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.