Chopping up Trees with Gucci & Versace

and while we still can,

Guten Abend alle zusammen.

In the current age this kind of thing normally instigates a response on here.

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Test Valley Riverkeeper
Bransbury
What remains of the River Dever
Hants

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Some cove brimful of internet enlightenment surmised this week that bloggers were a self indulgent bunch whose sole intent is to demonstrate to the rest of the world that theirs is the perfect existence, so with a nod to Kardashians various, the lady from Goop and The Dapper Chapper here we go again with another tranche of guff on how great things are down this way.

But first I'll pause briefly to propose that the media in general are just as guilty of peddling an unachievable ideal existence to your everyday Joe. From newspaper weekend supplements through to TV's Pimp my Ride.

Lay off the bloggers,

we're not all peddling the ideal existence, it's a chronicle of interminable struggle for some.

We had wind last week, nothing to do with an increase in the percentage of pulses in our diet, but a proper blow that sent a substantial ash in the wood crashing to the ground. Call me fickle (and this is where the struggle bit comes in) but I don't like attending to trees when the stinging nettles are still six feet high and full of venom.

But attend to it we did, for two days employing the full force of the chainsaw fleet clad in my new outfit for the season.

There has been much comment made, both online and off, regarding this season's outfit with much moot that it may be a tad effete.

I don't mind the reviews

and yes, the new hat may be a bit Gertrude Schilling so the hat box is ticked for our next trip to Ascot, but the bib & braces safety trouser combo scream seventies disco with the safety aspect of the strides an ability to constrain the seething mass of testosterone that lurks within.

The clues were there at Milan fashion week and while previous years winter woodland wanderings have been influenced by Vidal Sassoon (it's on here somewhere) this winter it is very much into the wood with Gucci and Versace with the terrific tractor's onboard toolbox receiving the required upgrade.

Anyway, beneath all the godets and sequins the outfit kept me safe. I'd stitched my last pair up a few times and I'm not sure how chainsaw proof my needlework is.

Needless to say the ash we were attending to was riddled with dieback. It stood in a small cluster of affected trees which have also now been felled. Advice is now available on the YouGov website on what to do with affected trees. The passage is a little long and quite ambiguous in places. It can take a decade for a tree to die, but once it has this lurgy, die it surely will. It will remain a viable habitat for all manner of flora and fauna during its decline. As a general guide for felling, refrain from felling any trees with no signs of the disease (obvs!) as they may have some immunity. Fell affected trees if they pose a danger to public or infrastructure. As part of your woodland management plan (I know we have one, I've just forgotten where I put it) fell trees if the crown has been reduced by fifty percent or more.

We have a significant number of ash trees affected which will be feeding the wood burners of the parish for much of the next decade. Beyond that who knows? perhaps we may not be allowed wood burners by then. If we are we won't be burning much ash. We are replanting with alternative hardwoods as a ban has been in place on the moving and planting of ash saplings for some time but the log piles and wood sheds will have a different smell and appearance to the current solid fuel burning generation who may well be known one day in wood burning circles as "Generation Ash".

Attention has been drawn to the down beat tone of recent posts (more of My Struggle, there's no perfect lifestyle here) regarding water levels so I'll look up and not down and not mention the fact that nothing has changed, but well done for it raining somewhere, just not around here.

We have had frost, and several misty morns reveal the remarkable work of spiders and their webs spun in the dark that that reach from tree to tree. Barley has been introduced to the flight pond, numbers of duck are building and the wonder of watercress maintains a late season flow keeping a narrow ribbon of river free from silt.

This week I saw a mayfly. Numbers of mayflies hatching in this river in late summer have increased from not at all to the odd one in recent years. It's not uncommon on the upper Avon. Several tines I fished as a guest at Middle Woodford and caught fish on a Green Drake Mayfly in September although the Dever Trout are a little reticent when it comes to sampling goods out of season. If the Buddhists are right and I am destined to return to the Dever as a Mayfly can I please be one that hatches in September as my journey from river bed to willow tree will go completely unhindered by the forces of fin or feather.