Back in Black

Not blown down by 'Barny' but felled by fungal disease

Clarkes close and a new tractor!

Its been a while, almost 3 months, but joined Mike and James at Sherborne today in my standard , mainly black volunteer outfit. A mixture of a shoulder injury, more building work at home and Ollie has kept me from any volunteer work over the Autumn. It was a gentle introduction back to countryside work as I joined James in a quick tour of the Pleasure Grounds, the Commons ending up in Clarks Close to complete a survey of the Sherborne estate trees to check for damage after 'Abigail' and 'Barney'. Good news was no obvious tree damage so all attention was on the huge beech that had fallen last year in Clarks Close because of fungal damage.

As we reached the site of the fallen Beech, Mike had already reached there in a new 'Demo' tractor, and was continuing the work he and James had started on the fallen Beech earlier in the week. It didn't take long with the use of this high powered tractor to fully load the tractor trailer with plenty more still to load. What with a quick tour around the new tractor, with all its fancy electronics, and the tree survey work the morning disappeared and its was time to head back home. It was good to restart the work at Sherborne again.

Not wishing to end on a downer but the future again doesn't look too bright for the environment with DEFRA likely to be hit with huge cuts { they may not be brilliant but with ~35% budget cut plus the weak leadership from Truss it will be hard for the NGO's to keep the environment from a collapse akin to the huge Beech!}