Our last Friends of Adel Woods event of the year – and despite covid 19, we have managed to carry out ten tasks this year.
The weather did not look promising: at 9.30 am it was bucketing down with rain. But over the phone, Steve Joul, who was sitting in his van in Old Leo’s carpark, said: “You never know, it might clear up and be a lovely morning!”
Despite my scepticism, Steve was right! By 10 am it had stopped raining and five Friends turned up to help him clear saplings from the edge of the orchid meadow or, as Steve calls it, the cricket meadow.
We cannot say it was lovely day – it was grey and overcast and damp all morning – but the rain held off till noon and it was warm enough, we enjoyed each other’s company, and we achieved a lot.
The orchid meadow was once part of Crag Farm, whose farmhouse once stood near Adel Crag. Over the years, the meadow was being invaded by trees, bracken and himalayan balsam until our treasurer discovered a few years ago that it was populated with lovely common spotted orchids. Since then we have done a lot of work to ensure that the orchids are not out-competed by the invading plants. This work has paid off – see our entry for the 24th June 2020 – which, by the way, is an antidote to the overcast scenes in this post.
Our work today was continuing our previous work and was aimed at pushing the northern boundary of the meadow back by cutting down the small trees on the edge of the meadow and clearing them away.
The morning was enhanced by the presence of Judith’s dog, Flash, who had a fine time training us all up to give him a full morning’s entertainment of chasing his ball. Hopefully he had a relaxing afternoon snoozing and dreaming of the orchid meadow.
We all had a really enjoyable morning and achieved a huge amount in the time available.
If you have been, thank you for reading this. In January, we hope to be out in the woods again, surveying and cleaning the nest boxes.
The Friends of Adel Woods wish you a Happy Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2021.
Friends of Adel Woods 