We joined St Nicks for their monthly Eco-Active Day. We were split into two groups: 1) One group was tasked with digging up Hawthorne Trees so they can be planted (still alive hopefully) in another section of the reserve. Most of GG were in this group. 2) The other group were tasked with digging holes in preparation for our trees. Louise joined this group.

All of this was because the land is being sold off to make a new electrical storage battery thingymajig so we needed to salvage as much wildlife as possible.

We got straight into the task, spades and mattock in hand. What looked like a relatively easy task quickly showed itself to be quite difficult as we underestimated the sheer amount of roots we needed to dig up. We also realised how difficult it is to try and not to kill the trees we were digging up! This was especially apparent with Paul Kelly who started on a tree thinking he could finish it quickly by himself...it required most of the group and was the last tree to come out!

As the task continued it became apparent that something was missing but I couldn't quite work out what it was:

"I think we need a trowel" Egg "We could do with a trowel" Ben "We need a trowel" Somebody else

Almost three hours later we got the trees dug out and had to rush to the other group to get them replanted. When we arrived, the other group they were busy digging and coppicing. I don't know much about what happened in that group during the session, but Maria was in charge so I can imagine it all went smoothly!! We managed to get most of the trees planted, but the rest will have to be put in another day.