by Colin, 9th May 2010, 11 Volunteers
In the previous newsletter Pete announced that we had donated £250 to the National Trust at Upper Wharfedale to purchase materials for the construction of tree guards. £100 of that was from former WYNTV member, Lalit, who was chosen at random by the company he now works for to nominate a local charity/club/community event to receive £100 – and he chose us. The balance of £150 came from WYNTV funds, i.e. your subscriptions.
On 9th May, 11 of us assembled at Kettlewell, with warden Peter, to construct and install these substantial cattle-proof tree guards in meadows alongside the River Wharfe between Kettlewell and Starbotton. Construction and installation occurs simultaneously; they are not built and dropped into place. The four corner posts are driven into the ground (which you hope is relatively rock-free at your chosen point), the boards are drilled and nailed on to follow the lie of the land (these are not level meadows), stock-fencing is stapled to the bottom section, and finally three equally spaced single strands of wire are stapled to the top section.
A very tidy, hand-wound spiral.
Photo: Stuart
All wire ends are carefully bent around the corners of the post you start and finish at, and wound back on themselves in a neat spiral. Thus there are 22 of these digit-straining spirals to make on each tree guard. You can of course buy a short and cunningly designed tool which grips the end of the wire and provides the necessary leverage to perform this task neatly and effortlessly in the restricted space available between the horizontal strands. Sadly, we didn’t have one and had to do it the hard way. Which is, of course, much more satisfying! Time-consuming though, which means that the wiring tends to be the lengthiest part of the whole process.
One of our completed tree guards
(awaiting tree). Photo: Stuart
Which is, however, well worthwhile, as the resulting tree-guard should protect the sapling it encloses from the beefiest bull and give it a secure start to its 300 year life. And, surrounded by such glorious scenery and in such fine weather, who could possibly complain about a few sprained fingers?
However, a genuine Strainrite wire twister (made in New Zealand!) can be ordered by phone from Drivall in Birmingham for £4.24 (inc.VAT and 1st class postage), so I ordered two of them for WYNTV use on future fencing tasks. And downloaded instructions on how to use them (not rocket science) from the Strainrite website. The BTCV online shop sells the identical tool for a not unreasonable £3.51 (inc. VAT) but charges a minimum £11.75 (inc. VAT) for postage/carriage!
