Beetlemania

By the session leaders:

“Nice sunny day!” called out one volunteer as we arrived – wholly ironically, for there was a distinct nip in the air:

Another recalled that dawn had been so spectacular that for a moment she had wondered if it was the Aurora Borealis come unusually far south.

In this case, however, ‘red at morning’ proved to be good news.  For it rained just enough early on in in the day that the main task scheduled for us – painting outdoor furniture – was off.  From PoV of volunteers this was good, because Green-Gymmers prefer sessions which are “a bit more physical.”

There was certainly plenty of ‘physical’ on offer, and the range of tasks was definitely unusual, even for this site.  First there was outdoor-furniture moving, as soon as site staff had turned up with the key to a gate:

Take it from us: pulling a trolley loaded with a table, across uneven, claggy ground is quite physical.  The furniture then had to be tested, according to the strict health & safety regulations which apply to all poolside patio furnishings:

Then there was the digging.  Lots of digging.  One group was digging around the sides of a compost heap, which was threatening to overwhelm the fencing around it.  To mark International Women’s Day, we shall give you photos which – when it comes to the ‘physical’ – feature the women in the team:

Male and female alike, members of the group still had time and breath left to engage in another important Green-Gym activity: chatting. 

First topic today (for reasons not entirely clear to us, except that one of our number is a devoted Devonian): when consuming scones, is it jam before cream, or cream first, then a layer of jam?  Answer: “There’s no right way, except my way: cream – jam – cream again.”

Spurred on by dreams of summer and clotted-cream teas, the group shifted large quantities of compost away from the fence, to prevent the posts from rotting ...

and attached (precision work, this) a barrier to protect from further damage:

Deep in the woods, a third group was definitely acting in a suspicious manner:

A closer look suggested that “constructing a beetle-habitat” might be just another term for ‘digging’.  Specifically, digging a hole in the ground:

The specification for this particular roundish hole was that it should be 60 cm deep.  

By tea-break, it was 40 cm deep.

By then, normal Green-Gym weather-service had resumed.  The sun was not quite out, but the day had fined up nicely.

Re-invigorated by traditional Green-Gym tea/coffee and cake (or fruit, for the one keeping Lent), the workforce soon took the excavation down to the required depth.  Then the task became more artistic, for into the hole were placed pieces of rotten wood, which will apparently make for the perfect residence for stag-beetle larvae:

As the larvae may spend up to 7 years there, it is important that their dream home in the country is constructed to the highest standard.  Here volunteers are not so much fixing a hole as adding the finishing touches to meet the exacting requirements of the most discerning of customers:

Meanwhile, the compost-heap repair and maintenance being completed ...

after the break some of that workforce was re-assigned to repair and maintenance of the French drain we had built in a previous season.  The drain (a trench filled with pebbles) was working well enough to direct surface- and groundwater away from the nearby study centre.  The pebbles, however, in settling had sunk below the level of the path; and that had created a trip hazard.  A top-up of material was therefore required:

This job too was finished off to the satisfaction of some highly dedicated workers:

No mole hill was disrupted in the landscaping of this French drain

At session end there was some discussion about what the finished piece of domestic architecture should be called.  Although there was some talk of it resembling the work of Antoni Gaudí, in the end it was decided that the beetles’ new home had to be designated The Cavern: