Watch them grow and cut them down.

I've spent most of the month planting new trees and replacing ones that have not grown.
It's a constant process on the Estate to replace trees that have become dangerous or that have died. I'm hoping we can avoid the
Ash dieback that seems to have spread up and down the country, it's devastating for any estate. On the upside, many of the trees I fell come in very handy for the log burning stove in the mill, with cold snap we've just had the log pile can go down very quickly.

The Estate joined the grey squirrel control programme last year, it basically means the control of grey squirrel numbers on Hutton Mill. The grey squirrel carries
squirrel pox a disease which is devastating to our native red squirrel so control of the grey squirrel is essential. It’s an uphill battle with the increasing spread slowly northwards the greys are a real threat to the extinction of our native reds, indeed it's been a number of years since I've even seen the beautiful red squirrel on our Estate, let's hope the programme works and we see the red squirrel thrive and return in large numbers.