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: