Ending quietly

Should you happen to take in the latest WW2 movie, and find yourself wondering why
the landscape Brad Pitt & Co are “heroically” fighting their way across, looks more like English chalk-hill countryside than anything in Central Europe, that’s because it is.  

Brad Pitt & his tank crew were actually trundling across South Oxfordshire.  Indeed Green-Gymmers may instantly recognize the backdrop in the trailer, because action scenes for ‘Fury’ were filmed on land adjacent to the site where we were working today.  (Turn left at the top of the slope, and they’d come to Cowleaze Wood and Aston Rowant National Nature Rerserve, guaranteed free of death-dealing Wehrmacht.)

We, by contrast, do not generally disturb the normal peace & quiet of the Chilterns.  War may never end quietly, but Green Gym does:

Today was no exception.  Trees were being coppiced – all part of woodland management – but only with handtools.  The particular soundscape generated by a banter of Green-Gymmers is all just part of the normal countryside mix: the rasp of sawblades, the squeal of loppers, clink of billhook, crackle of bonfire, chatter among the workforce.

The task was, quite simply, to bring together: unwanted scrub; and bonfire. 

This meant that we were, for the most part, handling decidedly spikey plants (thick gloves a ‘must’).  For the species which were designated for eradication from the particular part of the site – so that other species could get a look in – were hawthorn and bramble. 

Some hazel was also to be cut back, but they were only being coppiced for the sake of being encouraged to grow back more vigorous and healthy.  And the couple of crab apple trees (Malus sylvestris) were spared, partly because they are more unusual, and partly because of their value to wildlife: 

• the long and early flowering period makes for a good source of nectar and pollen for insects, incl bees
• the leaves are a food-source for the caterpillars of several kinds of moth
• the fruit is eaten by birds and mammals, incl mice, voles, and badgers
• the whole tree is one of the few which host a plant whose cultural significance comes into its own in December (clue: a fan listens to ‘Under the Mistletoe’ at Christmas time; a Belieber listens to it year round)

By session end, as always, you could see where we had been.  Had we completed the task?  No!  There will still be plenty to do next time we are there.  By which time, as one Green-Gymmer, observed, there may be snow on the ground.