Sylvan surprises

If you go down to the woods today,you’re sure of a big surprise.
Because today’s the day
the Teddy Bears have their picnic

We went down to the woods today, but we couldn't find the Teddy Bears.  So the Green-Gymmers had their own picnic.  Plenty of excellent provisions as last-minute cancellations meant there were only eight of us to eat cake for twelve ...

after a lot of hard work of course. 

Some of us may have thought it was going to be the same task as last time we went to Earth Trust: cutting back the 'rides' to give better access for the landrover.  Yes, but not quite.

We were told we were going to be working in Paradise (Wood) rather than Little Wittenham Wood, but the first stop was well short of the front gate:

There we were to clear one or two 'stray' trees, and take the reduced vegetation to make a fresh brash pile.  Once in the woods, it became serious: many more thorns and roses determined to fight back.

Some big branches had to be cut down by the site warden:

They were then cut up by us volunteers, and dragged into big piles inside the woods:

Unlike at Little Wittenham, growth had to cut down to ground level:

We were glad to accept the site warden’s offer to come back with a chainsaw to finish this particular stump.  Meantime it served as a tool-tidy and coat-stand:

The day had started very dull and threatening, but after coffee the sun came out and showed us some brilliant colours in the woods.  Such as the Spindle trees with red flowers and yellow seeds:

Also on the plus side, there were no hills to climb, and only short, dry walks from the muddy car-park.  Sill plenty more work for us at our next visit.

An extreme obstacle course

The obstacle course was a stretch of Ewelme Watercress beds.  Task: clearing the channels, so the stream can flow unimpeded by overgrown watercress.

The first job was to clear a pathway to gate to be able to get on to the site:

We started at the road bridge, chopping back the watercress, with sickles, slashers, and shears:

Then the bund (the concrete wall in the middle of the beds) needed clearing before we could collect our cuttings on it:

With 14 of us we could spread out, and soon needed to heave the cut cress to the compost piles, with one Green Gymmer carrying enormous heavy loads:

The midges bugged us today, when usually they are attracted by one of our members who was sadly missing today - away in France.  She attracts them, and distracts them away from us.  Someone asked about tics, and you can be reassured they typically inhabit “deciduous and coniferous woodland, heathland, moorland, rough pasture, forests and urban parks” and not watercress beds.

Several of us came close to fetching up in the stream.  Where the normally clear water was churned up, and the bed of the stream was decidedly uneven, the route from cutting-zone to compost-site made for an interesting challenge.  As one volunteer remarked, “It’s an extreme obstacle course really.”

Tools were stored safely and innovatively, and so, no, we didn’t lose any:

We did, however, lose the bolt that held these shears together:

This was not our straightest and neatest job:

But by the end it all looked clear and tranquil in the autumn sunshine:

Falling for Fall

Never the same from one week to the next, is Green Gym.

Last week we were about as high above sea level as we get at Wallingford Green Gym – on an exposed face of the Chilterns scarp, in the rain and the wind and the hail:

This week found us in the homely surroundings of Thames-side, on a calm, still day with the odd drop of sunshine:

Indeed some of us – those engaged in clearing up after fen-clearance – were at as low an elevation as is possible at a WGG session:

That is a landing stage in the background; passing river-traffic is a Dutch barge

 

A fen when it has been cut does not look its best:

Unless it is cut, however, this would become an exclusive habitat for willow.  So there were logs and brash to be carried by wheelbarrow or by hand:

Logs were sorted into two categories:

• firewood, to be stored against a wintry day
• rotten wood (home to beetles, etc), which was to be taken to temporary quarters against the day that a felled weeping-willow is turned into a work of art, surrounded by dedicated beetle-habitat

As one volunteer, eager to get stuck into the task, remarked,

It’s a computer job: we’re logging on.

If there was some restiveness among volunteers at the start of the session, it was because there had been a delay in getting us all on to the site.  This was the route to the temporary car park when we arrived, entirely blocked off by contractors, who were getting on with their own job:

Once our own work began, progress would have been faster if the route for us wood-removal people had not been constricted by a narrow bridge:

Any wheelbarrow used had to be unloaded the far side, and the wood transported across by hand, then re-loaded into a second barrow.

The delayed start and an autumnal chill in the air first thing had spurred us into using the time well to do a few more stretching exercises than we had done for a few weeks.  Once the session was underway, there were plenty of interesting things to be seen and new facts about the wildlife on site to be told.  One of the ‘apartments’ in the new sand-martin bank has been taken already – by a kingfisher.  A hummingbird hawk moth was spotted on site this summer.  And these, among the logs:

This is the stag-beetle sculpture to be:

In the background are the other Wallingford-Green-Gymmers this morning, preparing ground for Cornfield Annuals.  We could certainly see where they had been:

Rather harder to spot is one of the little flowers they had uncovered:

“It’s a corn-cockle, bless it”

Against the backdrop
of autumn woods, whatever task one was engaged in, it was all quite restorative; and some of us were able to wear our jackets loose.