Last Saturday a group of ten volunteers completed the planting of oaks and hammering of stakes in the A Espenuca plot that is being restored. This afternoon, five of these volunteers started to put protectors around them so that roe deer do not graze at them. The gnawed tips of the stalks that are sprouting from some stumps of oaks and chestnut trees show that they frequent this plot.
Our mascot Dona, helped by her mate Gala, makes sure they are turfed out of the area. In fact, last Saturday the volunteers could see how a roe deer, while fleeing, passed close by them. It was hiding in the bordering oak wood, but the two dogs smelled it and sent it out in the direction of the eucalyptus woods on the eastern side. During the chase Dona injured one hind leg, but the following day she was already fit again.
A new volunteering day has been set for next Sunday the 30th in order to install protectors and complete the second phase of restoration. Visitors can now consult the informative board, follow the signposted itinerary that runs through the plot, and cross the small oak wood that survives there, while identifying the diverse trees that form it. Or else enjoy the landscape taking a rest besides a rock, now free from the eucalyptus foliage. But above all, imagine the size of the planted oaks in fifty years and the quantity of life that will be sheltered by the native forest when it covers the whole plot; then the complete ecological restoration will be achieved.
The third phase will start next month: the plot maintenance. Among the scheduled work are to reinforce the plantation sowing acorns, chestnuts and hazelnuts picked up in the area, and to go over the eucalyptus stumps to get them definitively dry.
If you want to be one of the protagonists of this beautiful project, register for this Sunday volunteering day by sending your data (complete name, ID, birth date and mobile phone number). In section Contact you will find the necessary information.
Meeting point: Betanzos outpatient centre.
Date: August 30th, 2015.
Time: We will leaving at 9.30 a.m. and coming back at 2 p.m.
