way it was created and has been managed as commonland for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Completely sustainable, it provides exercise and a sense of connection and continuity with the environment – and it might just have avoided the import of the odd bundle of bamboo or even worse, plastic poles. Not saved a shipload, or even a container load yet – but every little counts as they say!

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