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.