Fence-posts ‘R’ Us

South-Oxfordshire rain is very patriotic.  Monday was a bank holiday.  So naturally it rained, so that our weather could demonstrate its commitment to ‘British values’

There were even severe-weather alerts in force for Oxfordshire yesterday.  Today, when most people with 9-5 jobs were back at work – and Wallingford Green Gym was set to be outside working on fencing – the severe-weather alert for the county had been lifted. 

Unfortunately, the forecast for precipitation had only improved from >95 to 50% probability.  It probably did in fact rain only half the time, but it remained a disappointingly grey morning in an otherwise lovely spot by the River Thames:

Nothing deterred, Green-Gymmers confidently announced, when told today’s task consisted of repairing fencing in a meadow which floods in winter:

“We’re big on fence-posts.”

 To be more precise, it was the men on the team proclaiming their prowess with spade, drivel, and tamper.  However, whenever I got the camera out (between outbreaks of rain) to try and capture a shot of Green-Gymmers at work today, it was women doing the heavy work of sinking a new fence-post: 

They insisted I take a photograph of them “doing all the hard work, while the men stand around and watch”:

The camera doesn’t lie, they say; but, of course, it can only capture a moment in time.  I am sure that overall this morning the work-loads were fairly distributed between team members.  For myself, when I had delivered fresh fence-posts to where they were needed (that means carrying them), I spent most of the morning removing old staples from moribund fence-posts (and reflecting how odd it feels to be using a hammer to take staples out). 

Even as simple a task as removing metalwork from a redundant fence-post makes for a good work-out, when you meet a stubborn staple which has to be levered out by brute force & ignorance.  But that’s why we do Green Gym: to get the exercise – as well as doing nice things for the sheep which will eventually be able to go back in that field.

Angel or Lemon?

A distinct chill in the morning air serves notice: the season is turning towards autumn. 

It was therefore no surprise that this week’s Green-Gym session was scheduled to be our first raking-after-wildflower-meadow-cut of 2014.  This usually means site staff preceding with brush-cutter; volunteers toiling behind with traditional wooden rakes and not-so-traditional plastic tarpaulins to drag cuttings away.

What did come as a surprise (first of three this session) was that – at fairly short notice – site manager had reviewed the task schedule and … re-scheduled.  Volunteer numbers depleted by holiday and/or grandparent-duty probably had something to do with it.  So instead, we headed this morning to a different venue, task tba on arrival.

This presented the first of three hazards to be negotiated for would-be Green-Gymmers this morning: to have checked the email Inbox and seen the message about the session being relocated.  Only one volunteer found himself at the wrong car-park, wondered where everyone else was, and rang the group’s mobile number for fresh instructions.

The second hazard, for those who had not been before, was to find the way there.  An anguished text arrived on the group’s mobile from another Green-Gymmer saying, “Got lost in all the Stokes [North Stoke, South Stoke, Little Stoke]: having coffee in Wallingford!”

Surprise #2 – for those who did successfully make it there – was that the task was the same: raking.  The differences from what we might originally have been expecting: smaller area with larger number of rabbit-holes; plastic rakes; wheelbarrows instead of tarpaulins.  Also some cutting to do ourselves in a section where machinery cannot go:

"Why do trains always rush by at this point except when I'm on one?"

Essential PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) this morning: gloves.  On account of Wild Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa): hazard #3.  Wild Parsnip + sunshine + bare skin can lead to severe blistering (photophytotoxic dermatitis).  There was certainly a lot of sunshine for chemicals to react with this morning:

However, we were all very careful to have gloves on whenever handling vegetation: good as angels.  The question “Angel or Lemon?” referred to choice of cake at tea-break, not different types of Green-Gymmer.

After the break, as we moved on to different ground, there was the chance to see how some of it has changed since previous visits.  Here, for instance, is a pond, we helped to dig one winter:

Nearby, flowers as yet unidentified, but which are a species other than nettle or thistle.  This in a part of the site, where we have pulled nettles in the past, was Surprise #3:

Capital Work

It is remarkable how many countryside folk I know, are on record as saying they do not like fencing.  Fortunately, Green-Gymmers do.

Mention the word ‘fencing’ in the context of exercise, and naturally most people will probably think of the sport.  About which people also get passionate.

Mention it to Green-Gymmers, and our first question is: What kind of fence?  Accompanied by the thought that whatever kind of fence we are talking about, the job is going to involve digging holes in the ground.  Deep holes if gate- or strainer-posts are needed: 3’ and 2’6” respectively.

This morning, both a new gate post and a new strainer post were required.  It was easy to see why:

No use trying to hang a gate off that!  If anyone was in any doubt about what the problem was there, it was quite clear once the old post had been extracted:

The tasks this morning had Green-Gymmers standing, kneeling …

and even lying down on the job (not, I hasten to add, in exhaustion or despair):

The particular job in that second picture was part of the group’s second task of the day: to

remove redundant rabbit fencing.  Redundant because this particular fence-line is no longer the site perimeter, therefore no legal requirement for rabbit-proof fencing at this point. 

The positive ecological benefit from removing the rabbit-wiring is to be nice to hares and partridges.  A hare will always run uphill to escape from a predator (because its speed up the slope will usually be greater than that of its hunter), and young partridges are flightless for quite a long period after hatching.  Both species could use an extended range of escape routes, so – painstakingly, snip by snip – the old mesh was removed:

This was a new area of the site for us.  The slight drawback at tea-break was that the wind could blow away coffee granules from between spoon and mug when measuring out – and even made it hard to be sure of hot water from the thermos landing in the mug for which it was intended!  However, this being late summer, and the wind south-southwesterly, it was not an unpleasant breeze.  Indeed it was a most pleasant spot to stop and admire the view:

This was some of the landscape rolled out before us.  It gave a real top-of-the-world feeling:

Anoraksia

“Fence Capital of the World” in the late 19th-early 20th century was the small town of Adrian MI.  It was there that a Mr Page came up with the first commercially successful wire fence.  His firm sponsored the legendary Page Fence Giants baseball team, who came up with an enterprising solution for getting round the problem of segregation in hotels and restaurants.

The town, founded in 1826 by a railroad entrepreneur, was originally called ‘Logan’.  A couple of years later, his wife renamed it after the Roman Emperor Hadrian.

During the second half Green-Gymmers engaged in installing new posts insisted this was “not competitive hole-digging.”  Even so, there were some anxious glances as a tape-measure was brought out to check the depth:

That the excavation had been hard work, I did not doubt.  Especially as one of the workers was heard to comment, “It’s not so much soil and chalk, as two inches of soil on top of nothing but chalk and flint.”  If some Green-Gymmers at session end stopped to admire their handiwork, this was entirely understandable:

“It looks like Canary Wharf”

There was some speculation that this Green-Gym monument would be visible from the M40.  (Next time one of us is driving east along there, we must try to remember to glance up!)  I suppose it was the smudge of chalk on hillside which also led to speculation about what archaeologists in the future will make of “the early-21st-century neolithic revival”:

For now it is probably over to another volunteer-group to hang the gate.  Our next trip to this site is not until mid-September, by which time it will probably be scrub-bashing season again.