graft

Been up on the moor again.....  i am always minded of one of my all-time favourite films....

Go. Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors.

Sage advice given that we know what happens next.

Well, against the advice, we went up there.....

Today we were tackling drainage channels that had been put in previously across the packhorse trail out of Marsden, going up towards March Haigh, up Willykay Clough.

The drainage channels are made up of a series of stones that are buried in a line, in order to take the water away from the path and out onto the moor, where it can do less damage.  in fact, water held on the moorland is a positive.... keeps the peat stable and the moss damp and provides some amount of fire resistance.

So there we were.... unblocking, re-setting the stones, and generally making sure the flow goes where it is wanted/needed.

Then.... i've heard the term before, but i'm instructed to clear the dead Molinia from the path.... at this point, i imagine you're about as confused as i was.... considering i'd been given a "blue flower, red thorns" task to keep me out of the way of the real work.

So what is it......

Start at the beginning..... Molinia..... it's a moorland grass..... named after a dude from Chile in the 19th century - Juan Ignacio Molinia....  who knew?  Anyways it's that long straggly moorland grass that takes over everything and provides the perfect combustible material as it covers the moorland.  it's a bit of an evolutionary success in that it takes over EVERYTHING.

Not my pic (stolen) but a good example of what Molinia looks like......

The broken strands of Molinia are carried around the moorland and catch in every gully, on every fence, gatepost, leg, bag, sheep.... you name it.

When the strands collect on the footpath, they get waterlogged and form a sort of soggy thatch, which, to all intent and purpose, not dissimilar to shredded wheat, stop the path from drying out and causes the water to not flow properly.... thus the path starts to degrade, or to erode.....

So i scraped the Molinia off the paths and hoyed it over my shoulder and back onto the open moorland..... it was pretty backbreaking scraping and bending and stuff.... but it was nice in the sunshine and all that jazzamatazz.

And here's one i cleared earlier......  a drain across the packhorse trail.... a bag, a mattock, a spade, and a Molinia free path..... my office for the day.

And, just because i can, here's the seven dwarves, off across Eastergate at Marsden at the start of the day.....