However before I write about that I must mention some excitement I had on Monday whilst working at the Northamptonshire Records Office. Once a month I have been going to 'Finds Marking' where everything that comes out of the ground at Chester Farm, whether it is bone or pottery has a reference minutely written onto it so if it falls out of its bag we will know where it belongs. Also working at this time are the Records Office volunteers and one lady was working on these -
What beautiful handwriting |
This is a Manorial Roll written in Latin covering an area in the County and dated 1610 during the reign of King James 1. It is written on vellum and I asked if I could touch it, which I did. So old and yet it could be read, if you understood Latin!! So exciting.
Anyway, back to pruning
after a short talk we were let loose on the secateurs, loppers and little saws, plus an assortment of long saws and loppers. If you follow this link you will see a chart of the trees and I decided to have a go at No 6, the Nouveau Poiteau.
Apparently the original rootstock sprouting |
Removed |
Hardly any tree left!! |
Tree 8 |
Trees 2, 3, and 4 |
Adam removing the top of No 4 |
.. and here it goes |
The ladies watching him!!! |
Tree 10 almost pruned |
After lunch we wandered down the fields to see the Snowdrops in front of the house
A wonderful display |
We saw progress being made on the Archaeological Resource Centre and some of the buildings in the background are being re-roofed.
I discovered that the bark stripping that I saw last week was probably done by rabbits
but it doesn't matter as this branch was sawn off.
My partner in this pruning exercise found a small skull
probably a rabbit |
One illusion was shattered though; if an old tree is covered in lichen it is not good for it and will probably kill it. I thought that this was good! So lesson learnt is always try to remove the lichen covered branches so the tree will survive.
A great day out with lovely Spring sunshine and lessons learnt.
I have been gearing up ready to prune the Bramley Apple tree in my garden ..... or getting DH to do it for me !!
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