New experiences

Five ways to be immediately happier have been helpfully identified for us by one of those government advisors on ‘happiness’.

Speaking at the 2015 Hay Festival, Prof Paul Dolan from the LSE supplied this handy checklist of Things To Do:

• Listen to a favourite piece of music
• Spend 5 more minutes with someone you like
• Go outdoors
• Help someone else
• Have a new experience

For many of us taking part in Green Gym this morning, the exercise ticked 4 out of those 5 boxes – or all five, if you count the sounds of nature as favourite music.

For some of our volunteers, this was a new part of a favourite site.  For others, there were new tasks.  For some, the whole thing was a new experience: not quite as ‘different’ as A Royal Night Out, but definitely out of the normal range of experience in our urbanised times.  

First task was to attend to the needs of livestock on site:

If these sheep are looking sad, it is because they are in the waiting room, so to speak, for the vet.  Their feet are hurting, plus they have been separated from the rest of the flock (by people they do not know, namely Green-Gymmers), and are in a strange place.

Having moved poorly sheep, Green-Gymmers could then attend to the main task, for which we had been engaged this morning: to erect more chestnut pailing, as deer & rabbit exclosures around a coppice.  This was part of a much larger project, to make for more diverse woodland.

The first phase of the project had involved cutting down old trees.  This may seem counter-intuitive, and in the short term gives results which do not look pretty.  This was where we were to work today:

Another group had done the coppicing over the winter; and, more recently, another group had drilled pilot holes for the fence posts, which had been put in very loosely. 

If the situation looked unpromising, we had only to glance at the compartment next to it, to assure ourselves that the technique really does work, and is worthwhile:

Here’s one we did earlier (a couple of winters back)

Preliminaries this morning were to knock in the fence-posts properly with a drivel; and roll out the pailing, and wire the sections together:

Only occasionally did Green-Gymmers apply themselves with such enthusiasm that it led to a mistake (sorry: learning-experience).  Here the pailing had been neatly laid out – the wrong side of a small tree:

On other occasions, it was in the nature of this morning’s task, that individual Green-Gymmers could find themselves doing quite a lot of waiting and watching.  This could be waiting for colleagues to finish what they were doing at the other end of the line:

Or it could be watching while fellow-volunteers were given a tutorial.  Here, ‘How to Use a Monkey-Strainer’ (something we do only every couple of years or so, and then forget):

Once mastered, the strainer kept wire under tension, while one volunteer held the far end with fencing-pliers, and another hammered in staples to secure the wire in place against the post:

Note safety precautions: gloves in use, except for the hand wielding the hammer

Tensioned wire in place, it was time to raise the pailing, and attach it:

This was where the Green-Gym experience included interacting with the Great British weather.  As we were preparing for the session, it had seemed unseasonably windy, prompting one volunteer to remark, not entirely seriously:

I think we’ve cut summer, and gone straight to autumn.  It must be another of those government cuts!

As the pailing was raised to the vertical, it could not be simply leaned against the fence-posts.  Volunteers had to hold it upright, or it would be blown over by the next gust of wind.

Finally, chicken-wire was added to the fence, to secure the area against rabbits:

Where we could, we used plastic ties to hold it in place against the pailing:

There was not quite enough time to complete the chicken-wiring, but you could certainly see where we had been today:

Before: session-leader contemplates the job ahead

By tea-break (session-leader has decided, “This is great fun!”)

By session end: (session-leader still saying, “This is Green Gym at its best”)

Meanwhile, the vet had arrived.  Some volunteers got the chance to assist, as he treated his patients for footrot (an infectious disease, common enough in sheep, though rare at this site) by the usual means of foot-trimming and injection of antibiotics.  This morning, that meant cleaning out and spraying infected hooves, and giving the first of two shots of antibiotics:

Although the wind continued to be a bit naughty, the rain thankfully held off – until we were back in our cars, on our way home after what was, I hope, a thoroughly enjoyable experience for all volunteers.  The treated sheep, apparently, can be expected to be feeling better by next week.