The willow is always a job to tackle early in the year so out comes the petrol hedge cutters, shears and lots of raking by the team. Neil and Nick cracked on with this in early Spring with Neil pulling on his waders to cut the willow pond side, while Nick worked his way around the rest of the pond.
In April they decided to also tackle a dying willow tree that was located on a small island in the middle of the pond. As it was not safe to walk out to the island Neil and Nick put the word out to the village that they needed a boat and luckily Ray and Viv Jepp came to the rescue. The guys picked up the boat on Nicks’s trailer, dropped it into the pond and our 2 men in a boat story commenced.
A simple rope system was rigged up with Gigi Verlander on land pulling the boat in from the island with branches that had been chainsawed from the tree and it went to and fro throughout the morning as Neil and Nick spend hours slowly taking down the dead tree.
This was the last job that Neil and Nick completed together before Neil became ill, but it was a job they really enjoyed.
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